The home, which was run by an order of Catholic nuns and closed in 1961, was one of many such institutions that housed tens of thousands of orphans and unmarried pregnant women who were forced to give up their children throughout much of the 20th century.

In 2014, historian Catherine Corless tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who died at the home in Tuam between the 1920s and 1961 — but could only find a burial record for one child.

  • rekabis@lemmy.ca
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    • According to the church, babies are without sin. If they die at birth, they go straight to heaven.
    • Abortion was illegal at the time.
    • Contraception was not widely available at the time, heavily discouraged by the church, and was still very primitive and hit-and-miss.
    • There were far more unwed mothers having babies than couples who couldn’t have children, but wanted them.

    1+1=2.

  • DicJacobus@lemmy.world
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    All these institutions of god trying to tell us our souls will be saved if we follow them. and that the “other” religions are prophligates, infidels, devils and heretics. LMAO

    I’ve yet to find one that isn’t hiding a history of butchery

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    19 hours ago

    DNA analysis found that the ages of the dead ranged from 35 weeks gestation to 3 years.

    Ok, atrocities aside, how the hell can you tell age from DNA? DNA doesn’t change as you age.

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      Your DNA sequence is generally pretty stable, but other characteristics do. Epigenetics is the field. Another example is methylation, which is basically like your cell putting a post-it note that says “don’t use this” on a particular region. By looking at a bunch of different methylation sites an age can be estimated.

      But in this case, it appears that the article is just mixing up “genetic testing was performed” and “the ages were determined” (separate statements from previous articles.)

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        7 hours ago

        Honestly, the area of forensic science is in question for me. You would have a better time determining approximate age from bone development and skull hardness. I think the journalist is rushing to be the first to publish.

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          It’s an old story. The age range determination was like 2014, the big headline for genetic testing was done in like 2018.

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      It actually does, telomeres shorten, this is one of the most important reasons why we, you know, age.

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      You don’t, the „journalist“ just made that up instead of searching for a minute finding details that would have enabled them to write a proper article.

      There’s even an extensive Wikipedia article outlining known facts and atrocities - dumping the bodies is probably the least atrocious thing they’ve done.

      There is even a Tuam Home Survivors website listing the names of the deceased and how they were uncovered by the historian.

      Apparently this week they started a new dig to uncover the bodies as they found some but not nearly all of them.

      It took me just a couple of minutes to uncover the info and write a tiny bit of that down. This is how journalism dies.

      EDIT: This ARTE.tv Documentary outlines that DNA is used as you would expect: to identify the remains of lost relatives.

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      Thank you. I asked myself same. Telomeres I guess you would need to know the length after birth. But we only have one sample (moment of death). Plus the victims bodies are probably not very good preserved. My best guess is, the text is just not accurate and they might used DNA testing for different things (sex, etc).

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      Telomere length is the only thing I can think of, but that’s totally a guess and I don’t know much about it. Telomeres, as I understand it, are padding at the end of DNA and shorten as you age.

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      Wow, thinking religion is bad just because there are more babies than you can really comprehend looking at in this septic tank, and you had to ask yourself ‘wait I’ve read this one before’?

      Bigot.

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        Yeah! How many times has a religion done this?

        And that first one you thought of doesn’t count. Or the next 3 cause those were all recent mass graves. Or those old ones if you thought of those. So just don’t count the first 20 times of this from religions that pop into your head and then tell me how often you really think this happened.

        Heretic.

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        Sure man, whatever you say. I’m happy to be bigoted when it comes to religion. Most religions promote being a bigot anyway, so whatevs.

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      Religion is the last mental illness you can’t call out or treat. When you have Mike Huckabees et al going around ushering in the End Times, we should have the power to medicate these people into a barely functional stupor.

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      the idea of banning religion is painfully tyrannical, like how could you do that without instituting a thought police or a state sanctioned belief system…

      however, in reality, they most toxic part of religion of organised religions, when they are big institutions fighting for political power rather than maintaining their beliefs and communities.

      possible solution: progressive tax on religious institutions based on their size, a small community of 50 to 100? tax free, you have 1000s of congregants? start rising, megachurches with 1000 thousand people? 95% tax…

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              God has caused the bloodiest and most brutal wars ever fought, which were all based on religious hatred. Millions have died simply because ‘God told’ Hindus, Muslims, Jews, and Christians it would be a ‘good idea’ for them to kill each other.

