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.
- 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.
I’m curious where you got the idea that the church thinks babies are born without sin from when Original Sin is a thing.
What in the fuck
my first thought as well.
do you want icing on your cake?
https://www.livenowfox.com/news/catherine-corless-ireland-mass-grave-babies
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
Buddhist temple, tibetan monks, the dali lama? or are they on that list too?
Yes. Famously owning slaves
care to share more for moi the uninformed?
my country (sadly) was more about transporting slaves
well beat my record.
I love how the headline says as if this happened recently. Clowns.
The article is a pile of crap. However another excavation has started this week, which is what probably what triggered the publish of this crap.
If you are interested here are better sources:
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.
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.)
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.
It’s an old story. The age range determination was like 2014, the big headline for genetic testing was done in like 2018.
It actually does, telomeres shorten, this is one of the most important reasons why we, you know, age.
Telomeres don’t shorten at a fixed rate, though, so determining age from that doesn’t work.
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.
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).
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.
I’d guess they look at the telomeres but I don’t how accurate it can be.
Antitheism needs to rise.
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.
This is satire right? Fuck I can’t tell anymore.
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.
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.
religions don’t deserve to exist.
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.
Inb4 hot takes that are especially relevant in June.
Pray for my soul.
I agreed up until the end. Forcefully medicating people into a “barely functional stupor” is a horrific human rights violation.
It’s not. If you see someone with a clearly broken leg and unconscious, do you wait for the person to wake up?
They can exist - if they pay taxes.
I’d rather they not, though.
Sure but you might be making some assumptions that don’t really apply here.
You mean assumptions about the 800 dead hidden babies in what is a very common finding inthese settings? Those assumptions?
Yes, those assumptions.
Do you think they had a valid and good reason to hide 800 dead babies in a septic tank?
It wasn’t a septic tank.
It was a structure with 20 compartments which was originally designed as some kind of sewage management system but was never used as such.
So your question is really, do I think they had a valid and good reason to bury 800 infants, who had died from various bacterial and viral infections over a long period of time.
The obvious answer to that is yes.
It was a refuge for mothers and children. There’s no indication of any abuse or neglect of the deceased at this time. I’m sure there are many valid criticisms to be made about this time and this place, and certainly there are valid criticisms to be made about religion, but this refuge is not the baby murder facility you’re looking for.
There’s a snopes article with a lot more information which challenges the assumptions you’re making:
https://www.snopes.com/news/2025/06/18/796-children-septic-tank-ireland/
Your god hates you, which is why she made you stupid.
Why did they hide them, then?
Except that Snopes article does not even agree with you.
It’s time you stopped excusing and glossing over the atrocities committed.
Sources on how fucked up Irish mother and baby homes were:
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…
banning religion? I didn’t say ban it.
i assumed you wanted them gone.
I do. religion is a profound evil, and the cause of nearly all human suffering.
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
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.
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.
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).
If your society cannot or will not support an unmarried pregnant woman on her own, your society is a failed one.
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.
This isn’t the only place this has happened. More info here.
Good one! Added it to the list of sources:
- Arte.tv
- Part One: How The Catholic Church Murdered Ireland’s Babies | Behind The Bastards
- Wikipedia article
- Tuam Home Survivors
- easy to find sources as they are all over the place
It’s fucked up that up to today and ITT there are still people trying to gloss over and excuse the atrocities. Let’s show them what Streisand Effect means.
Thats awful, but you know who wont drown babies and hide their bodies in a septic tank?
I swear to God if the answer is a shark…
Don’t get off topic. Also, that’s speciesist, and just kind of rude.
The answer is the sponsors of this podcast!
Edit: Also, sharks would never do that, though. None of you have any reason to fear u-them.
Today’s septic tank full of dead babies is brought to you by RAID: SHADOW LEGENDS!
Satanic Panic was projection.
If we do shit like this, imagine what they could do!
Yeah, and the irony is that in the Bible, Lucifer never even asked for an animal or human sacrifice, but god did.
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.
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.
Excellent name.
Also, under the Christian dogma, Satan has no authority beyond what God allows. Who then is truly responsible for his actions?
The band names are thick in the comments.
My brain took a moment to register the word infant. As in the child was already born.
Could have been worse, could have been atheists running the home.
Imagine how bad it might have been if it had been Satanists…
Given the shit apologists write ITT you really need to use the “/s” marker.
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.
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.
There would have been no remains.
Ah yes, because atheists eat babies. I remember now.
Finally someone gets the reference! Stupid down voters.
We should hang out and put a fetus on the grill.
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.
This was my original comment:
Get informed and stop being an apoligistI 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:
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.
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.
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.
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.
Most of the infants died from bacterial or viral infections.
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)
mental health nurses who work in an asylum/“hospital”/“mental health unit” too according to a friend who works in one as a nurse.
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.
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.
That was one of my comfort shows, and I can’t watch it either.
You mean Masterson? Or am I forgetting some gross shit Ashton Kutcher did?
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.
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.
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.
Couldn’t agree more!
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?”
Fuck off sino shill, CCP is not doing any Tibetans favour’s by invading their country, they are a bunch of corrupt dictators
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.
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?
Amongst others these:
Both the old theocratic feudal state and the CCP oppressed state are bad
@TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world is not a “Sino-Shill”, none is questioning the atrocities of the CCP. Please re-read this thread.
Unhelpful American chiming in: if the Finns, or Danes are feeling feisity we could really use a regime change…
You could literally google and see sources what life was like in Tibet before. China is bad, and Tibet before was bad. Many things can be true at the same time. It is just the fact of life. No one is backing up China, it is only you problem if that is you are being emotional on a factual statement.
