“The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.” — from the Cairo speech by Obama.
Is that really what the “Holy Koran” teaches? It’s true, there is a verse in the Quran, taken verbatim from an earlier Jewish text, that says “whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind,” etc.
But that verse, verse 5.32, in the Quran is followed by another verse, one that Obama chose to overlook, and by overlooking, mislead not his Muslim audience (who were no doubt pleased he left out, just as any Muslim apologist for Islam would have left out, the following verse 5.33) but rather, all of the world’s Infidels, which includes 99% of the American people, whose welfare he is supposed to keep foremost in mind, for the right instruction and the protection of the American people is his solemn duty.
Quran 5:32-5:35
“That was why we laid it down for the Israelites that whoever killed a human being, except as punishment for murder or other villainy in the land, shall be regarded as having killed all mankind; and that whoever saved a human life shall be regarded as having saved all mankind. Our apostles brought them veritable proofs: yet many among them, even after that, did prodigious evil in the land. Those that make war against God and His apostle and spread disorder in the land shall be slain or crucified or have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides, or be banished from the land”(Quran 5:32-5:35)
ferryhouse clonmel was the same not making roasery beads, working for the local farmers and currens plastick factory making hair brushes free labourer Now there on there soap boxes preaching about child labour what a joke.until the admit to crimenal convictions we will not go away justice for the poor mishfortunate children that were dragged from there homes to be abused by the state and church and the money that they made went to build hospitals and schools
“Now there on there soap boxes preaching about child labour what a joke. Until they admit to crimenal convictions we will not go away justice for the poor mishfortunate children that were dragged from there homes to be abused by the state and church and the money that they made went to build hospitals and schools
Yeah, William, they are, surely, for forever and a day, on their respective worldwide soap boxes, preaching about child labour. Congregation of believers who listen to them and believe that they are concerned about child labour, have not been informed properly of their past behaviour in industrial schools. It needs survivors of our ilk to bring the true message home to their flock. As well as monies earned from inmates daily slogging – they even had the audacity to send our capitation grants to go towards training young postulants as school-teachers – yet we were only left with untrained lay-jam teachers to teach us the very bare necessities – if we were lucky.
Hopefully, the perpetrators will be brought to justice if we keep up the momentum in the wider world.
When u are writing about Goldenbridge you seem to be writing about the 50/60 I was there from 1935–1950 There was no beads class until Sr Xeveria came there Sr Bernadine gave her a free hand to do as she pleased. between Xeveria and a Miss Clancy (who later became Lawler when she married the handyman ) they made life Hell .Clancy had a alsatian who she used to herd us from one place to another like animals During all the time I was there we never had butter ,sugar or tea only bread and cocoa. I used to have to cut out the coupons during the years these things were rationed we were always Hungry. as far as im concered it was a form of ethnic cleansing. I still have the Conviction I received as a two year old . it has never been expunged M. Cornish Henderson
The Nuns have a lot to answer for they had dumped children everywhere even in Psychiatric Hospitals. St Luke`s Hospital Clonmel was where I was locked up for nearly three years…I escaped and was caught and severely punished…If you want to read more two books have just been published including Rosaleen`s Diary
`A COLLECTION OF POETRY BOOKS AND ROSALEEN`S DIARY…By Chipmunkapublishing publishing .com ISBN;9781847479273 £25.00P
This is their “Get Out Clause” – They, the Sisters and Brothers knew only too well that they could exploit the children because of this. I found it in the Acts.
Vocational Education Act, 1930
123 1930 29
[GA] Saving for industrial or reformatory school. 123.—Nothing in this Act shall be so construed as to interfere with or affect any certified industrial school or certified reformatory school.
They knew only too well that they would be able to work children until they dropped. Worse, they did not care.
Re: Survivors of Institutional Child Abuse Solidarity March to Dail Eireann.
“On behalf of the State and of all citizens of the State, the Government wishes to make a sincere and long overdue apology to the victims of childhood abuse for our collective failure to intervene, to detect their pain, to come to their rescue.” (Taoiseach’s Apology May 11, 1999)
There is a Silent March of Solidarity on Wednesday 10th June, at Noon at the Garden of Remembrance, to the Dail, for Survivors of institutional child abuse
Location: Garden of Remembrance to the Dáil. Everyone is invited to attend the march, which hopes to highlight the atrocities committed by the religious of 125 institutions. It is imperative that all proceed in total silence throughout the march past the GPO and on to the Dáil.
Petition: outside the Dail at 1 p.m. Christine Buckley, John Kelly, Noel Barry and Michael O’Brien will present the Petition of Solidarity to CORI and representatives of the 18 religious orders who signed the indemnity deal, who have been invited to accept it at 1 p.m.
White Ribbons: survivors of institutional abuse hope you can attend and encourage as many people as possible and public organisations to participate in the march.
We suggest that all participants wear a white ribbon for the silent march and bring a child’s shoe to represent the lives lost in the institutions.
Those who cannot attend can sign and post the Petition of Solidarity to PO Box 11618, Swords, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and the people of Ireland are also encouraged to wear a white ribbon on June 10 in solidarity with the survivors.
All the apoligizes in the world will not give us back our childhood or familys that were stolen from us, and the big part that the NSPCC and ISPCC played in having us sent to those HELLHOLES.For a bounty. What price did the put on our head. People in Ireland did not believe us for the last 10 years, only now that the Ryans report has come out. Where when Tom Sweeney was on HUNGER STRIKE???/. Remember that brother and sisters are still been kept apart in this day and age
Marie,May is talking of her Horrible time in Goldenbridge Reformatory from 1935 to 1950,God Help her Imagine anyone who call’s themselves religious sentenceing a BABY to Detention in a Reformatory for all of their childhood.May my heart goes out to you which is what happened to myself and my siblings ,we still don’t know each other,What years were you in goldenbridge,?did you know chrissie?or mona,angela,ect.bill,?I wonder how they got on in life.
Where is the I.3 Billion that is supposed to compansate Survivors of Industrial school’s going?say there are 135,000 Survivors who were detained in Irish Industrial Reformatorys ,In my estimation each Survivor should be given One Million Euro Each.THAT has not happened WHY NOT,WHY are Survivors given The Crumbs,Who is holding on to that money ???? Where is it,
Artane,young boys made to stand on a stool with their hands tied behind their backs the christian brother would kick the stool away causeing us to fall hard on the floor causing injury while being trashed ,,made to stand nakid in the corner after been trashed , tied to the pole in the yard while been trashed ,the brothers used a hurling stick to hurl a hard ball at the boys heads causing terrible injuries.this only is a tiny part of what went on in Artane.,
“When u are writing about Goldenbridge you seem to be writing about the 50/60. I was there from 1935–1950 There was no beads class until Sr Xeveria came there Sr Bernadine gave her a free hand to do as she pleased.”
That is correct, May, I was referring to the mid-fifties to late-sixties.
It was said to Judge Sean Ryan at the commission to inquire into institutional child abuse in 2005, regarding Goldenbridge, that:
“At some time in the early 1950s or even the late 1940s,Sr. Xaveria (Severia?) was approached by a businessman who suggested that the Institution could become involved in making rosary beads. Thus, the bead-making industry in Goldenbridge was introduced into the daily routine of the pupils, and it continued until the mid-1960s.”
I note, that it says the rosary beads industry continued until the mid sixties. I think I remember making rosary beads well into the late sixties. I must check it out, though, with other survivors who were there during that time.
Yuck, that “pupil” euphemism was quoted by Sister Helena O’ Donoghue. Also, the fact that St Bridget’s ‘classroom’ was used to set up a mini rosary bead factory was not forgotten by me when I went to the commission to tell my story. I reminded the dept of education officials there that its predecessors paid the religious capitation grants to educate us and that the classroom was used, after- hours as a child slave labour sweat shop.
Are you aware that
“Sr. Bernardine was characterised by Sr. Fabian as
“A paranoid schizophrenic who was considered as being grossly insulting to adults and children and who, in effect, established a regime of terror”.
How did you find Sr. Bernadine, May, was she very cruel to children? I gather from hearsay and the Goldenbridge transcript that she was a nasty piece of work.
Did you have to scrub all the floors using wooden kneelers and put rags around your feet to polish the corridors, dormitories and classrooms? like we did indeed. We used to slide up and down the classrooms when nobody in charge was in sight. I used to hate the chores of having to use steel (brillo pads, minus soap) to clean black marks off floors and washing all the skirting boards.