              • George Carlin, Comedian and Social Critic

              The most detestable wickedness, the most horrid cruelties, and the greatest miseries, that have afflicted the human race have had their origin in this thing called revelation, or revealed religion. It has been . . . the most destructive to . . . the peace and happiness of man.

              • Thomas Paine, Political Philosopher (1796)

              The bloodiest wars in history have been religious wars.

              • Richard Nixon, even this Dick thinks so
            • Landless2029@lemmy.world
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              I don’t think religion itself is evil. But corporate religion. Organizations and individuals that claim religion as the reasons for thier own sin for profit. People waving the bible as an excuse to do harm unto others.

              Worship of a higher power or purpose shouldn’t ever be used as a reason or means to commit sins. That’s the major problem. Corruption and hypocrisy is rampant because people gather power under the flag of religion. Power easily corrupts the more it gathers.

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                agree 100%

                but will be pedantic and complain about your usage of “sin”, as it is a Christian concept and not necessarily a bad thing.

                • Landless2029@lemmy.world
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                  18 hours ago

                  Sin/evil deeds then. Many decent religions denounce evil deed and have good morals. Then there are other religions that promote sacrifice of life (your own or others).

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    If your society cannot or will not support an unmarried pregnant woman on her own, your society is a failed one.

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    Religion is such hypocrisy. No wonder people are turning away.

    On one hand, they tell people don’t use birth control, no abortion ; on the other hand, they don’t protect them.

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        Yeah, and the irony is that in the Bible, Lucifer never even asked for an animal or human sacrifice, but god did.

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          If we go after things that weren’t said in the Bible then hell as we imagine should be among the first. Maybe that’s the reason clergy are so beyond repair?

          And while we are at it, the description of hell we used to is Dante’s storytelling of Hieronymus Bosch’s interpretation of an Irish monk’s account of a early medieval Cork knight’s bag trip.

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          The serpent never even told Eve to eat the fruit (the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, why would God create such a tree and why wouldn’t he want humans to have such knowledge? So stupid). All it did was tell her that it was an option.

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          Excellent name.

          Also, under the Christian dogma, Satan has no authority beyond what God allows. Who then is truly responsible for his actions?

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        Yeah, like that’ll help.

        Wait, I think you’re right, I always write my comments in the deadpan sarcasm of a Gilfoyle from Silicon Valley. I assume it carries over TCP/IP and HTML… Guess not.

        Oh, and here: /s, apply to my first sentence.

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          Ever since Trumps 1st term satire and sarcams have been slowly dying. Since then it’s gotten so bad that now matter how outlandish your post/comment is - there is a maga cult member who’ll top whatever you wrote and is completely serious about it.

          Yeah, I’m going to use /s every time.

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        19 hours ago

        If there was an infant death, it would also have been reported to authorizes and given proper respects. The number of deaths is way to high, but SIDS is real and atheists wouldn’t have dumped the bodies in a mass grave in the backyard.

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          This was my original comment: Get informed and stop being an apoligist

          I indeed misinterpreted the intention of the comment I replied to and leave this here so the comment chain still makes sense. However, I still disagree with the word choice especially with putting SIDS forward.

          Sources:

          • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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            You vastly misinterpreted the intention of my comment. I was merely pointing out the other thing the church is guilty of.

            You linked me the Behind the Bastards episode, but I also linked that same souce earlier.

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              Sorry, in the context of the many apologists in this thread still trying to smear the historian and to gloss over the atrocities and you bringing up SIDS I missed you intention.

              I still disagree with youur comment though. I think that is it less likely for an atheist organisation to commit the same atrocities and there being no known incidents of similar coverups. Still, any organization starving and mistreating children will try hide their crimes and their victims bodies regardless of religious affiliation or lack thereof.

              In short: I agree with your intent but I disagree with how you worded it.

              • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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                My only point is that even if an infant dies under the watch of a secular or atheist org, which even with top facilities, statically will happen eventually, the deceased will be treated with dignity. SIDS is the first example I could think of because people still aren’t sure what causes it or what to do about it.

