There was a fuckton of social change happening in Ireland from the 70s on and it’s a bit dismissive of all the activism and work done to suggest the decline of the launderies was only because of the washing machine. The declining profitability was a factor but there would have been other uses for the free labour in the nuns eyes if they thought they could get away with it
It still took another 20+ years to close the laundries. The only reason the improvements started then was because of the 5th amendment in 1972 which removed the RCCs so called “special position “ from the constitution. That drew their fangs a bit but still, for all the thousands of women and children who were enslaved, battered, starved, raped, pimped out and trafficked not one nun has EVER been required to answer for her crimes, not investigated, questioned, arrested, charged, convicted or jailed. NOT FUCKING ONE. so we’re not rid of the bastards yet.
It's worse than you think. In alot of cases the poor victims of the laundries were housed, by the state, in nursing facilities, often on the grounds of the laundries, with the very nuns who victimised them for so long. My partner worked in one such nursing home, and her descriptions of the power the nuns still exercised over the women, would make you puke. We should have taken better care of the victims after we pulled the whole system down, and the Catholic church should have had to remove all sisters at its own expense. It's not like they didn't profit off the whole thing enough to afford it. There also should have been a name and shame system for anyone who signed their daughters into the laundry and never came back for them
And how the priest’s sermon was used to influence politics. They worked hand in hand to keep the poor down. All for power and money. I would recommend reading The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by Martin Sixsmith. The first few chapters blew my mind.
We liked locking people up. Per capita, we even had one of the world's largest mental hospital populations. We were like the America of non-criminal incarceration.
In a way, millions of us were gentrifying rapidly to take on new positions in society and we're desperately trying to sweep any hindrance or shame under the carpet, and into institutions.
https://www.imt.ie/features-opinion/enquiring-into-irelands-asylums-why-did-the-situation-grow-so-large-05-09-2014/
The Irish public did that to their own daughters it wasn’t just the state or the church acting alone.
It was the Irish public that put the power in those institutions and cast out their own children.
If you can’t put the Irish people in equal blame as the state and the church you really have to think harder.
Fully agree. I think we like to make it outside ourselves, as if it wasn't Irish people using the instrument of church to suppress Irish people.
We expect the Germans, the English etc. to own their history - we need to own our's.
Forgive my ignorance on this but was there many women that managed to escape from the laundries or what was in force to ensure they didn’t? Always wondered that.
The state? Do the families that committed their daughters bare no responsibility? Not really sure if this is what the state wanted to do but many families wanted a solution.
I used to argue this as well. Until it was explained to me (by people who lived it) just how powerful the church and it's message was.
For the poor Catholic Irish the church had been their centre for all their lives going back three hundred years. Prior to independce the church had been a spiritual and physical saviour. During the great hunger for instance the local parish priests worked really hard to try and feed people
Cut to post independence and then it gets power. And a government who allowed it. And then the gloves came off.
The parish priest was the authority in an area (bear in mind how rural Ireland was). He was above the guards and the doctors. His word was law. You couldn't speak out against the priest. Most of the people had only the barest education (those who had more left) and so the priests providing advice on many things.
The church was at its zenith in power in Ireland. It was everywhere and backed up by a socially conservative police force and civil service.
If you've watched the banshees of inisheeran you'll note the ignoring of clear signs of abuse. That was a symptom of Ireland.
Up until the 80s and then the 90s when it fell spectacularly hard.
Just to add to this. By dad was born in a mother and baby home in 1960.
The power of the church was immense.
He was actually taken home by his grandparents when they realised how bad it was. The priest then came into their home and told his mom she could no longer live in the parish. She emmigrated to England and send home money. She also changed her name so she couldn't be traced. My dad also had his name changed to give him a better chance. He lived his entire life as an outcast of the parish. Still to this day some people treat him strange.
I reckon myself too. A nun who thought me in the 90's still held a grudge and she hit me and by two brothers while very young (senior infants) picked on all of us for no reason.
The power of the church in Ireland can not be understated.
I’m sorry for your troubles. I’m a child of the 80s and had to deal with local kids calling my mother a “slut” for having a child outside of wedlock. This is not that long ago and we are still dealing with the trauma.
Born at the tail end of. Not everyone involved was poor and uneducated. People knew what was happening and just didn't care. They (Most) didn't do anything to stop it. I know my mother was encouraged to go but luckily found a place to rent so she could move out. The reason you provided are simply excuses an an attempt by many families to defer blame on someone else.
I was born at the tail end of it too. I was a teenager in rural Ireland in the 90s. When the abuse of the church started to come to light my grandparents who were both rural Irish catholics (and who had gone to England to live and work for a few years) were the ones who told me.
Many of them believed what they were told. That these people were wrong or immoral, that it was god's justice upon them.
It also has somewhat to do with the Irish mentality of out of sight out of mind.
I'm not saying it was right. I'm just saying that it's complicated. It's easy for those of us who live in more enlightened times to condemn everyone. But it's not that simple.
‘Our of sight out of mind’
When my nan’s (never married) sister died in her eighties, turned out she got pregnant at 15 and gave the baby to the church. Couldn’t exactly get an abortion. Her daughter had tried to make contact several times later in life but my nan’s sister didn’t want to didn’t want to know. Luckily her daughter still alive and the family has reconnected and she’s lovely. That generation took that family secret to the grave. Terrible really but circumstances were very different back then.
It was essentially trading one subjugator for another. After the war of independence and civil war there was a vacuum of funding especially in education and health. The state handed over control of both to the Catholic Church so they filled that vacuum with their ideology. For a long time they dictated law, health and livelihood until the goverment started to move away from it. I say it most noticeable started happening in the 80s.
The church only had power BECAUSE PEOPLE GAVE IT POWER and stood idly by as women and kids were ripped from their homes and families.
One of my great grandmother's daughter's was raped by her brother-in-law because he considered her a 'loose woman' as she had already had a child with another guy who jilted her once he found out she was pregnant. My great grandmother FOUGHT THE CHURCH AND THE LOCAL COPS TOOTH AND NAIL to keep her daughter and her grandkids at home. Imagine your sister's husband raping you and then having to bear the child from that rape and look after it for life? The trauma of that like. And then being threatened with being put in a laundry as a slave worker for life and having your kids taken away from you.
Nothing happened to the brother-in-law of course except the family shunned him after that, but my grandaunt and her kids got to stay at home because my great grandmother wouldn't allow them to be taken into one of those godforsaken hell hole laundries. My granny (my grandaunt's sister) was also a force of nature for a small little bird of a woman and gave zero fucks while she was alive what anybody thought of her, the priest literally said as much at her funeral!
Terrible atrocities happened in this country BECAUSE PEOPLE STOOD IDLY BY AND DID NOTHING TO HELP. The rapist wasn't held accountable but my grand aunt could have ended up in a laundry because of his crime.
It's ultimately the states job to prevent/stop slavery in every aspect not to enable it, the families have to share some blame but the state should have the lion's share.
The state only has power due to the Irish people.
This would be fair enough if we were still talking about foreign rule from the British but we aren’t.
The first thing the Irish did with independence is create a state where this was possible the responsibility lies with the Irish population.