Goldenbridge 1948 to 1959..5-30am nuns and lay staff would come into the dorm and beat us out of bed with sticks,or throw the matteres with the child still asleep onto the freezing floor (there was no heating in the Dormatories we had to dress quick and make our beds ,stand to attention for inspection if there was a tiny crease the lot was thrown on the floor and we were beaten and had to do nit again, then form a straight line and march down to Mass whale the staff shouted >Left Right< (like in the army,those who wet their beds were beaten and after Mass had to go on the landing for another beating and forced to stand still in the freezing yard with the wet sheet over their heads,breakfast was Half a slice of moldy bread, watery coco,they we had to polish all the floors ,or scrub floors,while staff were behind us beating us and shouting insults st us,then we went into knitting class ,where we made jumpers ,socks,for the nuns to sell, then into the Rosary Factory where we were never able to even whisper to each other for if we were caught we would be sent to the landing for a terrible beating,the only sound heard was the clanging of the PLYERS making the Rosary's,sometimes we worked well into the night,sometimes twice a week we spent time in what they called the classroom learning the Mass which we had to know off by heart for a virble exam,when a priest came and asked us questions on that,we were taught to sing a hymn for when we were in Mass, the nuns decided to form a band with 20 children ,this lesson was terrifying children wet themselves out of FEAR,the beatings were shocking that left me with a blank mind where music is conserned our hands were always very sour red raw with Cuts, from being beated so often as well as having to hold the PLYERS in the rosary beed factory hours on end,I used to have to put the sleeve of my jumper over my Raw hand to hold the Plyer's the pain was unbareable but we couldn't make a sound.we had a so called teacher Miss L where we glued brown paper bags which the nuns sold to shops,The Nuns told us we didn't need to be able to write, all we needed to know was how to put an X on the page,there was no secondry education except a basic cookery lesson ,domestic work which we had a Woman from the Guv Dept to examine our Domestic work ie Polished floors, bed making, scrubed floors,laundry,This they called our EXAM.as they believed it useful if we got out they would send us into Domestic service,from 1958 only 3 survivors went out to the National convent school these were survivors who grew us in Goldenbridge and were already Damaged and traumatised and worried as everything they did was relayed back to the Nuns in the Industrial school ,FEAR FEAR all around thats all every child knew.as I got older >on owr way to mass especially in winter when it was pitch dark we would do this in turns ,one would stay at the back and when the staff were not looking your way as they were busy shouting >Left Right>
“what kind of reception do Survivors get when they return to Ireland after many years? Do they get any help? How do others retact toward’s them?? it is a huge emotional journey to take”
The reception survivors get when they come to Ireland from abroad is almost the same as the one survivors get when they come up from the country. Zilch. The Aislinn Centre in Dublin is the only service which is provided by the department of health/health and it is basically used for education purposes for a chosen few. The government would love us all to just go away. It never did, in the last decade, ever encourage us to gather together, for fear of the truth coming out – -but now that it has via the recent publication of the Ryan Report, it might just not ignore us any longer. Or is that just wishful thinking. Survivors in general react very negatively towards each other, as there are innumerable reminders swamping them, up to their knees, from past times spent together in their respective institutions. Gargantuan problems beset most survivors, as they have high expectations of those who grew up with them and when they are confronted with the reality of them they break down. It must be realised by all- painful though it be – that mostly all of the survivors are damaged people and that perhaps because of this fact, that they are not exactly the best people to sort out problems of other survivors, like the blind leading the blind. There should definitely be somewhere for those living abroad and those living in the country – who are just as isolated, to go when they come to Dublin. It should be brought to the attention of the government. All survivors should have equal access to services provided by the government. Propping up the chosen few is not on at all.
“If it happened to me…I would print the names of all of these people, of every nun and priest. Why don’t the survivors do that? Is it some legal problem? Surely there is a way to shame these people, to get their names out on the internet, “
Re names, etc: Nancy, ironically, the Ryan Report used pseudonymous French Canadian names to disguise perpetrators. (I say, what a lovely feeling it is not having to employ the “allegedly” or “purportedly” terminologies.) Yet in actuality, virtual names are thus mentioned in earlier commission to inquire into institutional child abuse hearings. The Sunday Tribune of last week outed the chief perpetrators, there were photographs to boot. it obviously did not give a fig. The ‘secrecy’ aspect in this respect is rather farcical.
The Ryan Report, welcome as it is, has only pulled the skin off the Industrial Schools system, we must now continue to agitate for the skin to be pulled off the Magdalen Asylums obscenity.
“If you want to read more two books have just been published including Rosaleen`s Diary”
Thanks very much Dr. Rosaleen for bringing your written work to my attention I shall definitely purchase them soon! Gosh, I would love to have signed copies. I am a sticker for autographed books. It is terribly sad that you had to spend three years of your life cooped up in a hospital and to be brutally treated by the religious.
“Surely the boldest way forward is to tell the uncomfortable truth instead of obsequious fawning”
Obama’s “change” is of the cheapest kind. It merely means stop criticizing Islam and start telling Muslims how beautiful their faith really is.
Obama professed to “speak the truth,” yet he falsely portrayed Islam, as something that is “not exclusive,” that “overlaps” and “need not be in competition” with “America.”
Actually, Islam is, by its very nature, also a political program that obliges its adherents to demand submission of all others, Muslims (especially secular and apostate ones) and non-Muslims, alike.
Nancy, I am in Dublin. Yeah, Andrew (see a few posts down) would be responsible for putting up on the web, brilliant stuff appertaining to boys institutions. People around the world definitely need to see the insides of these child labour camps, via video footage and photo’s, etc. There is none better to show them than survivors like andrew who has done gargantuan work over the years apropos this diabolical
subject. Google the knitter’s profile as you will understand from whence he is coming.
I was in Goldenbridge during the mid-fifties/the wrong side of the sixties.
Yeah, you could write to all elected Irish TD’s, Tanaiste, Taoiseach and senators and let them know what you feel about the Ryan Report.
I went all over Donegal some years ago – it is a very scenic county.
Incest was rampant in Ireland of old and it still goes on to this very day. Barbara Naughton a young woman who used to hang about with a lot of us throughout the years was spurred on two write two books about her experiences of sexual abuse at the hands of her father, ‘Why Can’t I Speak and ‘Daddy Please Don’t.’ That was her therapy.
Also, in1995, Sophia McColgan’s father was sentenced to prison for the serial rape and abuse of his children over many years. He had first raped Sophia when she was only six. ‘Sophia’s Story’ by Susan McKay a journalist, is a very traumatic book which records a triumph of the human spirit in the face of the most degrading and destructive betrayal of trust. Both survivor/author are from your neck of the irish woods.
It is so painful to hear about people taking their lives because of the effects of sexual abuse and doubly so, when one hears that it comes from within ones own family. No, they are certainly not the memories one would want to cherish about ones family. So sad!
>UN free speech rapporteur told to watch his mouth by the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Conference.. if he continues to contradict their interpretation of what “free speech” meant, they would seek to have him stripped of his position.
The OIC is one of the largest intergovernmental organizations in the world. It encompasses 56 Muslim states plus the Palestinian Authority. Spread over four continents, it claims to speak in the name of the ummah (the universal Muslim community), which numbers about 1.3 billion.
As stated in its 1990 Cairo Declaration on “Human Rights in Islam”, the OIC is strictly tied to the principles of the Koran, the Sunnah, and the Sharia.
When I read the various comments, they ring a bell. Behaviour was learned the Nuns, Sisters of Mercy bullied the Children, then when they became the Big Girls they behaved or aped the Nuns. We were detached from each other. Love was a far distant memory for me. I was taken from a very loving Mother and placed in a Prison. I lost Me for many years. Finally I have reclaimed the Kathleen O’Malley who was Praised and loved by her Mother. It has taken many years though. What we must not do is allow our abusers to continue to control us so in spite of their moral highground they are the loosers. there are two Nuns living in Moate, Co Westmeath, who by todays standards would have been convicted of Domestic Violence with a CRIMINAL CONVICTION imposed on them and possibly a Prison sentence. I requested they attend a meeting last year in my presence. they had the right to refuse, which they did. The sisters of Mercy were not unlike
Hitlers Regime, the Orphans as we were called were treated like Aliens or rather something you would wipe off your shoe.
One could say there is repetition in each and every comment. I have seen but one girl who was in Moate with me yet the stories of abuse is Nationwide. The Judicial system, N.S.P.C.C. Religious and Government were a corrupt and devious group of Leaders. They each committed Perjury just to fill the Child Prisons and Capatalise from our Slavery. We worked from morning to dusk and were malnurished. Our heads were walking alive with head lice, we stank of Urine as we had but one bath a fortnight and many of us wet the bed nightly. for this we were FLOGGED.
