IRELAND
Irish Independent
Published 06/06/2014
Colette Browne
It is too late to help the 800 children whose bodies were dumped in a septic tank in Co Galway, but there are thousands of children living in poverty and suffering from neglect today who can be saved.
Speaking about the shocking discovery of hundreds of tiny corpses in a mass grave in Tuam, Children’s Minister Charlie Flanagan said it was “a reminder of a darker past in Ireland”.
The notion that back then, in a dim and distant past, Ireland didn’t cherish all of its children equally is both distressing and reassuring.
We grieve for the long-dead children of unmarried mothers, who were condemned to a life of torment for the crime of being born, but salve our consciences with the knowledge that today things are better.
We tell ourselves that the callousness and cruelty of the past are interred with the remains of those children in their tomb.
But for many, the suffocating gloom of that dark past never lifted. We just choose to ignore it.
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