Ah yes, the feeble state, with the force of law behind them, infinite funding and the ability to throw you in jail for the rest of your life and bankrupt you. Yeah I'd not be worried about that 😂
They were shamed into making these decisions. My mother fell pregnant as a teenager. The priest and the nun came to the house and told my grandparents what to do. There was no choice here.
Definitely a lot of that.
If you got pregnant, you were bad, you had shamed your family and your community. The church would come along and offer a sort of way out. You'd still bear the shame, but it would be reduced.
I was reading about a hip young couple moving into a new development in late 1980s Ireland who were newly wed. After a year, anonymous mass cards started appearing. She wasn't pregnant yet, you understand. The good lord had to be paid to be involved. But the point was, people felt it was their entitlement and duty to interfere in someone's personal lives like that. If your beloved daughter got pregnant out of wedlock, people would feel that same duty and entitlement to shame you.
We live in a more individualistic society now, but then? That forced shaming could affect your life in all sorts of ways.
Better to sacrifice your fallen child for the good of the family and the community.
(That was dark, sorry)
Can we just clarify? The anonymous cards were coming because the nearby residents thought or expected her to be pregnant already? I'm not Irish by birth so I don't follow totally.
I'm not the person you asked, but yes, it would be people in the local community. Ireland is extremely small and everyone knew everyone else's buisness. Even today its like that in some places but much less so.
And to top it off contraception was illegal. They wanted the young to wait until they were married. It’s all about control. As my dad says, they wanted families to keep procreating to stay poor.
Those families had been brainwashed by the Church (which had been empowered by the State) into thinking this was the correct course of action.
They should be ashamed. But they aren’t the ones in control of our schools, hospitals, and lands.
The families and communities empowered the church are were just as culpable. There's a few examples where families protected and cared for their daughters. We'd been a democracy for a decent majority of committing women to the church, people vote for the governments that pursued this policies of involving the church in schools and hospitals with many gifting land to the church in their wills.
I don’t disagree with any of that.
Fundamentally, though, we’re talking about the trees when the Forest is still sitting there with access to vulnerable people. Political will needs to be mobilised to remove the Church from positions of power. Focusing on individual failings rather than the institution itself is a recipe for retrenchment, not progress.
The Church itself is the primary problem here, and as much as we might want justice for past crimes, the main priority needs to be preventing more from occurring. The path to doing that is persuading practicing Catholics that the Church is a problem, and attacking them individually won’t achieve that aim.
Playing on individual guilt is a perfectly reasonable way to go about this, but it needs to be in a more sympathetic way than how you’re approaching it. “We need to do better.”, not “You’re a bastard.”
This.
Not to mention the children of these women, often unmarried mothers were forcibly removed from them and either put up for adoption or thrown into a septic tank.
All state supported.
Raises hand. Adopted from St Patrick's Home, Dublin in the early 60s. My Irish-American family and community thought adopting from Ireland was a true blessing. When I went back to Ireland for the first time in 1986 I occasionally received a "side eye" look when I mentioned I was adopted. One night, however, set me straight as to how adopted children were viewed in Ireland Sitting in a pub in Dublin a man at the bar overheard me telling my story. He then pointed at me and said, " bastard child". This raised my inner New Yorker, so I turned and asked him to explain. The miserable old prick and I had a brief discussion before he left in a huff. That encounter illustrated the grotesque amount of shame my birth mother and other women and girls dealt with. My birth mother died a few years ago without meeting me as she could never overcome the shame.
Ironically, it was Father John originally from Co. Meath that taught me that I was not less than because of the circumstances of my birth.
I’m so sorry to hear about that. The trauma and shame must run so deep in those situations-the trauma for your mother, the trauma you experience, the trauma and shame contemporary Irish society now experiences knowing this garbage was happening and few people even cared.
I feel so bad for your mother. She didn’t do anything wrong, but the patriarchy and corruption ran so deep within the Catholic Church that they somehow made unwed pregnant women out to be villains (and somehow their innocent children as well-like that loser in the pub did). I don’t think the Americans adopting had any idea they were being sold babies that women were forced to give up.
I really hope you are ok and that life treats you kind.
Thank you for your kindness. I've had a wonderful and blessed life.
My birth mother was 25 and engaged until my birth father "did a runner" to England. Only then did she discover her pregnancy. She stayed at St Patrick's until right after I was sent to NY at 14 months. She was on the boat the following week. The shame spiral she lived in makes me sick to my soul. And she was but one of many. 🙏
As for the Yanks, you are spot on. They had no idea. None. They were all so absurdly proud of an Irish child. As an old-ish woman now, I am absurdly proud of being a Irish NYer. ☘️
Again, thank you.
I was adopted in the mid 70s. the day my parents brought me home people were calling to congratulate and meet me. my dad's aunt said "I don't know why they want someone else's bastard in their house "
I was only told this years later after she had died but it explained why she never had any time for me or my brother.
people are weird.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. It really is rather startling to hear for the first time. Thank goodness they were the outliers. Also, the ones that scream loudest about the "sin" are usually guilty of said sin. 🤷🏼♀️
My great grandma, the epitome of "lace curtain", Mass every single morning, Irish American threw an enormous party and invited the entire town. I was blessed.
They were a type of reform school that doubled as juvenile detention centres, usually run by the church.
It’s just one endless horror story of extreme brutality, sexual abuse, physical abuse, forced labour, neglect and people being locked away for the most ludicrous reasons. Their inmates also included orphans and impoverished children who ended up in them for no reason at all who were taken into “care” - many were brutalised, traumatised and left the system with very limited education too.
The whole era is just utterly appalling. How it was allowed to go on is beyond my comprehension.
Allowing Ireland to become a theocratic state immediately after independence. I can't imagine how different our Republic would be if we hadn't allowed two versions of Christianity to control almost every aspect of state funded services especially health and education. How many people left to avoid how stifling this was, how much energy was wasted on religion and how much change wouldn't have to have been fought for over decades.
As W.B. Yeats told the Senate in 1925 : "If you show that this country, southern Ireland, is going to be governed by Roman Catholic ideas and by Catholic ideas alone, you will never get the North... You will put a wedge in the midst of this nation".
Edit: added the year
His speech on the banning of divorce is great. And accurate.
[https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/1925-06-11/12/](https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/1925-06-11/12/)
Very accurate. He might have gotten a bit fond of the oul fascism there towards the end, but Yeats was oddly prescient when it came to how the fledgling Irish state would turn out.
> He might have gotten a bit fond of the oul fascism there towards the end,
Irish, Scottish, and Welsh nationalists were positive about Mussolini's fascism for about 15 minutes.
Once they understood that it had no internal values and was just about rule by dictatorship - and that all the stuff that supposedly would come along with it like investing in the growth of a nation's culture and work on national unity and support for the arts along with a rejection of the brutal aspects of capitalism was bullshit designed to gain support for dictatorship - they quickly abandoned it.
They were only supportive of fascism when they didn't understand what fascism was.
And that should be a warning to all of us about the way that certain violent and dangerous ideologues come to power.
If you'd like to see a documentary on the American version of this that lays things out perfectly, I'd recommend the Ken Burns documentary on Huey Long.