My sisters and I were taken from our Mother who had Prosecuted a Paedophile, who had Raped me as a Child of Eight and infected me with a venerial disease. The Court Papers (N.S.P.C.C.) claimed she was unfit and that we were destitute. this also was a standard report. I as a Child of Eight was cross examined in open Court by an all male Jury in 1950.
Shame on Ireland for the hardship it inflicted on the children and Parents of Ireland for many decades.
“There was NO facilities at all for Disabled Survivors on their return to the hearing. This is against human rights and those who have gone and are disabled in very serious ways”
Do you mean that there was no ramp and proper bathroom facilities at the redress board building in Clonskeagh? Have you been in contact with Paddy Doyle about this issue at all? He would be the ideal person to chat to concerning this matter.
BTW, Paddy Doyle and Christine Buckley and other survivors were on the Joe Duffy show this afternoon. They were giving out yards about fact that the opposition party leader, Enda Kenny had decided to ask for a “confidence’ and/or ‘no confidence” motion in the government (in light of the recent BY and European election results disaster on the part of the sitting government) at a very crucial time, when the Ryan Report should have been discussed in an important debate at the Dail. Alas, the Solidarity March from the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Sq to Dail Eireann was meant to coincide with the Ryan Report debate at the Dail and the group were planning to tie it all up nicely with the media and Cori on board as well. However, all media coverage has been diverted on to the ‘confidence/no confidence motion and CB and PD are fuming that the opposition party, who had promised an all party line on institutional abuse should take this selfish stand. They both reckoned that politicians put their own needs before the very serious issues of past institutional abuse. They were so right in their summations – the Ryan Report debate had to take a back seat while the politicians take the front ones -as per usual. Paddy, who spoke so eloquently to Joe, also, informed listeners that the meeting which was held between the abuse groups and the cabinet leaders last week was all one-sided. Meaning, that the only ones who spoke were the respective abuse groups – the leaders never opened their mouths. So utterly farcical! It goes without saying that – a shut mouth catches no flies! That is so laughable. The crafty political buggers played the silent puppet part once again. They were not giving anything away. I thought that when abuse groups, said, after the meeting, that they were listened attentively to by the government, that it had a different connotation. Nothing is unsurprising to me at all. I sincerely believe that the government is only using abuse groups to hide behind them. We must never forget that it is big time implicated in all of this child abuse debacle – as well as the religious. The government spin-doctors and PR people must be working overtime by the new time. A leopard does not change its skin.
>Hasibullah Sadiqi gunned down his sister Khatera and her fiancé Feroz Mangal…motivated by a perverted notion of honour and respect for the sole purpose of restoring the family’s reputation and respect in the Afghan community.
The notion is “perverted” by the Canadian-western standards.
As stated by Pierre Trudeau, ” The government will support and encourage the various cultures and ethnice groups that give structure and vitatity to our society. They will be encouraged to share their cultural expressions and values with other Canadians and so contribute to a richer life for us all.”(20 Years Of Multiculturalism)
For Obama, Christian rhetoric offers an opportunity to connect with a broader base of supporters in a nation in which 83 percent of Americans believe in God. What’s more, regularly invoking Jesus helps Obama minimize the number of American who believe he is a Muslim — a linkage that can be politically damaging..And he suspects that Obama has an even larger goal: the resurrection of the largely dormant Christian Left..A Pew survey released May 21 found that even as Americans remain highly religious, there has there been a slow decline in the number of Americans with socially conservative values – especially among young voters. That creates an opening for Obama, especially at a time when some conservative evangelicals are telling pollsters they are frustrated and disillusioned with politics.
Organisers of a silent demonstration in memory of survivors abused in church-run institutions will leave children’s shoes piled at the Dail railings following the march. Groups who plan on a solidarity walk through Dublin on Wednesday have called on people attending to bring white ribbons to tie to the gates of Leinster House as a mark of respect for those who suffered and died at the hands of religious orders. A petition with thousands of names will also be handed over to the head of the Congregation of Religious of Ireland, Marianne O’ Connor, Christian Brother, Kevin Mullan and at least one representative from other orders named in the Ryan report will also attend. I wonder will Sister Helena O’ Donoghue, Sister of Mercy, be present. She was allegedly attacked by a survivor after the Late Late show some years ago – or, will it be a case of once bitten twice shy? I have an ornamental green wellie boot with black sheep on it and I am going to bring that along with me with a big candle in it to boot. As for a child’s shoe I shall have to get one from a charity shop as I would not know the meaning of a family – never having had one because of all the past trauma in my past life. Babies and families frightened the life out of me, because they represented ‘attachment’ and I have never done ‘attachment.’
by Jon Swain and Bojan Pancevski in The Sunday Times
A harrowing account of the final hours of the kidnapped British tourist Edwin Dyer before he was murdered by Islamic militants in the Sahara desert last week has been given by an Arab intermediary who was negotiating for his release.
“Who are these British?” he asked. “Just western unbelievers. Islam tells us not to have any links with unbelievers. That is why this man [Dyer] will be executed in the name of God.”…
“They will see that we are jihadists, envoys of God, and their deaths will be the fault of their governments and their policies.
A Harvard law professor who provides analysis on CNN has a lot in common with a scholar of Islamic law, said the Muslim-cultural Student Association’s spring speaker Asifa Quraishi on Tuesday night. The University of Wisconsin law professor spoke to an audience of about 55 in Fisk Hall, drawing parallels between the U.S. Constitution and Islamic law.
“These two legal worlds are usually described as completely alien to each other, but as an American Muslim, I’m completely comfortable looking at similarities,” Quraishi said. “We’re at a place in the world’s lifetime that it might help looking at similarities.”
For McCormick freshman Quaraishi’s overall message was pertinent to today’s political environment, he said.
“There are obvious misconceptions about Shariah,” Yaqubie said. “But the major thing is that Shariah and Constitutional law aren’t opposites. It doesn’t have to be one way or the other.”
….Nothing prepared me for the way in which the authorities at the camp have allowed the most extreme religious cultists among the inmates to be the organizers of the prisoners’ daily routine. Suppose that you were a secular or unfanatical person caught in the net by mistake; you would still find yourself being compelled to pray five times a day (the guards are not permitted to interrupt), to have a Quran in your cell, and to eat food prepared to halal (or Sharia) standards. I suppose you could ask to abstain, but, in such a case, I wouldn’t much fancy your chances. The officers in charge were so pleased by this ability to show off their extreme broad-mindedness in respect of Islam that they looked almost hurt when I asked how they justified the use of taxpayers’ money to create an institution dedicated to the fervent practice of the most extreme version of just one religion. To the huge list of reasons to close down Guantanamo, add this: It’s a state-sponsored madrasah.
>The scandal of the abuse was described as Ireland’s mini holocaust by several campaigners today.
Why does it always have to be a “holocaust”? Is it not wrong enough? Why does it have to be like the Nazis industrialised genocide? This kind of inflation is sign of hysteria, it doesn’t serve us humanists any good, on the contrary it helps in blurring everything and helps drown the discourse in demagogy: “Abortion is murder” or “Tiller is Mengele” anyone?
Labeling as anything else would run the serious risk of being regarded as insignificant.
Or, worse, even trigger a negative reaction instead of one of empathy and compassion because it eats from the time (it sidetracks) and threatens to compete with what is expected (with what is proper) to be mourned all day long in the present western culture.
As the world famous philosopher Theodor Adorno had it poignantly : “writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric”.
>.. from what I have read the phrase ‘The Holocaust’ which did not come into being until the late 1950’s.
It was used already in 1929 by Winston Churchill. Over one and a half million Armenians perished in a centrally-organized, government perpetrated and government-run campaign of anihilation. Branded later as administrative holocaust by Winston Churchill, it had one clear and express aim, to rid Western Armenia of it indigenous Armenian population seen as a threat to the efforts of turning the collapsing Ottoman Empire into a homogenous Turkish state.
For sure, the ‘application’ of the word was even employed far earlier by Irish newspapers, in the 1800’s, in reference to 2 million people who died in the Irish famine, than Winston Churchill’s mention of it in ‘The Aftermath, 1929, p. 158)’.
Frighteningly, too, Adolf Hitler used ‘the modern Armenian genocide’ to justify the Nazi murder of six million Jews, saying in 1939: “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians.
But still the capitalised phrase ‘The Holocaust’ was not in place until the late 1950’s.
Even after the war, the Ottoman ministers never recognised the genocide. In 1920, they praised those responsible for the massive slaughter, saying: “These things were done to secure the future of our homeland, which we know is greater and holier than even our own lives.”
