There are 800 skeletons of small children found in a septic tank in Tuam, Co Galway. This horrific discovery was first made back in the 1960s by two small boys but nothing was done, no investigation made, not even a graveyard instituted. It was left to a local man Padraig to try and create a small memorial and sadly he passed away last week. It was left to local historian Catherine Corless to try and provide a proper and fitting response. The babies were looked after in a Bon Secours institution, called ironically The Home, from 1920s to the 1960s The babies were all born to unwed mothers; mothers who were thrown out of their family homes to give birth to their bastard children in an institution. If their babies survived they were often forcibly sold into adoption with suitable parents. The death toll of these children was four times the national average. The girls were often forced to work as indentured slaves as a punishment for their crime of having a child out of wedlock. Some pregnancies would have been as a result of violence and perhaps rape. Some would have been as a result of ignorance of contraception […]
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Suicide and Young People
Yesterday I was the funeral of a child, a 14 year old, who died by suicide. One of the most upsetting funerals I have ever attended. His sixth class teacher spoke at the end. He had us laughing about the impish ways of the young lad. But at the very end of his tribute he looked around the packed church where many of the mourners were only children themselves. He said: “I wanted to end on a note of positivity. I wanted to give you something positive to walk away with. But as I look around this church and see the carnage and the heart broken people I cannot.” He paused. “Instead,” he said. “I will quote Martin Luther King. He said if you cannot fly, then run. If you cannot run, then walk. If you cannot walk, then crawl.But whatever you do, keep moving forward.” I had the privilege to be part of this short and very moving video on suicide – if you have a few moments look at Edward White’s video here It is called ‘Let’s stop suicide together’ I was also privileged to be part of Norah Boran and Alan Lavender’s #DepressionHurts video here It is called ‘It […]
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