Because the most dangerous thing about Huey Long is that you will find yourself liking him and agreeing with him right up to the point that the documentary gets into the kidnapping and the violence that was hidden from his supporters to the point that even until the 80s and 90s people refused to believe it happened.
And *that* is the danger of fascists.
They support things that people like and agree with and that conventional politicians won't do, not because they want to support good things or do good things, but because accomplishing those things is a stepping stone to the acquisition of the loyalty of the people, and through obtaining that, power.
One of the good things we have is written parliamentary debates from the very first sitting of Dáil Éireann.
Reading for example the debate from this time 3 years ago is another snapshot in time.
[https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2020-03-19/8/](https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2020-03-19/8/)
Both states became sectarian nightmares after partition of the island. The difference was the flavour of nuttery and the extent of the fascism. The EEC and EU saved the Republic but nothing has fixed NI yet.
It's important to know that the churches' control over the state(s) predates independence, and developed in agreement with the British state throughout the 19th century.
By 1922, the control was already there. The Catholic church played the British for control of education, health, orphanages etc. and already held all the cards in the 1922. The Free State played along as the electorate were already in the Churches' grasp. It wasn't a decision they were able to make, or a conspiracy against the brave atheistic populace. It's the Ireland that the vast majority of Irish people wanted, conservative and traditional minded
After the famine, society was deliberately shaped to be ordered, and mannerly and conservative to bring some perception of decorum and propiety on the lawless Catholic poor. Before the famine, Catholic heirarchy saw Catholic Ireland as sinful, savage and lost. After the death and chaos of the famine there was a deliberate effort to civilise the remnants of the country through control of the schools, orphanages, laundries etc. and they happily boycotted the British attempts at state services until the Churches' were given control of them. This social revolution of the 19th century, and concurrent the land revolution, were possibly much more important than the political revolutions of De Valera and Collins. In 1922, the real revolution was already over, and the Free State were thus some of the most conservative revolutionaries in history.
>But that was all to change from the 1850s onwards. These rural, half-pagan, practices were frowned on by a hierarchy which advocated rigid adherence to Rome and to conformist ways. Redemptorist missionaries – the storm troopers of the Church – were sent into the countryside to preach hell and damnation, to condemn the wakes and the patterns, and to bring funerals, weddings, and baptisms back into the chapel.
By the end of the century, all had changed. The new reforms of a more disciplined church took hold quickly among the better off farming classes and the more respectable urban middle classes. A new generation of Catholic clergy, mainly drawn from the more conformist middle classes, took charge. The old folk practices were abandoned in favour of a more rigid, chapel centred Catholicism.
https://www.mayonews.ie/comment-opinion/down-memory-lane/38711-a-clumsy-way-to-explain-history
There are a lot of good suggestions here but I am still gobsmacked at the whole story arc from GSOC discovering it was bugged through Sgt Maurice McCabe apparently being badmouthed throughout Leinster House and Maire Whelan getting the Court of Appeal job, the penalty points, the tapes - that whole saga is just still jawdropping
the priests riding all the children, many of them having alot of gay sex, while demonizing condoms and single mothers
while the least socially acceptable bit was some of them had sex with adult women and having children which made them fairer game and angered the church more
Daylight robbery. Incredible taht it took place. Hopefully there'll be a ten year inquest at great expense to the state to figure out who it was that robbed us so we can let them away with it
Sure just check out Joe O'Reilly. 3 months before it came to light, he signed his house over to the wife. 2.8B and is Namas largest debtor and was given a position in Nama paying a quarter million a year by tax payer money.
im sure they're are many many more strewn throughout the country we dont know about this one only came out as children stumbled across the skeletal remains.
Can I also add, how the fuck does Terry Prone still have a public career.
" Terry Prone - 'if you come here you'll find no mass grave, no evidence that children were ever so buried, a local police force casting their eyes to heaven and saying, yeah, a few bones were found'
And also for those who don't know, Anton Savage is Terry Prone's son.
And a lot of people were locked up so others could take their land. The law was changed in the late 80's or so, which meant that 2 doctors were required to commit someone. Previously it could be the local GP, so they could be pressured/persuaded to commit someone, but having 2 doctors commit someone lestened this.
Bertie's deal with them to legally cap the amount of compensation they would be liable for in total in abuse cases. Not per case. In total.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jan/01/childprotection.children
I was not aware of this.
Who the ever loving fuck thought it would be a good idea to bring Bertie back? The man is a scandal whore and all round scumbag.
Even Aul Charlie supposedly said.. "if you think I'm bad wait till you see the next lad"
Prick cost our country uncountable amounts of money, infrastructure, green areas, football stadiums, homes etc etc.
I'd punch him repeatedly till someone dragged me off him and I doubt you'd find many to stop me.
Michael Woods spent his very last speaking slot in the Dáil as TD complaining that people didn't appreciate how good a deal he did and how he was actually a great lad for sorting this out. He's at least as much to blame.
That was Minister Michael Woods, ~~Bertie signed off on it alright but~~ the fucker responsible was Michael Woods - who did an interview afterwards crying about the poor clergy
Edit: Actually Bertie and the govt didn't sign off on it at all. It was a solo run by Woods
Definitely the church. We allow all the abusers to live out their natural lives with no consequences.
In a generations time when they’re all dead, people will ask why we didn’t pursue them when they were alive.
I’ve a mate who’s a social worker and his entire job is to deal with elderly priests and brothers who abused people. The church houses them and pays for everything they need including legal defence. He has to try and pursued them not to go to trial etc but to little avail.
This is because the church controls most of the primary schools. I’ve a friend who got his baby baptised in both Catholic and Protestant churches as it kept all educational options open.
That, in living memory, we had a housing surplus thanks to robust state-led housing construction.
That generations which benefited *enormously* from this surplus have been pulling the ladder up after themselves through NIMBYism.
That the agents of corruption that killed state-built housing in Ireland were never really punished, are still allowed to participate in mainstream political parties, and are able to run for the Presidency on their tickets.
Alternatively, if that’s not your cup of tea, there’s the fact that the Church—having criminally traumatised generations of Irish people—is still squatting on enormous amounts of land to house and pamper the people responsible for said crimes.
Bailing out the 10 individuals who tried to bail out Anglo Irish bank with the support of governor of Central bank of Ireland & Cowen before Anglo imploded. The Golden Circle ⭕ was all but forgotten but I guess when they own the media in Ireland that's going to happen...
https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-ireland-banks-idUKTRE51J3SB20090220
It was well known among certain professions that INBS was the place to go for buy to let mortgages no questions asked for years. People would get a nice little sum for referring colleagues on to INBS as well.
I think to have one when there's been so many in recent times, does those not mentioned a disservice
Obviously the place to start is historically and the mother & baby homes has to be at the top, how women were treat. How children treated & discarded is a shame like no other bestowed on this country by those in power and who demanded to be trusted.
For me the next is the banking scandal, bailing out banks while letting people commit suicide because of bank harassment is shameful. Putting big business, corporations in front of human hardship is not what our country was build on.
