The names of the children
The Journal.ie publishes, via Catherine Corless, the names of the 796 children who died at the Tuam “Mother and Baby Home” i.e. prison for unmarried mothers and their babies.
Very few pictures from the home exist but thanks to the tireless work of historian Catherine Corless, we do have the names of 796 children who died there between 1925 and 1960.
The infant mortality rate at the home was double that of even other mother and baby homes around the country at the time. Young children in the Tuam home succumbed to deaths from afflictions as heartbreakingly banal as the flu and, although only in a small number of cases, ear infections.
Flu is far from always “banal,” but that’s a detail.
The most common causes of death were “debility from birth” (25%), 15% from “respiratory diseases”, 10% each from influenza and the measles, 8% born too premature to survive, 6% from whooping cough and in smaller numbers of epilepsy/convulsions, gastroenteritis, meningitis, congenital heart disease and congenital syphilis, skin diseases, chicken pox and one per cent – 10 children – of malnutrition.
As of yet, we do not know how many of these children are among the remains found but Corless supplied the names of all of the children, and their age when they died, to TheJournal.ie.
In lieu of an inscription of each child’s name on a physical memorial, we publish them all here today.
Here’s one year:
1937
- Mary Kate Cahill 2 weeks
- Mary Margaret Lydon 3 months
- Festus Sullivan 1 month
- Annie Curley 3 weeks
- Nuala Lydon 5 months
- Bridget Collins 5 weeks
- Patrick Joseph Coleman 1 month
- Joseph Hannon 6 weeks
- Henry Monaghan 3 weeks
- Michael Joseph Shiels 7 weeks
- Martin Sheridan 5 weeks
- John Patrick Loftus 10 months
- Patrick Joseph Murphy 3 months
- Catherine McHugh 4 months
- Mary Patricia Toher 4 months
- Mary Kate Sheridan 4 months
- Mary Flaherty 19 months
- Mary Anne Walsh 14 months
- Eileen Quinn 2 years
- Patrick Burke 9 months
- Margaret Holland 2 days
- Joseph Langan 6 months
- Sabina Pauline O’Grady 6 months
- Patrick Qualter 3 years
- Mary King 5 months
- Eileen Conry 1 year
The page goes on forever.
H/t Dave
Pope John Paul II wrote all about the culture of the Bon Secours Sisters in Evangelium vitae (April 1995):
This reality is characterized by the emergence of a culture which denies solidarity and in many cases takes the form of a veritable ‘culture of death.’ This culture is actively fostered by powerful cultural, economic and political currents which encourage an idea of society excessively concerned with efficiency. Looking at the situation from this point of view, it is possible to speak in a certain sense of a war of the powerful against the weak: a life which would require greater acceptance, love and care is considered useless, or held to be an intolerable burden, and is therefore rejected in one way or another. A person who, because of illness, handicap or, more simply, just by existing, compromises the well-being or life-style of those who are more favoured tends to be looked upon as an enemy to be resisted or eliminated. In this way a kind of ‘conspiracy against life’ is unleashed.
Of course, JPII had abortion in mind when he wrote that, but if the shoe fits…
My understanding, from the overlapping reports, is that Corless’ list of 796 represents children who’s deaths were recorded, but who had no record of burial. That suggests that ‘legitimate’ deaths may have included even more victims.