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                  I think I understand where you are coming from. The undignified disposal of corpses is the least of the commited atrocities in in this facility. The infant mortality rate was 5 times the average of the time, the children were malnourished and abused. Take a look at the other sources.

                  In this context mentioning SIDS comes across as an apology. If a non-denominational facility would murder and abuse children at this rate they’ll also hide the corpses. The core issue isn’t dignified burial but abuse and murder.

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    Religion has historically provided a safe haven to the sick and twisted among society, where they’re allowed to act with impunity due to their perceived status.

    That’s not directly due to the religion; but rather due to the societal pedestal being devout seems to put people on; “a holy person could never do that to a child” etc…

    The reality is, other areas that benefit from this sort of status too find themselves riddled with bad actors… Just look through charity organisations and I can guarantee you’ll be combing over a sea of sociopaths buying themselves good credit with public opinion rather than people looking to make a difference because they want to (not to say these people don’t exist; they just don’t end up running the show normally)

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      mental health nurses who work in an asylum/“hospital”/“mental health unit” too according to a friend who works in one as a nurse.

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      All inequality creates abuse.

      Your last paragraph reminded me of Ashton Kutcher… I can’t watch that 70s show anymore. It was my favorite tv show of all time.

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        I can’t watch that 70s show anymore. It was my favorite tv show of all time.

        I used to love The Cosby Show. Unwatchable now even if they would still air it.

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          The both of them are complete gross. Ashton started a charity when he was with Demi on combating child sexual abuse and exploitation, and he wrote a letter defending/supporting Danny in the trial.

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      Look into any situation where there is a massive disparity of power between some people and other people and that’s were you will find the most abuses and I totally agree it’s for the reasons you said of there being far less risk for the abusers due to their “status” and that such places actually attract the worst people in society so it’s a bit of self-fullfilling prophecy that putting too much power and not enough transparency and accountability in a position will invariably end up with it being abused, even if you start with the purest of people and the purest of intentions.

      This is also probably why there was (and only time will tell if that’s still or not the case) so much child sexual abuse in the Catholic church: adult in high standing in the community and implicitly trusted by all vs child (generally from a poor background).

      Thinking about this over the years (mainly for Politics, but it applies to other areas) has led me to conclude that the “good” exercise of power is impossible to get from a static situation (i.e. the idealistic idea that “give power to honest people” solves it) and instead it has to be setup as a dynamic mechanism with frequent rotation of people and multiple unrelated (ideally, competing) people watching over each other other (which is probably where the ide behind the Three Pillars Of Democracy) and whose power balances.

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        Exactly concentrating power in the hands of a few is a recipe for disaster, doesn’t matter if you elect uncle Roger to the post. Power needs to be distributed and the people who have it should be in constant fear of losing it if they don’t work towards gaining the favor of the masses by working towards the betterment of society. This is why I find morons who pick political sides as if it’s a sports team so stupid, neither side should think you belong to them, they should worry about you flipping your mind all the time.

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      The rosy romanticisation of what should be a humanitarian entity is probably worst with Buddhism. The Buddhist majority-Burmese oppressing the Rohyngian Muslims, some Buddhist monks advocating for dominance in South East Asia, and even pre-CCP Tibet where the dalai lama and his ilks were decadent and corrupt, seem unfathomable for many who view Buddhism as the most secular and least dogmatic religion. There was an article I have read lamenting this corruption in Buddhist communities, and I was like “they are still humans, what do you expect?”

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        Fuck off sino shill, CCP is not doing any Tibetans favour’s by invading their country, they are a bunch of corrupt dictators

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          Not making CCP any better here, but truth is truth and doesn’t care about your feelings. Was it China’s business to invade Tibet? No, but pre-CCP Tibet was a corrupt theocratic state similar to Iran and Renaissance-era Vatican.

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            And what’s your source for any of this, I can bring up multiple sources for the atrocities done by the CCP on their own citizens (tiananmen square massacre) and those of neighboring nations, can you back up any of what you claim about Tibet, and even if it were true that does not give China any rights to invade them. Should the other countries invade China for their corrupt leaders then?