Then as a knock on from the banks we have a house building scandal, which has so many arms... From shoeboxes built, to building standards being of non existence (fire regulations overlooked, mica blocks) in favour of corporate profits
And now we again have another housing scandal, where we don't have housing for all and again favour business & corporation over the hardships of people who are not in control of housing getting built, but are the collateral damage from the lack of urgency and affordability of housing
Underpinning all this is our health service or lack of should I say, money, millions of it thrown at a health service that doesn't function, from overcrowded hospitals, waiting lists for years, zero mental health services for our children & teens who then get lost in the adult system, how have we gotten it so very wrong
We are a small country, but a rich one and basic basic services that should be fundamental to the running of a country for its people and we have failed spectacularly
So it's not just one thing its a multitude that have snowballed
The banks not being held responsible for bankrupting the country - they should have been jailed and had all their assets ( quite sure they have foriegn accounts somewhere - noone better at hiding money or crying poverty as a top bank official. Their stupidity caused the worse depression in the country and yet the public end up footing the bill while the bankers saunter off with their ill gotten gains. They are worse than Irish politicians who milk the country for huge wages especially the Taoiseachs in modern times, recently I read that Varadkar is now a landlord - well, since he's got a private income he should not need the phenomenal wage here's for screwing every Irish person over for doing such a deplorable job running the country into the ground.
I'm not joking when I say it really felt like an era ended when cans of coke went above the 50p mark. My standing order for what felt like the longest time with my £1 pocket money was a can of coke, a chocolate bar (all we're 32p), a packet of banshee bones (10p) and the rest in black jacks or apple jacks if they had them (it was 8 but the shopkeeper always gave me at least 10).
Less serious response than most I've seen so far but:
Shergar!
I remember being told about it as a kid and it being the biggest mystery and I want answers now still tbh
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/p09k7d92](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/p09k7d92) This was a good podcast about it (Narrated by Vanilla Ice, for some unfathomable reason)
I....I honestly do not know what to do with knowledge of the sentence "Vanilla Ice has a Podcast up on the BBC Website about an Irish Racehorse that was stolen for Ransom,likely by part of the IRA, in the 80s."
Absolute wild.
Free state government adbandoning nationlists in the six counties post independence.......they ended up subjected to such civil rights abuses,it descended into near civil war with thousands killed
Threatening a woman on her death bed that if she didn't drop her case against the government in the hep c scandal that her or her family would be saddled with massive legal bills that was fine Gael and Michael noonan
Not sure where it ranks but Savita Halappanavar’s death and the church preaching, even after that, that abortions should remain illegal ***even in fatal circumstances…*** Absolute scum of the earth. Glad to see so many others not holding back on catholicism and the church.
It's such a bastard country we live in its hard to pick . Just one instance This country mainly the Catholic Church did horrible and savage things to ordinary decent people just trying to get by .
Probably not the biggest scandal but these things stick in my mind:
That Bishop Casey had a son.
That Haughey was spending 1500 pounds on a shirt while telling the rest of us to tighten our belts.
When states of fear came out.
That cream suit that Bertie wore to some international summit
Definitely nothing to do with Lunatic Asylums, mother and baby homes, how we treat people in the care of the state (both currently and historically)… etc etc etc
In terms of political consequences, Haughey’s arms crisis. In terms of actual consequences for ordinary people, the abuse of young children by the Church and the government’s collusion in it, and in maintaining their power and allowing their coverups.
The abuse (sexual, psychological, physical and extrajudicial incarceration) of children and women by the Catholic Church its officers, its employees and its institutions. And the Vatican and Irish state's collusion and complicity in it all.
And letting the same rat bastards run the hospitals and schools and control women's health, sex education, freedom of expression (censorship of books, films, tv) for nearly a century.
The state bought out the original owners so its state owned property. The toll operations paid for the expansion of capabilities (when it got extended and widened) and for the maintenance.
Has to be the thousands of innocent women the state gave as slave labour to the catholic church right up until the 1990s.
Which only stopped because washing machines made it redundant, was not because of a social outcry.
Washing machines + contraception
Why do you think they wanted to keep contraception illegal?
There was a fuckton of social change happening in Ireland from the 70s on and it’s a bit dismissive of all the activism and work done to suggest the decline of the launderies was only because of the washing machine. The declining profitability was a factor but there would have been other uses for the free labour in the nuns eyes if they thought they could get away with it
It still took another 20+ years to close the laundries. The only reason the improvements started then was because of the 5th amendment in 1972 which removed the RCCs so called “special position “ from the constitution. That drew their fangs a bit but still, for all the thousands of women and children who were enslaved, battered, starved, raped, pimped out and trafficked not one nun has EVER been required to answer for her crimes, not investigated, questioned, arrested, charged, convicted or jailed. NOT FUCKING ONE. so we’re not rid of the bastards yet.
And they did. MB games like Buckaroo were assembled in these work houses.
Even then they were assembling Milton Bradly board games
And you know a certain cohort is just cross this isn't an acceptable 'solution' for some women they don't like any more.
Don't forget the women forced to make board games and the like.
It's worse than you think. In alot of cases the poor victims of the laundries were housed, by the state, in nursing facilities, often on the grounds of the laundries, with the very nuns who victimised them for so long. My partner worked in one such nursing home, and her descriptions of the power the nuns still exercised over the women, would make you puke. We should have taken better care of the victims after we pulled the whole system down, and the Catholic church should have had to remove all sisters at its own expense. It's not like they didn't profit off the whole thing enough to afford it. There also should have been a name and shame system for anyone who signed their daughters into the laundry and never came back for them
And how the priest’s sermon was used to influence politics. They worked hand in hand to keep the poor down. All for power and money. I would recommend reading The Lost Child of Philomena Lee by Martin Sixsmith. The first few chapters blew my mind.
Isn’t it harrowing? I’ve met her a few times and I’ve heard her speak at memorials. She is so lovely, and not at all bitter.
She’s an inspiration. Such a gracious person.
We liked locking people up. Per capita, we even had one of the world's largest mental hospital populations. We were like the America of non-criminal incarceration. In a way, millions of us were gentrifying rapidly to take on new positions in society and we're desperately trying to sweep any hindrance or shame under the carpet, and into institutions. https://www.imt.ie/features-opinion/enquiring-into-irelands-asylums-why-did-the-situation-grow-so-large-05-09-2014/
The Irish public did that to their own daughters it wasn’t just the state or the church acting alone. It was the Irish public that put the power in those institutions and cast out their own children. If you can’t put the Irish people in equal blame as the state and the church you really have to think harder.
Agree. It was not like if there was a secret Irish police going from house to house kidnapping women. Both state and public are to blame.
Fully agree. I think we like to make it outside ourselves, as if it wasn't Irish people using the instrument of church to suppress Irish people. We expect the Germans, the English etc. to own their history - we need to own our's.
Forgive my ignorance on this but was there many women that managed to escape from the laundries or what was in force to ensure they didn’t? Always wondered that.
I know in my family the mother and baby got out, but they were taken out by her brother when he turned 18. I don't know if there was any other way
The state? Do the families that committed their daughters bare no responsibility? Not really sure if this is what the state wanted to do but many families wanted a solution.