It smacks a little of the denial held by the Christian Brothers of generational child abuse in Ireland’s industrial school’s run by them in the past- before the release of the Ryan Report. Denial, like holocausts/Holocausts are clerly part of the history of mankind.
“Why does it have to be a holocaust”
Would ‘holocaust of abuse’ be a better phrase to use regarding children who were systematically abused for generations in industrial schools?
I just wanted to point out that when you call something “a holocaust” or “mini-Holocaust” the reference to the Shoah (the Jewish genocide during WW2) is clearly visible and intended, and this has certain implications. The scale of this mass murder makes it quite unique, comparable in that direction only with the Armenian genocide, or the political inspired mass murders in Soviet Russia, Red China or Cambodia, not to speak from some semi-intended consequences like the “Holodomor” (“starvationisation”) in Ukraine and South Russia thanks to Stalin’s “class-struggle on the countryside”.
But besides “quantity” we also have a qualitative criteria for distinctions: while all of those organised mass murders costed hundreds of thousands of lifes we only call the ones with racist intentions “genocides” (or “race murder” after a definition worked out by Raphael Lemkin) that was taken over by the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
(quoted from wikipedia)
Even though some classify certain arrangements in the school system of some countries as “genocidal”- the ban for pupils to speak the native language in order to erase their culture (as it happened in schools for the native Americans f.e. and is still happening in Turkish schools in the Kurdish areas) esp. if it is enforced by violence against the children, I cannot see similarities to what happened in the Irish schools. On the contrary: I find the attempt to call it “genocide” or something like it dishonest, demagogic and finally counter-productive because this strategy of inflated victimhood is in the end self-defeating: we reduce the public debate to a spectacle of competitive emotional claims, a “grief-fest” and shouting match.
We have a lot of words to describe the horrors of what happened in the Irish Catholic schools-system: organised child molestation, child rape, child-enslavement. I still shudder when I imagine what those children suffered through there, and how lucky I was to be able to play and to freely develop myself in that age.
It was not however a “holocaust” not even a “mini” one. This might be hard to understand for people that suffered so much there, but it is the truth, that btw. does not diminish their suffering or their claims for compensation or the necessity of the society to prevent this from happening again.
Our opponents in the “culture wars” do not use those distinctions when they cry “Holocaust” about aborted fetuses, or call honorable doctors like Dr. Tiller “Mengele” in Goebbelian smear campains (you see I’m not at all against using Nazi-comparisons, but please proper ones) in which they try to dehumanise their political opponent. Their means show their ends: they obviously want a society build on lies and hysteria, on stupidity and ignorance instead of informed debates.
But ours is not only a struggle for the epistemology (which is part of “the ends”, maybe) but rather about the means:
We demand a clear and honest debate – our opponents opt for lies and demagogy instead and to point this out is our moral duty as humanists, that’s one way we make sure we have the truth on our side, we shouldn’t lose it, even in the heat of public debate and political struggle.
Remember: “Never again” is a slogan that does not only apply to the evils of genocide but to all evils and injustices.
Children who were Locked up in Industrial Reformatories Not only lost ,Roots,Birthdays,Names(by only been known by a number)Our Natural development,Our Childhood’s,We Lost our whole background and our Families,and any Siblings we might have had ,as the Courts sentenced Siblings to different Industrial Reformatories in different parts of Ireland where all contact was cut off between Siblings by the Dept of Education and the Religious orders.to this day Siblings dont know each other.A lot of Survivors who left ireland live Isolated Lonley Lives ,those who did try to return faced More Abuse,and are made to feel NOT welcome.The Religious and Guv Dept’sSet up Abuse Groups in ireland,and use those Abuse Groups to Hide behind, the person chosen to run the groups grew up in Reformatorie Industrial schools themselves how can they possibly help others who are damaged .those who try to return often with their families need outside Professional help.away from groups.this must be a right.survivors should have been given enough to buy themselves a home in order that they can return home.if they wish.
OMG, The following snippet of information puts the holocaust/Holocaust terminology into proper perspective. It beggars belief. My stomach is absolutely churning – just merely thinking about what this monstrous professional doctor did to defenceless little children.
“He seemed particularly keen on working with Romani children. He would bring them sweets and toys, and would personally take them to the gas chamber. They would call him “Onkel Mengele”. Vera Alexander was a Jewish inmate at Auschwitz who looked after 50 sets of Romani twins:
“I remember one set of twins in particular: Guido and Ina, aged about four. One day, Mengele took them away. When they returned, they were in a terrible state: they had been sewn together, back to back, like Siamese twins. Their wounds were infected and oozing pus. They screamed day and night. Then their parents – I remember the mother’s name was Stella – managed to get some morphine and they killed the children in order to end their suffering.]”
Thank you SM for pointing out clearly to me the true definition of the holocaust/Holocaust/mini-holocaust. Gosh, one should not play around with words in light of the above knowledge. Yes, it is, as you say, “dishonest, demagogic and finally counter-productive because this strategy of inflated victimhood is in the end self-defeating: we reduce the public debate to a spectacle of competitive emotional claims, a “grief-fest” and shouting match.”
Perpetual mental, emotional, psychological depravation, child-enslavement, rape, and other integral bodily violations, forced imprisonment,lack of knowledge of parents, separation of siblings, stolen childhoods, over generations of children, should, in my estimation, have a word all of its own.
I recently read a memoir of an intellectual Polish professor, Countess, Carolina Lankcaronska -who had spent some years in various concentration camps -most notably, ‘Ravensbruck’. She wrote about experiments which ‘the rabbits’ (young girls) had to endure under the hands of a similar doctor to Mengele. Horrendous stuff!
To Any person who has Old Photo’s of Survivors taken when they were in Industrial schools for God’s sake have them COPIED< and send copies to the bodies who are connected to survivors ,ie if their place of abode is known in Ireland,or hand copie's to solicitor's, in Dublin,or Bernardo's or,,Manchester Irish centre, London Irish Centre,It would help<
Bernadette Fahy is right,every survivor must be given enough money to enable them to buy their own home back in Ireland if we want to,without Control.or anywhere we we want to settle. Stop the Bullies .it is time Survivors are properly COMPENSATED.
YES your right, it is heartbreaking to think those Survivors who returned to Ireland were put through shocking BULLYING ,which frightened them out of ireland.we should help them to come back and see there is protection in place.those who Bullied returning survivors should be ashamed.Think About what YOU DID.The religious did a good job .bullying and abuse of returning survivors will have caused more damage .Do the bullies care???they know who they are.
‘Children who were locked up in industrial schools/reformatories, not only lost Roots, Birthdays, Names (by only been known by a number)”
Yeah, so much more than just cruel regimes prevailed in institutions. As you say, deprivation of roots, birthdays, and names was also rife.
It is so painful for survivors not knowing their roots. I went down that painful ‘roots’ road of discovery and the pangs of pain still hang on in my being, as I am still only midway down that road, grappling with the painful legacy. I went looking for the grave of my mother when I was in my mid-twenties, as I was told by management at GB that I once had a mother but that she had died. She had initially worked part-time (as an outsider) for one year in GB when I first entered there – but had obviously disappeared into oblivion, hence my being given false information. I do know that this kind of information was habitually given to children – when they left their respective institutions at sixteen years old. It was such a common occurrence and many survivors as adults have never recovered from the discovery of finding their parents still alive. It ate/eats up so much of their emotional survival capacities. All this kit has to be contended with on top of having to deal with the after effects of their past incarcerations in institutions. Survivors cups are overflowing with the legacy of neglect and rights on many accounts of the industrial schools system.
Birthday’s just never existed in GB excepting that of la la’s. Most inmates never questioned anything about themselves, not even their names, let alone their birthdays, when they were in Goldenbridge. As they did not know there were “themselves”. Children were given hints of the disgracefulness of their mothers (mostly) when they were holding up their wets sheets in shame to the head honcho – but never any hints as to their birthday dates. The only numbers they knew were the ones given them on arrival in the institution and they were referred to by these numbers throughout their whole penal period. Like food we have big issues as adults with birthday’s and even cry our hearts out and become irrational when people forget to send us cards or remember us.
BTW, what number were you when you were in Goldenbridge? I was number 155 when I first went there. Subsequently, though, at the age of nine years old I went out to stay with a host family for ten months. Alas, I was found wandering alone around O’ Connell St, (centre of Dublin city) and was hauled back to Goldenbridge by the merciless sisters in a black Maria. I never had the privilege of ever going out again with a family, or even had visitations of any description from human beings. I envied so much, pets, (la la’s) who were especially selected to go out with posh families and who had visits – they were given not only one family – but a multiplicity of families to go out with – while children of my ilk were hidden behind closed prison walls. Pets consequently suffered at the hands of very frustrated children (like moi )who derived immense joy in sticking out their tongues at them or pulling the big aeroplanes off their shiny long haired swelled heads.
