UNITED STATES/IRELAND
IrishCentral
John Fay @AmericanIreland March 10, 2017
Editor’s Note: It’s now just one week since “significant human remains” were discovered on the land of the Bon Secours Mother and Baby Home where it’s believed that up to 796 infants are buried in a mass grave inside sewerage tanks. As Ireland begins to face the reality of the cruelty and neglect that children and young women suffered throughout the last century while imprisoned in these state and church run institutions we recall an Irish priest living in American who spoke out about the “cruelty, ignorance and neglect of their duties in high places” over 60 years ago.
Monsignor Edward Joseph Flanagan, founder of Boys Town made famous by the Spencer Tracy movie, was a lone voice in condemning Ireland’s industrial schools back in the 1940s and how orphans and those born outside marriage generally were treated. He was viciously castigated by church and government for doing so.
His treatment at the hands of clergy and politicians makes it very clear both powerful arms of the state were determined to stick to secrets and lies and cover-ups when it came to the mistreatment of youths and babies.
When he arrived back in America after a 1946 trip to Ireland he let it be known he was appalled by the abuse of children in institutions he saw. Though he mainly focused on the industrial schools which worked young children to the bone, he widely criticized the entire range of Catholic institutions that dealt so viciously with the most vulnerable of Irish children.
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