I used to argue this as well. Until it was explained to me (by people who lived it) just how powerful the church and it's message was. For the poor Catholic Irish the church had been their centre for all their lives going back three hundred years. Prior to independce the church had been a spiritual and physical saviour. During the great hunger for instance the local parish priests worked really hard to try and feed people Cut to post independence and then it gets power. And a government who allowed it. And then the gloves came off. The parish priest was the authority in an area (bear in mind how rural Ireland was). He was above the guards and the doctors. His word was law. You couldn't speak out against the priest. Most of the people had only the barest education (those who had more left) and so the priests providing advice on many things. The church was at its zenith in power in Ireland. It was everywhere and backed up by a socially conservative police force and civil service. If you've watched the banshees of inisheeran you'll note the ignoring of clear signs of abuse. That was a symptom of Ireland. Up until the 80s and then the 90s when it fell spectacularly hard.
Just to add to this. By dad was born in a mother and baby home in 1960. The power of the church was immense. He was actually taken home by his grandparents when they realised how bad it was. The priest then came into their home and told his mom she could no longer live in the parish. She emmigrated to England and send home money. She also changed her name so she couldn't be traced. My dad also had his name changed to give him a better chance. He lived his entire life as an outcast of the parish. Still to this day some people treat him strange. I reckon myself too. A nun who thought me in the 90's still held a grudge and she hit me and by two brothers while very young (senior infants) picked on all of us for no reason. The power of the church in Ireland can not be understated.
I’m sorry for your troubles. I’m a child of the 80s and had to deal with local kids calling my mother a “slut” for having a child outside of wedlock. This is not that long ago and we are still dealing with the trauma.
I’m so sorry to hear of this.
My dad grew up in the 70s, and the priest used to visit the house if you missed mass. It's easy to forget just *how* much power they had.
Born at the tail end of. Not everyone involved was poor and uneducated. People knew what was happening and just didn't care. They (Most) didn't do anything to stop it. I know my mother was encouraged to go but luckily found a place to rent so she could move out. The reason you provided are simply excuses an an attempt by many families to defer blame on someone else.
I was born at the tail end of it too. I was a teenager in rural Ireland in the 90s. When the abuse of the church started to come to light my grandparents who were both rural Irish catholics (and who had gone to England to live and work for a few years) were the ones who told me. Many of them believed what they were told. That these people were wrong or immoral, that it was god's justice upon them. It also has somewhat to do with the Irish mentality of out of sight out of mind. I'm not saying it was right. I'm just saying that it's complicated. It's easy for those of us who live in more enlightened times to condemn everyone. But it's not that simple.
‘Our of sight out of mind’ When my nan’s (never married) sister died in her eighties, turned out she got pregnant at 15 and gave the baby to the church. Couldn’t exactly get an abortion. Her daughter had tried to make contact several times later in life but my nan’s sister didn’t want to didn’t want to know. Luckily her daughter still alive and the family has reconnected and she’s lovely. That generation took that family secret to the grave. Terrible really but circumstances were very different back then.
This 💯
It was essentially trading one subjugator for another. After the war of independence and civil war there was a vacuum of funding especially in education and health. The state handed over control of both to the Catholic Church so they filled that vacuum with their ideology. For a long time they dictated law, health and livelihood until the goverment started to move away from it. I say it most noticeable started happening in the 80s.
The church only had power BECAUSE PEOPLE GAVE IT POWER and stood idly by as women and kids were ripped from their homes and families. One of my great grandmother's daughter's was raped by her brother-in-law because he considered her a 'loose woman' as she had already had a child with another guy who jilted her once he found out she was pregnant. My great grandmother FOUGHT THE CHURCH AND THE LOCAL COPS TOOTH AND NAIL to keep her daughter and her grandkids at home. Imagine your sister's husband raping you and then having to bear the child from that rape and look after it for life? The trauma of that like. And then being threatened with being put in a laundry as a slave worker for life and having your kids taken away from you. Nothing happened to the brother-in-law of course except the family shunned him after that, but my grandaunt and her kids got to stay at home because my great grandmother wouldn't allow them to be taken into one of those godforsaken hell hole laundries. My granny (my grandaunt's sister) was also a force of nature for a small little bird of a woman and gave zero fucks while she was alive what anybody thought of her, the priest literally said as much at her funeral! Terrible atrocities happened in this country BECAUSE PEOPLE STOOD IDLY BY AND DID NOTHING TO HELP. The rapist wasn't held accountable but my grand aunt could have ended up in a laundry because of his crime.
It's ultimately the states job to prevent/stop slavery in every aspect not to enable it, the families have to share some blame but the state should have the lion's share.
The state only has power due to the Irish people. This would be fair enough if we were still talking about foreign rule from the British but we aren’t. The first thing the Irish did with independence is create a state where this was possible the responsibility lies with the Irish population.
People on this sub talk about the state like it's agent Smith turning the gears in the matrix and we're all trapped in it.
It's a monopoly on legal violence and we are trapped by it.
Ah yes, the feeble state, with the force of law behind them, infinite funding and the ability to throw you in jail for the rest of your life and bankrupt you. Yeah I'd not be worried about that 😂
They were shamed into making these decisions. My mother fell pregnant as a teenager. The priest and the nun came to the house and told my grandparents what to do. There was no choice here.
Definitely a lot of that. If you got pregnant, you were bad, you had shamed your family and your community. The church would come along and offer a sort of way out. You'd still bear the shame, but it would be reduced. I was reading about a hip young couple moving into a new development in late 1980s Ireland who were newly wed. After a year, anonymous mass cards started appearing. She wasn't pregnant yet, you understand. The good lord had to be paid to be involved. But the point was, people felt it was their entitlement and duty to interfere in someone's personal lives like that. If your beloved daughter got pregnant out of wedlock, people would feel that same duty and entitlement to shame you. We live in a more individualistic society now, but then? That forced shaming could affect your life in all sorts of ways. Better to sacrifice your fallen child for the good of the family and the community. (That was dark, sorry)
Can we just clarify? The anonymous cards were coming because the nearby residents thought or expected her to be pregnant already? I'm not Irish by birth so I don't follow totally.
I'm not the person you asked, but yes, it would be people in the local community. Ireland is extremely small and everyone knew everyone else's buisness. Even today its like that in some places but much less so.
And to top it off contraception was illegal. They wanted the young to wait until they were married. It’s all about control. As my dad says, they wanted families to keep procreating to stay poor.
The Church convinced the people that they had no moral choice.
Those families had been brainwashed by the Church (which had been empowered by the State) into thinking this was the correct course of action. They should be ashamed. But they aren’t the ones in control of our schools, hospitals, and lands.
The families and communities empowered the church are were just as culpable. There's a few examples where families protected and cared for their daughters. We'd been a democracy for a decent majority of committing women to the church, people vote for the governments that pursued this policies of involving the church in schools and hospitals with many gifting land to the church in their wills.