Oops, to conclude, I had the privilege of having two numbers, because, when I returned to Goldenbridge and was departed with my mane I was given number 39. From there on in as well as never having an earthly soul to visit me, I basically also never saw the outside of the institution until I was sixteen years old.
I would like to state here that I do not belong to any survivor organisation. In fact I was frozen out by Aislinn Centre, sent to eternal coventry, a few years ago, because I took a personal stand of protesting outside the premises, when Brian Lenihan, the now minister for finance visited there. I was told in no uncertain terms to take my banner down to the Dail. This was done for self-preservation purposes and I try to look at it from that perspective. It was beholden to the government. Please do not think that survivors from abroad are the only ones on the receiving end of the cold shoulder at the hands of abuse organisations, such as Aislinn Centre. Some survivors in Ireland also feel they are not catered for properly. I have felt the same type of pain as you have and I know there are many more survivors out there who feel a similar pain. I know too, for definite, that traumatised survivors in Ireland have given helping hands to their fellow survivors from abroad and some of the the former have been treated abominably by those they helped. There are therefore bullies who raise their voices, but there are essentially, also, psychological bullies who are very manipulative, who do need to raise their voices but who vehemently point the finger and play dangerous games. One has to look at the bigger picture. If you cannot beat them join them by trying to better yourself – because you will only be eaten up by anger – try to turn your anger around. I do – it is not easy, but you will be amazed, it does work, albeit, very very slowly. Try to look to the bigger world, the outside world, do not implode and make other survivors your tormenters – because all you are doing is projecting on to them so obvious – big time.
“… presently residing on the plant are completely wrong, evil and must be opposed to the last?”
If such errors can occur in this day and age – with [F7] and all – and not even copied or translated, imagine how much room for miscontruing (misconstrument?) in 4000 years!
We can learn from this: If I print this out and preserve it, will the people in 4000 years be arguing about whether evil people were forced by a god to live in trees or whether it just means they were all vegetarians, or were/are all vegetarians evil?
Traumtised survivors who gave a helping hand to survivors from abroad HOW?its impossible.and psychologically damaging for all concerned as all survivors especially those from the 1930’s-1950’s early 1960’who left ireland would have been totally cut off alone most never hinted to anyone at all about where they grew up,many changed their names,and created a whole new identity for themselves,not even their husbands nor children knew .those survivors minds were locked for years.it was those who were treated Abominably, The trauma of going back after so long the fear.alone and desperately searching for someone to belong to or anyone who might remember them as a child.often suffering from depression.professional trained help should have been available and must be.as thoseof us who stayed were at least in our own country and knew others help though little was there,returning survivors knew noone .and should have been treated gently with care.returning Survivors were treated ABOMINABLY.and Bullied.Noone wanted to know.How” Cruel is that??
Roman Catholic priests in Ireland became quite uneasy as the drink-drive limit on blood-alcohol was further reduced, to the extent that after a morning of several masses they might find themselves over the limit… so Roman catholic priests do not actually believe in transsubstatiation ? tell that to all the martyrs they burned at the stake
Survivors have been used enough by others who only line their own pockets$$$$$$$$$££££,IF????any compansation is paid out it has to go to each individual survivor, Not to be put into some corupt trust fund where survivor’s would be remended of the horrible past every time we want OUR MONEY to beg from some Lawyer, most don’t belong to any groups or so called services for survivors.and don’t want to.and most Dont live in Ireland anyway,but Austraila like my Brother, Canada, England, Germany,Ect, We are Grown Up’s now.and want control IF????we are given compansation most of us would buy our own homes and be able to leave it to the benifit of our Families.
Hi Michael.The nun’s in goldenbridge industrial reformatory have already been named often in news papers ect by mrs buckley who gets huge funding and pay from the guv dept to run the aislinn As its ok for her then it has to be ok for all of us survivors to name our Abusers What can they do arrest us and put us in prison ,>>>Dont think so,they are the Wicked monster’s .leave your e-mail blank.for your welcome comment.justice for survivors.Kind regards to you.from another survivor.
Holy Obama, Holy Quran, and Islam
“The Holy Koran teaches that whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind; and whoever saves a person, it is as if he has saved all mankind.” — from the Cairo speech by Obama.
Is that really what the “Holy Koran” teaches? It’s true, there is a verse in the Quran, taken verbatim from an earlier Jewish text, that says “whoever kills an innocent, it is as if he has killed all mankind,” etc.
But that verse, verse 5.32, in the Quran is followed by another verse, one that Obama chose to overlook, and by overlooking, mislead not his Muslim audience (who were no doubt pleased he left out, just as any Muslim apologist for Islam would have left out, the following verse 5.33) but rather, all of the world’s Infidels, which includes 99% of the American people, whose welfare he is supposed to keep foremost in mind, for the right instruction and the protection of the American people is his solemn duty.
Quran 5:32-5:35
“That was why we laid it down for the Israelites that whoever killed a human being, except as punishment for murder or other villainy in the land, shall be regarded as having killed all mankind; and that whoever saved a human life shall be regarded as having saved all mankind. Our apostles brought them veritable proofs: yet many among them, even after that, did prodigious evil in the land. Those that make war against God and His apostle and spread disorder in the land shall be slain or crucified or have their hands and feet cut off on alternate sides, or be banished from the land”(Quran 5:32-5:35)
ferryhouse clonmel was the same not making roasery beads, working for the local farmers and currens plastick factory making hair brushes free labourer Now there on there soap boxes preaching about child labour what a joke.until the admit to crimenal convictions we will not go away justice for the poor mishfortunate children that were dragged from there homes to be abused by the state and church and the money that they made went to build hospitals and schools
“Now there on there soap boxes preaching about child labour what a joke. Until they admit to crimenal convictions we will not go away justice for the poor mishfortunate children that were dragged from there homes to be abused by the state and church and the money that they made went to build hospitals and schools
Yeah, William, they are, surely, for forever and a day, on their respective worldwide soap boxes, preaching about child labour. Congregation of believers who listen to them and believe that they are concerned about child labour, have not been informed properly of their past behaviour in industrial schools. It needs survivors of our ilk to bring the true message home to their flock. As well as monies earned from inmates daily slogging – they even had the audacity to send our capitation grants to go towards training young postulants as school-teachers – yet we were only left with untrained lay-jam teachers to teach us the very bare necessities – if we were lucky.
Hopefully, the perpetrators will be brought to justice if we keep up the momentum in the wider world.
When u are writing about Goldenbridge you seem to be writing about the 50/60 I was there from 1935–1950 There was no beads class until Sr Xeveria came there Sr Bernadine gave her a free hand to do as she pleased. between Xeveria and a Miss Clancy (who later became Lawler when she married the handyman ) they made life Hell .Clancy had a alsatian who she used to herd us from one place to another like animals During all the time I was there we never had butter ,sugar or tea only bread and cocoa. I used to have to cut out the coupons during the years these things were rationed we were always Hungry. as far as im concered it was a form of ethnic cleansing. I still have the Conviction I received as a two year old . it has never been expunged M. Cornish Henderson
The Nuns have a lot to answer for they had dumped children everywhere even in Psychiatric Hospitals. St Luke`s Hospital Clonmel was where I was locked up for nearly three years…I escaped and was caught and severely punished…If you want to read more two books have just been published including Rosaleen`s Diary
`A COLLECTION OF POETRY BOOKS AND ROSALEEN`S DIARY…By Chipmunkapublishing publishing .com ISBN;9781847479273 £25.00P
Author`s Name Doctor Rosaleen O`Brien
2) A COLLECTION OF PROSE AND POETRY
By above publisher ISBN; 9781847479266
Author; Doctor Rosaleen O`Brien
This is their “Get Out Clause” – They, the Sisters and Brothers knew only too well that they could exploit the children because of this. I found it in the Acts.
Vocational Education Act, 1930
123 1930 29
[GA] Saving for industrial or reformatory school. 123.—Nothing in this Act shall be so construed as to interfere with or affect any certified industrial school or certified reformatory school.
They knew only too well that they would be able to work children until they dropped. Worse, they did not care.
Regards
Re: Survivors of Institutional Child Abuse Solidarity March to Dail Eireann.