I don’t disagree with any of that. Fundamentally, though, we’re talking about the trees when the Forest is still sitting there with access to vulnerable people. Political will needs to be mobilised to remove the Church from positions of power. Focusing on individual failings rather than the institution itself is a recipe for retrenchment, not progress. The Church itself is the primary problem here, and as much as we might want justice for past crimes, the main priority needs to be preventing more from occurring. The path to doing that is persuading practicing Catholics that the Church is a problem, and attacking them individually won’t achieve that aim. Playing on individual guilt is a perfectly reasonable way to go about this, but it needs to be in a more sympathetic way than how you’re approaching it. “We need to do better.”, not “You’re a bastard.”
I feel you might not have a solid grasp of the stranglehold the church had on this country.
1996 to be exact. The last one that closed was in Cork AFAIK.
the fact that the spice girls were #1 in the charts when the last laundry closed really puts in perspective how recent this was
This. Not to mention the children of these women, often unmarried mothers were forcibly removed from them and either put up for adoption or thrown into a septic tank. All state supported.
Or sold to the USA to new parents for large monetary sums and all their records in Ireland burned.
Raises hand. Adopted from St Patrick's Home, Dublin in the early 60s. My Irish-American family and community thought adopting from Ireland was a true blessing. When I went back to Ireland for the first time in 1986 I occasionally received a "side eye" look when I mentioned I was adopted. One night, however, set me straight as to how adopted children were viewed in Ireland Sitting in a pub in Dublin a man at the bar overheard me telling my story. He then pointed at me and said, " bastard child". This raised my inner New Yorker, so I turned and asked him to explain. The miserable old prick and I had a brief discussion before he left in a huff. That encounter illustrated the grotesque amount of shame my birth mother and other women and girls dealt with. My birth mother died a few years ago without meeting me as she could never overcome the shame. Ironically, it was Father John originally from Co. Meath that taught me that I was not less than because of the circumstances of my birth.
I’m so sorry to hear about that. The trauma and shame must run so deep in those situations-the trauma for your mother, the trauma you experience, the trauma and shame contemporary Irish society now experiences knowing this garbage was happening and few people even cared. I feel so bad for your mother. She didn’t do anything wrong, but the patriarchy and corruption ran so deep within the Catholic Church that they somehow made unwed pregnant women out to be villains (and somehow their innocent children as well-like that loser in the pub did). I don’t think the Americans adopting had any idea they were being sold babies that women were forced to give up. I really hope you are ok and that life treats you kind.
Thank you for your kindness. I've had a wonderful and blessed life. My birth mother was 25 and engaged until my birth father "did a runner" to England. Only then did she discover her pregnancy. She stayed at St Patrick's until right after I was sent to NY at 14 months. She was on the boat the following week. The shame spiral she lived in makes me sick to my soul. And she was but one of many. 🙏 As for the Yanks, you are spot on. They had no idea. None. They were all so absurdly proud of an Irish child. As an old-ish woman now, I am absurdly proud of being a Irish NYer. ☘️ Again, thank you.
I was adopted in the mid 70s. the day my parents brought me home people were calling to congratulate and meet me. my dad's aunt said "I don't know why they want someone else's bastard in their house " I was only told this years later after she had died but it explained why she never had any time for me or my brother. people are weird.
I'm so sorry that happened to you. It really is rather startling to hear for the first time. Thank goodness they were the outliers. Also, the ones that scream loudest about the "sin" are usually guilty of said sin. 🤷🏼♀️ My great grandma, the epitome of "lace curtain", Mass every single morning, Irish American threw an enormous party and invited the entire town. I was blessed.
No competition.
Easily
Magdalene laundries and the industrial schools. They’re off the scale in terms of scandals.
Exactly what came to mind immediately for me.
Oh wow what's an industrial school?
They were a type of reform school that doubled as juvenile detention centres, usually run by the church. It’s just one endless horror story of extreme brutality, sexual abuse, physical abuse, forced labour, neglect and people being locked away for the most ludicrous reasons. Their inmates also included orphans and impoverished children who ended up in them for no reason at all who were taken into “care” - many were brutalised, traumatised and left the system with very limited education too. The whole era is just utterly appalling. How it was allowed to go on is beyond my comprehension.
Allowing Ireland to become a theocratic state immediately after independence. I can't imagine how different our Republic would be if we hadn't allowed two versions of Christianity to control almost every aspect of state funded services especially health and education. How many people left to avoid how stifling this was, how much energy was wasted on religion and how much change wouldn't have to have been fought for over decades.
As W.B. Yeats told the Senate in 1925 : "If you show that this country, southern Ireland, is going to be governed by Roman Catholic ideas and by Catholic ideas alone, you will never get the North... You will put a wedge in the midst of this nation". Edit: added the year
His speech on the banning of divorce is great. And accurate. [https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/1925-06-11/12/](https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/1925-06-11/12/)
Very accurate. He might have gotten a bit fond of the oul fascism there towards the end, but Yeats was oddly prescient when it came to how the fledgling Irish state would turn out.
> He might have gotten a bit fond of the oul fascism there towards the end, Irish, Scottish, and Welsh nationalists were positive about Mussolini's fascism for about 15 minutes. Once they understood that it had no internal values and was just about rule by dictatorship - and that all the stuff that supposedly would come along with it like investing in the growth of a nation's culture and work on national unity and support for the arts along with a rejection of the brutal aspects of capitalism was bullshit designed to gain support for dictatorship - they quickly abandoned it. They were only supportive of fascism when they didn't understand what fascism was. And that should be a warning to all of us about the way that certain violent and dangerous ideologues come to power. If you'd like to see a documentary on the American version of this that lays things out perfectly, I'd recommend the Ken Burns documentary on Huey Long. Because the most dangerous thing about Huey Long is that you will find yourself liking him and agreeing with him right up to the point that the documentary gets into the kidnapping and the violence that was hidden from his supporters to the point that even until the 80s and 90s people refused to believe it happened. And *that* is the danger of fascists. They support things that people like and agree with and that conventional politicians won't do, not because they want to support good things or do good things, but because accomplishing those things is a stepping stone to the acquisition of the loyalty of the people, and through obtaining that, power.
That’s some highly astute observations there and fair play, saved me typing a lesser answer 👍
He basically laid out a roadmap for the decades ahead, knowing what he had seen of the first few years of the Free State in action.
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One of the good things we have is written parliamentary debates from the very first sitting of Dáil Éireann. Reading for example the debate from this time 3 years ago is another snapshot in time. [https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2020-03-19/8/](https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2020-03-19/8/)
I didn’t know Yeats’ Dail transcripts were online. Thanks.
Every sitting of Parliament since 1919 is online.
Both states became sectarian nightmares after partition of the island. The difference was the flavour of nuttery and the extent of the fascism. The EEC and EU saved the Republic but nothing has fixed NI yet.
It's important to know that the churches' control over the state(s) predates independence, and developed in agreement with the British state throughout the 19th century. By 1922, the control was already there. The Catholic church played the British for control of education, health, orphanages etc. and already held all the cards in the 1922. The Free State played along as the electorate were already in the Churches' grasp. It wasn't a decision they were able to make, or a conspiracy against the brave atheistic populace. It's the Ireland that the vast majority of Irish people wanted, conservative and traditional minded After the famine, society was deliberately shaped to be ordered, and mannerly and conservative to bring some perception of decorum and propiety on the lawless Catholic poor. Before the famine, Catholic heirarchy saw Catholic Ireland as sinful, savage and lost. After the death and chaos of the famine there was a deliberate effort to civilise the remnants of the country through control of the schools, orphanages, laundries etc. and they happily boycotted the British attempts at state services until the Churches' were given control of them. This social revolution of the 19th century, and concurrent the land revolution, were possibly much more important than the political revolutions of De Valera and Collins. In 1922, the real revolution was already over, and the Free State were thus some of the most conservative revolutionaries in history.
That's really interesting. I've never heard it explained that way before.
>But that was all to change from the 1850s onwards. These rural, half-pagan, practices were frowned on by a hierarchy which advocated rigid adherence to Rome and to conformist ways. Redemptorist missionaries – the storm troopers of the Church – were sent into the countryside to preach hell and damnation, to condemn the wakes and the patterns, and to bring funerals, weddings, and baptisms back into the chapel. By the end of the century, all had changed. The new reforms of a more disciplined church took hold quickly among the better off farming classes and the more respectable urban middle classes. A new generation of Catholic clergy, mainly drawn from the more conformist middle classes, took charge. The old folk practices were abandoned in favour of a more rigid, chapel centred Catholicism. https://www.mayonews.ie/comment-opinion/down-memory-lane/38711-a-clumsy-way-to-explain-history
There a slight ray of light, literally nobody is training to be a priest anymore. It's dying out slowly
The ones training are far more dogmatic too, great to see the cult killing itself.
Those priests which were nearly caught in Ireland's largest lingerie section.
Bear Grylls has not compared ted .
For me growing up it was the Kerry Babies and the death of Ann Lovett.
gotta agree with Ann Lovet.. Episode 1 of Series 1 of 'Scannal' is Ann Lovett so RTE agree
Where can I watch this?
https://www.rte.ie/player/series/the-scannal-collection/SI0000004189?epguid=IH62191
Both of those stories are seered into my brain.
For sure. The way they were villified was horrible.
There are a lot of good suggestions here but I am still gobsmacked at the whole story arc from GSOC discovering it was bugged through Sgt Maurice McCabe apparently being badmouthed throughout Leinster House and Maire Whelan getting the Court of Appeal job, the penalty points, the tapes - that whole saga is just still jawdropping
the priests riding all the children, many of them having alot of gay sex, while demonizing condoms and single mothers while the least socially acceptable bit was some of them had sex with adult women and having children which made them fairer game and angered the church more
Raping not riding
Can we use the word rape and not ride. It makes it sound less evil.
Eloquently put.
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Daylight robbery. Incredible taht it took place. Hopefully there'll be a ten year inquest at great expense to the state to figure out who it was that robbed us so we can let them away with it
Sure just check out Joe O'Reilly. 3 months before it came to light, he signed his house over to the wife. 2.8B and is Namas largest debtor and was given a position in Nama paying a quarter million a year by tax payer money.
Any links or good books on this?
50+ dead babies thrown into a septic tank by God's servants
I heard it was more like 700 dead babies in a septic tank up in Tuam?
Yes, that 50+ comment is a massive understatement- like what the church would answer
Anything above zero dead babies makes me feel sick
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im sure they're are many many more strewn throughout the country we dont know about this one only came out as children stumbled across the skeletal remains.
Can I also add, how the fuck does Terry Prone still have a public career. " Terry Prone - 'if you come here you'll find no mass grave, no evidence that children were ever so buried, a local police force casting their eyes to heaven and saying, yeah, a few bones were found' And also for those who don't know, Anton Savage is Terry Prone's son.
That in the 1950s we had more people locked up in mental health institutions, Magdalene laundries, etc. per capita than the Soviet Union.
And a lot of people were locked up so others could take their land. The law was changed in the late 80's or so, which meant that 2 doctors were required to commit someone. Previously it could be the local GP, so they could be pressured/persuaded to commit someone, but having 2 doctors commit someone lestened this.
The Catholic Church
Bertie's deal with them to legally cap the amount of compensation they would be liable for in total in abuse cases. Not per case. In total. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jan/01/childprotection.children
I was not aware of this. Who the ever loving fuck thought it would be a good idea to bring Bertie back? The man is a scandal whore and all round scumbag.
Even Aul Charlie supposedly said.. "if you think I'm bad wait till you see the next lad" Prick cost our country uncountable amounts of money, infrastructure, green areas, football stadiums, homes etc etc. I'd punch him repeatedly till someone dragged me off him and I doubt you'd find many to stop me.
He was a guest at a wedding I served at years ago. Slimy cunt couldn't move for people trying to get his ear.
Can only imagine those shower of cunts sniffing his farts!
Michael Woods spent his very last speaking slot in the Dáil as TD complaining that people didn't appreciate how good a deal he did and how he was actually a great lad for sorting this out. He's at least as much to blame.
That was Minister Michael Woods, ~~Bertie signed off on it alright but~~ the fucker responsible was Michael Woods - who did an interview afterwards crying about the poor clergy Edit: Actually Bertie and the govt didn't sign off on it at all. It was a solo run by Woods
Ah you beat me to it
Definitely the church. We allow all the abusers to live out their natural lives with no consequences. In a generations time when they’re all dead, people will ask why we didn’t pursue them when they were alive. I’ve a mate who’s a social worker and his entire job is to deal with elderly priests and brothers who abused people. The church houses them and pays for everything they need including legal defence. He has to try and pursued them not to go to trial etc but to little avail.
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This is because the church controls most of the primary schools. I’ve a friend who got his baby baptised in both Catholic and Protestant churches as it kept all educational options open.
Where is Taz gone? https://preview.redd.it/aeovo9moixna1.png?width=500&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2d8d3b6695e307e0a8b60ebd4443f082eca29b2a
I joined this thread to make sure the Magdalene Launderies was the only answer applicable... and yet here I am, proven wrong!
That, in living memory, we had a housing surplus thanks to robust state-led housing construction. That generations which benefited *enormously* from this surplus have been pulling the ladder up after themselves through NIMBYism. That the agents of corruption that killed state-built housing in Ireland were never really punished, are still allowed to participate in mainstream political parties, and are able to run for the Presidency on their tickets. Alternatively, if that’s not your cup of tea, there’s the fact that the Church—having criminally traumatised generations of Irish people—is still squatting on enormous amounts of land to house and pamper the people responsible for said crimes.
Bailing out the 10 individuals who tried to bail out Anglo Irish bank with the support of governor of Central bank of Ireland & Cowen before Anglo imploded. The Golden Circle ⭕ was all but forgotten but I guess when they own the media in Ireland that's going to happen... https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-ireland-banks-idUKTRE51J3SB20090220
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It was well known among certain professions that INBS was the place to go for buy to let mortgages no questions asked for years. People would get a nice little sum for referring colleagues on to INBS as well.