“On behalf of the State and of all citizens of the State, the Government wishes to make a sincere and long overdue apology to the victims of childhood abuse for our collective failure to intervene, to detect their pain, to come to their rescue.” (Taoiseach’s Apology May 11, 1999)
There is a Silent March of Solidarity on Wednesday 10th June, at Noon at the Garden of Remembrance, to the Dail, for Survivors of institutional child abuse
Location: Garden of Remembrance to the Dáil. Everyone is invited to attend the march, which hopes to highlight the atrocities committed by the religious of 125 institutions. It is imperative that all proceed in total silence throughout the march past the GPO and on to the Dáil.
Petition: outside the Dail at 1 p.m. Christine Buckley, John Kelly, Noel Barry and Michael O’Brien will present the Petition of Solidarity to CORI and representatives of the 18 religious orders who signed the indemnity deal, who have been invited to accept it at 1 p.m.
White Ribbons: survivors of institutional abuse hope you can attend and encourage as many people as possible and public organisations to participate in the march.
We suggest that all participants wear a white ribbon for the silent march and bring a child’s shoe to represent the lives lost in the institutions.
Those who cannot attend can sign and post the Petition of Solidarity to PO Box 11618, Swords, Co. Dublin, Ireland, and the people of Ireland are also encouraged to wear a white ribbon on June 10 in solidarity with the survivors.
The petition of solidarity can be obtained from mariethereseoloughlin@yahoo.ie Thank you.
All the apoligizes in the world will not give us back our childhood or familys that were stolen from us, and the big part that the NSPCC and ISPCC played in having us sent to those HELLHOLES.For a bounty. What price did the put on our head. People in Ireland did not believe us for the last 10 years, only now that the Ryans report has come out. Where when Tom Sweeney was on HUNGER STRIKE???/. Remember that brother and sisters are still been kept apart in this day and age
Marie,May is talking of her Horrible time in Goldenbridge Reformatory from 1935 to 1950,God Help her Imagine anyone who call’s themselves religious sentenceing a BABY to Detention in a Reformatory for all of their childhood.May my heart goes out to you which is what happened to myself and my siblings ,we still don’t know each other,What years were you in goldenbridge,?did you know chrissie?or mona,angela,ect.bill,?I wonder how they got on in life.
Where is the I.3 Billion that is supposed to compansate Survivors of Industrial school’s going?say there are 135,000 Survivors who were detained in Irish Industrial Reformatorys ,In my estimation each Survivor should be given One Million Euro Each.THAT has not happened WHY NOT,WHY are Survivors given The Crumbs,Who is holding on to that money ???? Where is it,
Artane,young boys made to stand on a stool with their hands tied behind their backs the christian brother would kick the stool away causeing us to fall hard on the floor causing injury while being trashed ,,made to stand nakid in the corner after been trashed , tied to the pole in the yard while been trashed ,the brothers used a hurling stick to hurl a hard ball at the boys heads causing terrible injuries.this only is a tiny part of what went on in Artane.,
“When u are writing about Goldenbridge you seem to be writing about the 50/60. I was there from 1935–1950 There was no beads class until Sr Xeveria came there Sr Bernadine gave her a free hand to do as she pleased.”
That is correct, May, I was referring to the mid-fifties to late-sixties.
It was said to Judge Sean Ryan at the commission to inquire into institutional child abuse in 2005, regarding Goldenbridge, that:
“At some time in the early 1950s or even the late 1940s,Sr. Xaveria (Severia?) was approached by a businessman who suggested that the Institution could become involved in making rosary beads. Thus, the bead-making industry in Goldenbridge was introduced into the daily routine of the pupils, and it continued until the mid-1960s.”
I note, that it says the rosary beads industry continued until the mid sixties. I think I remember making rosary beads well into the late sixties. I must check it out, though, with other survivors who were there during that time.
Yuck, that “pupil” euphemism was quoted by Sister Helena O’ Donoghue. Also, the fact that St Bridget’s ‘classroom’ was used to set up a mini rosary bead factory was not forgotten by me when I went to the commission to tell my story. I reminded the dept of education officials there that its predecessors paid the religious capitation grants to educate us and that the classroom was used, after- hours as a child slave labour sweat shop.
Are you aware that
“Sr. Bernardine was characterised by Sr. Fabian as
“A paranoid schizophrenic who was considered as being grossly insulting to adults and children and who, in effect, established a regime of terror”.
How did you find Sr. Bernadine, May, was she very cruel to children? I gather from hearsay and the Goldenbridge transcript that she was a nasty piece of work.
Did you have to scrub all the floors using wooden kneelers and put rags around your feet to polish the corridors, dormitories and classrooms? like we did indeed. We used to slide up and down the classrooms when nobody in charge was in sight. I used to hate the chores of having to use steel (brillo pads, minus soap) to clean black marks off floors and washing all the skirting boards.
Goldenbridge 1948 to 1959..5-30am nuns and lay staff would come into the dorm and beat us out of bed with sticks,or throw the matteres with the child still asleep onto the freezing floor (there was no heating in the Dormatories we had to dress quick and make our beds ,stand to attention for inspection if there was a tiny crease the lot was thrown on the floor and we were beaten and had to do nit again, then form a straight line and march down to Mass whale the staff shouted >Left Right< (like in the army,those who wet their beds were beaten and after Mass had to go on the landing for another beating and forced to stand still in the freezing yard with the wet sheet over their heads,breakfast was Half a slice of moldy bread, watery coco,they we had to polish all the floors ,or scrub floors,while staff were behind us beating us and shouting insults st us,then we went into knitting class ,where we made jumpers ,socks,for the nuns to sell, then into the Rosary Factory where we were never able to even whisper to each other for if we were caught we would be sent to the landing for a terrible beating,the only sound heard was the clanging of the PLYERS making the Rosary's,sometimes we worked well into the night,sometimes twice a week we spent time in what they called the classroom learning the Mass which we had to know off by heart for a virble exam,when a priest came and asked us questions on that,we were taught to sing a hymn for when we were in Mass, the nuns decided to form a band with 20 children ,this lesson was terrifying children wet themselves out of FEAR,the beatings were shocking that left me with a blank mind where music is conserned our hands were always very sour red raw with Cuts, from being beated so often as well as having to hold the PLYERS in the rosary beed factory hours on end,I used to have to put the sleeve of my jumper over my Raw hand to hold the Plyer's the pain was unbareable but we couldn't make a sound.we had a so called teacher Miss L where we glued brown paper bags which the nuns sold to shops,The Nuns told us we didn't need to be able to write, all we needed to know was how to put an X on the page,there was no secondry education except a basic cookery lesson ,domestic work which we had a Woman from the Guv Dept to examine our Domestic work ie Polished floors, bed making, scrubed floors,laundry,This they called our EXAM.as they believed it useful if we got out they would send us into Domestic service,from 1958 only 3 survivors went out to the National convent school these were survivors who grew us in Goldenbridge and were already Damaged and traumatised and worried as everything they did was relayed back to the Nuns in the Industrial school ,FEAR FEAR all around thats all every child knew.as I got older >on owr way to mass especially in winter when it was pitch dark we would do this in turns ,one would stay at the back and when the staff were not looking your way as they were busy shouting >Left Right>
“what kind of reception do Survivors get when they return to Ireland after many years? Do they get any help? How do others retact toward’s them?? it is a huge emotional journey to take”
The reception survivors get when they come to Ireland from abroad is almost the same as the one survivors get when they come up from the country. Zilch. The Aislinn Centre in Dublin is the only service which is provided by the department of health/health and it is basically used for education purposes for a chosen few. The government would love us all to just go away. It never did, in the last decade, ever encourage us to gather together, for fear of the truth coming out – -but now that it has via the recent publication of the Ryan Report, it might just not ignore us any longer. Or is that just wishful thinking. Survivors in general react very negatively towards each other, as there are innumerable reminders swamping them, up to their knees, from past times spent together in their respective institutions. Gargantuan problems beset most survivors, as they have high expectations of those who grew up with them and when they are confronted with the reality of them they break down. It must be realised by all- painful though it be – that mostly all of the survivors are damaged people and that perhaps because of this fact, that they are not exactly the best people to sort out problems of other survivors, like the blind leading the blind. There should definitely be somewhere for those living abroad and those living in the country – who are just as isolated, to go when they come to Dublin. It should be brought to the attention of the government. All survivors should have equal access to services provided by the government. Propping up the chosen few is not on at all.