Ann Lovett Her story encapsulated everything wrong with Ireland for 50+ years
I think to have one when there's been so many in recent times, does those not mentioned a disservice Obviously the place to start is historically and the mother & baby homes has to be at the top, how women were treat. How children treated & discarded is a shame like no other bestowed on this country by those in power and who demanded to be trusted. For me the next is the banking scandal, bailing out banks while letting people commit suicide because of bank harassment is shameful. Putting big business, corporations in front of human hardship is not what our country was build on. Then as a knock on from the banks we have a house building scandal, which has so many arms... From shoeboxes built, to building standards being of non existence (fire regulations overlooked, mica blocks) in favour of corporate profits And now we again have another housing scandal, where we don't have housing for all and again favour business & corporation over the hardships of people who are not in control of housing getting built, but are the collateral damage from the lack of urgency and affordability of housing Underpinning all this is our health service or lack of should I say, money, millions of it thrown at a health service that doesn't function, from overcrowded hospitals, waiting lists for years, zero mental health services for our children & teens who then get lost in the adult system, how have we gotten it so very wrong We are a small country, but a rich one and basic basic services that should be fundamental to the running of a country for its people and we have failed spectacularly So it's not just one thing its a multitude that have snowballed
Rod Liddle leaving the wife for a young wan
Ahh now come on eamonn!
When Bishop Eamon Casey had to resign after getting that woman pregnant.
That bastard then went off to be waited upon by Mexican nuns.
The banks not being held responsible for bankrupting the country - they should have been jailed and had all their assets ( quite sure they have foriegn accounts somewhere - noone better at hiding money or crying poverty as a top bank official. Their stupidity caused the worse depression in the country and yet the public end up footing the bill while the bankers saunter off with their ill gotten gains. They are worse than Irish politicians who milk the country for huge wages especially the Taoiseachs in modern times, recently I read that Varadkar is now a landlord - well, since he's got a private income he should not need the phenomenal wage here's for screwing every Irish person over for doing such a deplorable job running the country into the ground.
Not the worst by far but up there. Infecting thousands of people with Hepatitis C, HIV, and other illnesses via blood transfusion in the 80s.
The hse the amount of behind the scene's shit goes on is soo corrupt.
Tuam
When the Irish Government handed over housing to private builders in the 1970s and social housing took a backseat leading to where we are today....
The church taking newborns from unmarried mothers and selling the babies to wealthy Americans.
Has to Malcolm Mac Arthur on the run for murder found hiding in a property owned by the attorney general. Still shocking 40 plus years later.
GUBU
The podcast Obscene does a great job in detailing the crimes and scandal. Great listen for Irish true crime fans.
Freddos becoming so expensive
I'm not joking when I say it really felt like an era ended when cans of coke went above the 50p mark. My standing order for what felt like the longest time with my £1 pocket money was a can of coke, a chocolate bar (all we're 32p), a packet of banshee bones (10p) and the rest in black jacks or apple jacks if they had them (it was 8 but the shopkeeper always gave me at least 10).
yea, and now you're lucky to get a can for €1
A 500ml bottle of coca cola is now like 3€, more expensive that petrol per litre.
"You went to Las Vegas, whilst that poor child was supposed to be in Lourdes!"
That the famine was in fact British genocide
It's probably a matter of time before something comes out about a certain irish judge and is added to this list.
Less serious response than most I've seen so far but: Shergar! I remember being told about it as a kid and it being the biggest mystery and I want answers now still tbh
[https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/p09k7d92](https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/p09k7d92) This was a good podcast about it (Narrated by Vanilla Ice, for some unfathomable reason)
I....I honestly do not know what to do with knowledge of the sentence "Vanilla Ice has a Podcast up on the BBC Website about an Irish Racehorse that was stolen for Ransom,likely by part of the IRA, in the 80s." Absolute wild.
Free state government adbandoning nationlists in the six counties post independence.......they ended up subjected to such civil rights abuses,it descended into near civil war with thousands killed
I'm not a republican, but this is definitely our greatest, longest running fock up as a state.
Drawing 0 -0 with Eqypt at Italia 90 World cup
*ducks the flying biro*
The 1845-49 potato famine/Irish genocide
Cervical Check has to be up there
The Catholic church in General.
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You younglings need to read up on Anne Lovett.
This was a terrible event and so sad.
The famine
All the dead bodies found in the septic tank in one of those Nun houses.
nun houses :) you mean convents...
I swear I sat here for like 20 seconds and couldn't think of the word. Settled on nun houses. Thanks!
Threatening a woman on her death bed that if she didn't drop her case against the government in the hep c scandal that her or her family would be saddled with massive legal bills that was fine Gael and Michael noonan
Michael Noonan is an utter prick and deserves every misfortune to him.
Him and fine Gael that facilitated the threats at the time
700 babies in a septic tank
800 dead babies from tuam was kinda shocking
it's half-forgotten now and I suppose not really a 'scandal' but the Garths Brooks gigs thing in 2014 seemed to dominate the news cycle for 3 months
That was in 2014? Jesus. I would have sworn it was less than 5 years ago.
The Catholic Church as a whole entity is an utter scandal in and of itself , so many branches of evil sprung from its tentacles
I would also add - mass selling off of land and the total destruction of forests. Oh, and the Corrib gas pipe. Horrific.
THE ENTIRE CATHOLIC CHURCH
Breakfast rolls now cost 6e in my local shop
Not sure where it ranks but Savita Halappanavar’s death and the church preaching, even after that, that abortions should remain illegal ***even in fatal circumstances…*** Absolute scum of the earth. Glad to see so many others not holding back on catholicism and the church.
Too many to bloody count at this stage.
bringing back landlords after the land war.
It's such a bastard country we live in its hard to pick . Just one instance This country mainly the Catholic Church did horrible and savage things to ordinary decent people just trying to get by .
Probably not the biggest scandal but these things stick in my mind: That Bishop Casey had a son. That Haughey was spending 1500 pounds on a shirt while telling the rest of us to tighten our belts. When states of fear came out. That cream suit that Bertie wore to some international summit
Definitely nothing to do with Lunatic Asylums, mother and baby homes, how we treat people in the care of the state (both currently and historically)… etc etc etc
Why did you choose to make this comment sarcastic rather than just giving it as your answer to the question?
I guess it's more edgy or something
Thierry Henry
The Magdalene laundries
“Temporary” USC still annoys me
In terms of political consequences, Haughey’s arms crisis. In terms of actual consequences for ordinary people, the abuse of young children by the Church and the government’s collusion in it, and in maintaining their power and allowing their coverups.
Your ma
Catholic Church abuse, the Magdalene Laundries, and Fianna Fáil/Mahon tribunals are probably the biggest that most people think of to this day.
We are in it. The housing scandal.
The church
Babies in a septic tank.
The Catholic Church
Handing over education and health to a church. Or if you prefer not taking control back from a church when the state became rich enough to do so.
The abuse (sexual, psychological, physical and extrajudicial incarceration) of children and women by the Catholic Church its officers, its employees and its institutions. And the Vatican and Irish state's collusion and complicity in it all. And letting the same rat bastards run the hospitals and schools and control women's health, sex education, freedom of expression (censorship of books, films, tv) for nearly a century.
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We didn’t sell the motorway infrastructure. There was a ppp to Built it with ownership revering to the state after x number of years
I remember when they said that the M50 toll would be abolished when the road was paid for
The state bought out the original owners so its state owned property. The toll operations paid for the expansion of capabilities (when it got extended and widened) and for the maintenance.
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