“If it happened to me…I would print the names of all of these people, of every nun and priest. Why don’t the survivors do that? Is it some legal problem? Surely there is a way to shame these people, to get their names out on the internet, “
Re names, etc: Nancy, ironically, the Ryan Report used pseudonymous French Canadian names to disguise perpetrators. (I say, what a lovely feeling it is not having to employ the “allegedly” or “purportedly” terminologies.) Yet in actuality, virtual names are thus mentioned in earlier commission to inquire into institutional child abuse hearings. The Sunday Tribune of last week outed the chief perpetrators, there were photographs to boot. it obviously did not give a fig. The ‘secrecy’ aspect in this respect is rather farcical.
The Ryan Report, welcome as it is, has only pulled the skin off the Industrial Schools system, we must now continue to agitate for the skin to be pulled off the Magdalen Asylums obscenity.
“If you want to read more two books have just been published including Rosaleen`s Diary”
Thanks very much Dr. Rosaleen for bringing your written work to my attention I shall definitely purchase them soon! Gosh, I would love to have signed copies. I am a sticker for autographed books. It is terribly sad that you had to spend three years of your life cooped up in a hospital and to be brutally treated by the religious.
>Muriel Gray on Obama’s Speech
“Surely the boldest way forward is to tell the uncomfortable truth instead of obsequious fawning”
Obama’s “change” is of the cheapest kind. It merely means stop criticizing Islam and start telling Muslims how beautiful their faith really is.
Obama professed to “speak the truth,” yet he falsely portrayed Islam, as something that is “not exclusive,” that “overlaps” and “need not be in competition” with “America.”
Actually, Islam is, by its very nature, also a political program that obliges its adherents to demand submission of all others, Muslims (especially secular and apostate ones) and non-Muslims, alike.
Re: Nancy and Irish Donegal Roots
Nancy, I am in Dublin. Yeah, Andrew (see a few posts down) would be responsible for putting up on the web, brilliant stuff appertaining to boys institutions. People around the world definitely need to see the insides of these child labour camps, via video footage and photo’s, etc. There is none better to show them than survivors like andrew who has done gargantuan work over the years apropos this diabolical
subject. Google the knitter’s profile as you will understand from whence he is coming.
I was in Goldenbridge during the mid-fifties/the wrong side of the sixties.
Yeah, you could write to all elected Irish TD’s, Tanaiste, Taoiseach and senators and let them know what you feel about the Ryan Report.
I went all over Donegal some years ago – it is a very scenic county.
Incest was rampant in Ireland of old and it still goes on to this very day. Barbara Naughton a young woman who used to hang about with a lot of us throughout the years was spurred on two write two books about her experiences of sexual abuse at the hands of her father, ‘Why Can’t I Speak and ‘Daddy Please Don’t.’ That was her therapy.
Also, in1995, Sophia McColgan’s father was sentenced to prison for the serial rape and abuse of his children over many years. He had first raped Sophia when she was only six. ‘Sophia’s Story’ by Susan McKay a journalist, is a very traumatic book which records a triumph of the human spirit in the face of the most degrading and destructive betrayal of trust. Both survivor/author are from your neck of the irish woods.
It is so painful to hear about people taking their lives because of the effects of sexual abuse and doubly so, when one hears that it comes from within ones own family. No, they are certainly not the memories one would want to cherish about ones family. So sad!
>UN free speech rapporteur told to watch his mouth by the 57-member Organisation of Islamic Conference.. if he continues to contradict their interpretation of what “free speech” meant, they would seek to have him stripped of his position.
The OIC is one of the largest intergovernmental organizations in the world. It encompasses 56 Muslim states plus the Palestinian Authority. Spread over four continents, it claims to speak in the name of the ummah (the universal Muslim community), which numbers about 1.3 billion.
As stated in its 1990 Cairo Declaration on “Human Rights in Islam”, the OIC is strictly tied to the principles of the Koran, the Sunnah, and the Sharia.
When I read the various comments, they ring a bell. Behaviour was learned the Nuns, Sisters of Mercy bullied the Children, then when they became the Big Girls they behaved or aped the Nuns. We were detached from each other. Love was a far distant memory for me. I was taken from a very loving Mother and placed in a Prison. I lost Me for many years. Finally I have reclaimed the Kathleen O’Malley who was Praised and loved by her Mother. It has taken many years though. What we must not do is allow our abusers to continue to control us so in spite of their moral highground they are the loosers. there are two Nuns living in Moate, Co Westmeath, who by todays standards would have been convicted of Domestic Violence with a CRIMINAL CONVICTION imposed on them and possibly a Prison sentence. I requested they attend a meeting last year in my presence. they had the right to refuse, which they did. The sisters of Mercy were not unlike
Hitlers Regime, the Orphans as we were called were treated like Aliens or rather something you would wipe off your shoe.
One could say there is repetition in each and every comment. I have seen but one girl who was in Moate with me yet the stories of abuse is Nationwide. The Judicial system, N.S.P.C.C. Religious and Government were a corrupt and devious group of Leaders. They each committed Perjury just to fill the Child Prisons and Capatalise from our Slavery. We worked from morning to dusk and were malnurished. Our heads were walking alive with head lice, we stank of Urine as we had but one bath a fortnight and many of us wet the bed nightly. for this we were FLOGGED.
My sisters and I were taken from our Mother who had Prosecuted a Paedophile, who had Raped me as a Child of Eight and infected me with a venerial disease. The Court Papers (N.S.P.C.C.) claimed she was unfit and that we were destitute. this also was a standard report. I as a Child of Eight was cross examined in open Court by an all male Jury in 1950.
Shame on Ireland for the hardship it inflicted on the children and Parents of Ireland for many decades.
All in the name of Religion.
Kathleen O’Malley. “Childhood Interrupted”.
“There was NO facilities at all for Disabled Survivors on their return to the hearing. This is against human rights and those who have gone and are disabled in very serious ways”
Do you mean that there was no ramp and proper bathroom facilities at the redress board building in Clonskeagh? Have you been in contact with Paddy Doyle about this issue at all? He would be the ideal person to chat to concerning this matter.
BTW, Paddy Doyle and Christine Buckley and other survivors were on the Joe Duffy show this afternoon. They were giving out yards about fact that the opposition party leader, Enda Kenny had decided to ask for a “confidence’ and/or ‘no confidence” motion in the government (in light of the recent BY and European election results disaster on the part of the sitting government) at a very crucial time, when the Ryan Report should have been discussed in an important debate at the Dail. Alas, the Solidarity March from the Garden of Remembrance in Parnell Sq to Dail Eireann was meant to coincide with the Ryan Report debate at the Dail and the group were planning to tie it all up nicely with the media and Cori on board as well. However, all media coverage has been diverted on to the ‘confidence/no confidence motion and CB and PD are fuming that the opposition party, who had promised an all party line on institutional abuse should take this selfish stand. They both reckoned that politicians put their own needs before the very serious issues of past institutional abuse. They were so right in their summations – the Ryan Report debate had to take a back seat while the politicians take the front ones -as per usual. Paddy, who spoke so eloquently to Joe, also, informed listeners that the meeting which was held between the abuse groups and the cabinet leaders last week was all one-sided. Meaning, that the only ones who spoke were the respective abuse groups – the leaders never opened their mouths. So utterly farcical! It goes without saying that – a shut mouth catches no flies! That is so laughable. The crafty political buggers played the silent puppet part once again. They were not giving anything away. I thought that when abuse groups, said, after the meeting, that they were listened attentively to by the government, that it had a different connotation. Nothing is unsurprising to me at all. I sincerely believe that the government is only using abuse groups to hide behind them. We must never forget that it is big time implicated in all of this child abuse debacle – as well as the religious. The government spin-doctors and PR people must be working overtime by the new time. A leopard does not change its skin.
>Hasibullah Sadiqi gunned down his sister Khatera and her fiancé Feroz Mangal…motivated by a perverted notion of honour and respect for the sole purpose of restoring the family’s reputation and respect in the Afghan community.
The notion is “perverted” by the Canadian-western standards.
As stated by Pierre Trudeau, ” The government will support and encourage the various cultures and ethnice groups that give structure and vitatity to our society. They will be encouraged to share their cultural expressions and values with other Canadians and so contribute to a richer life for us all.”(20 Years Of Multiculturalism)
>Obama invokes Jesus more than Bush
http://news.yahoo.com/s/politico/20090609/pl_politico/23510
For Obama, Christian rhetoric offers an opportunity to connect with a broader base of supporters in a nation in which 83 percent of Americans believe in God. What’s more, regularly invoking Jesus helps Obama minimize the number of American who believe he is a Muslim — a linkage that can be politically damaging..And he suspects that Obama has an even larger goal: the resurrection of the largely dormant Christian Left..A Pew survey released May 21 found that even as Americans remain highly religious, there has there been a slow decline in the number of Americans with socially conservative values – especially among young voters. That creates an opening for Obama, especially at a time when some conservative evangelicals are telling pollsters they are frustrated and disillusioned with politics.
Children’s shoes mark Abuse March
Organisers of a silent demonstration in memory of survivors abused in church-run institutions will leave children’s shoes piled at the Dail railings following the march. Groups who plan on a solidarity walk through Dublin on Wednesday have called on people attending to bring white ribbons to tie to the gates of Leinster House as a mark of respect for those who suffered and died at the hands of religious orders. A petition with thousands of names will also be handed over to the head of the Congregation of Religious of Ireland, Marianne O’ Connor, Christian Brother, Kevin Mullan and at least one representative from other orders named in the Ryan report will also attend. I wonder will Sister Helena O’ Donoghue, Sister of Mercy, be present. She was allegedly attacked by a survivor after the Late Late show some years ago – or, will it be a case of once bitten twice shy? I have an ornamental green wellie boot with black sheep on it and I am going to bring that along with me with a big candle in it to boot. As for a child’s shoe I shall have to get one from a charity shop as I would not know the meaning of a family – never having had one because of all the past trauma in my past life. Babies and families frightened the life out of me, because they represented ‘attachment’ and I have never done ‘attachment.’
“He wept, hands bound. Then I heard two shots,’”
by Jon Swain and Bojan Pancevski in The Sunday Times
A harrowing account of the final hours of the kidnapped British tourist Edwin Dyer before he was murdered by Islamic militants in the Sahara desert last week has been given by an Arab intermediary who was negotiating for his release.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6446276.ece
“Who are these British?” he asked. “Just western unbelievers. Islam tells us not to have any links with unbelievers. That is why this man [Dyer] will be executed in the name of God.”…
“They will see that we are jihadists, envoys of God, and their deaths will be the fault of their governments and their policies.
higher education for the american freshman
A Harvard law professor who provides analysis on CNN has a lot in common with a scholar of Islamic law, said the Muslim-cultural Student Association’s spring speaker Asifa Quraishi on Tuesday night. The University of Wisconsin law professor spoke to an audience of about 55 in Fisk Hall, drawing parallels between the U.S. Constitution and Islamic law.
“These two legal worlds are usually described as completely alien to each other, but as an American Muslim, I’m completely comfortable looking at similarities,” Quraishi said. “We’re at a place in the world’s lifetime that it might help looking at similarities.”
For McCormick freshman Quaraishi’s overall message was pertinent to today’s political environment, he said.
“There are obvious misconceptions about Shariah,” Yaqubie said. “But the major thing is that Shariah and Constitutional law aren’t opposites. It doesn’t have to be one way or the other.”
http://media.www.dailynorthwestern.com/media/storage/paper853/news/2009/05/20/Campus/Law-Professor.Draws.Parallels.Between.Shariah.Constitution-3742877.shtml
Christopher Hitchens visits Gtimo-prison
http://www.slate.com/id/2220000/?from=rss
….Nothing prepared me for the way in which the authorities at the camp have allowed the most extreme religious cultists among the inmates to be the organizers of the prisoners’ daily routine. Suppose that you were a secular or unfanatical person caught in the net by mistake; you would still find yourself being compelled to pray five times a day (the guards are not permitted to interrupt), to have a Quran in your cell, and to eat food prepared to halal (or Sharia) standards. I suppose you could ask to abstain, but, in such a case, I wouldn’t much fancy your chances. The officers in charge were so pleased by this ability to show off their extreme broad-mindedness in respect of Islam that they looked almost hurt when I asked how they justified the use of taxpayers’ money to create an institution dedicated to the fervent practice of the most extreme version of just one religion. To the huge list of reasons to close down Guantanamo, add this: It’s a state-sponsored madrasah.
>The scandal of the abuse was described as Ireland’s mini holocaust by several campaigners today.
Why does it always have to be a “holocaust”? Is it not wrong enough? Why does it have to be like the Nazis industrialised genocide? This kind of inflation is sign of hysteria, it doesn’t serve us humanists any good, on the contrary it helps in blurring everything and helps drown the discourse in demagogy: “Abortion is murder” or “Tiller is Mengele” anyone?
>Why does it always have to be a “holocaust”?
Labeling as anything else would run the serious risk of being regarded as insignificant.
Or, worse, even trigger a negative reaction instead of one of empathy and compassion because it eats from the time (it sidetracks) and threatens to compete with what is expected (with what is proper) to be mourned all day long in the present western culture.
As the world famous philosopher Theodor Adorno had it poignantly : “writing poetry after Auschwitz is barbaric”.
“Why does it always have to be a “holocaust”?”
Well, there is ‘holocaust’ and there is ‘The Holocaust’.
holocaust, meaning “sacrificial burning of animals” in the true biblical sense.
Or, from what I have read the phrase ‘The Holocaust’ which did not come into being until the late 1950’s.
Also, “Shoah” was first used to refer to the Nazi slaughter of Jews in 1939, Holocaust has also been used to translate ḥurbān (“destruction”).
The lives and minds of approximately 150 thousand children all went up in smoke – metaphorically speaking.
>.. from what I have read the phrase ‘The Holocaust’ which did not come into being until the late 1950’s.
It was used already in 1929 by Winston Churchill. Over one and a half million Armenians perished in a centrally-organized, government perpetrated and government-run campaign of anihilation. Branded later as administrative holocaust by Winston Churchill, it had one clear and express aim, to rid Western Armenia of it indigenous Armenian population seen as a threat to the efforts of turning the collapsing Ottoman Empire into a homogenous Turkish state.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/fisk/robert-fisk-the-forgotten-holocaust-463306.html
http://www.armenian-genocide.org/churchill.html
Re: holocaust/Holocaust phraseology.
For sure, the ‘application’ of the word was even employed far earlier by Irish newspapers, in the 1800’s, in reference to 2 million people who died in the Irish famine, than Winston Churchill’s mention of it in ‘The Aftermath, 1929, p. 158)’.
Frighteningly, too, Adolf Hitler used ‘the modern Armenian genocide’ to justify the Nazi murder of six million Jews, saying in 1939: “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians.
But still the capitalised phrase ‘The Holocaust’ was not in place until the late 1950’s.
Even after the war, the Ottoman ministers never recognised the genocide. In 1920, they praised those responsible for the massive slaughter, saying: “These things were done to secure the future of our homeland, which we know is greater and holier than even our own lives.”
It smacks a little of the denial held by the Christian Brothers of generational child abuse in Ireland’s industrial school’s run by them in the past- before the release of the Ryan Report. Denial, like holocausts/Holocausts are clerly part of the history of mankind.
“Why does it have to be a holocaust”
Would ‘holocaust of abuse’ be a better phrase to use regarding children who were systematically abused for generations in industrial schools?
Re: holocaust/Holocaust phraseology.
I just wanted to point out that when you call something “a holocaust” or “mini-Holocaust” the reference to the Shoah (the Jewish genocide during WW2) is clearly visible and intended, and this has certain implications. The scale of this mass murder makes it quite unique, comparable in that direction only with the Armenian genocide, or the political inspired mass murders in Soviet Russia, Red China or Cambodia, not to speak from some semi-intended consequences like the “Holodomor” (“starvationisation”) in Ukraine and South Russia thanks to Stalin’s “class-struggle on the countryside”.
But besides “quantity” we also have a qualitative criteria for distinctions: while all of those organised mass murders costed hundreds of thousands of lifes we only call the ones with racist intentions “genocides” (or “race murder” after a definition worked out by Raphael Lemkin) that was taken over by the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG). Article 2 of this convention defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life, calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
(quoted from wikipedia)
Even though some classify certain arrangements in the school system of some countries as “genocidal”- the ban for pupils to speak the native language in order to erase their culture (as it happened in schools for the native Americans f.e. and is still happening in Turkish schools in the Kurdish areas) esp. if it is enforced by violence against the children, I cannot see similarities to what happened in the Irish schools. On the contrary: I find the attempt to call it “genocide” or something like it dishonest, demagogic and finally counter-productive because this strategy of inflated victimhood is in the end self-defeating: we reduce the public debate to a spectacle of competitive emotional claims, a “grief-fest” and shouting match.
We have a lot of words to describe the horrors of what happened in the Irish Catholic schools-system: organised child molestation, child rape, child-enslavement. I still shudder when I imagine what those children suffered through there, and how lucky I was to be able to play and to freely develop myself in that age.
It was not however a “holocaust” not even a “mini” one. This might be hard to understand for people that suffered so much there, but it is the truth, that btw. does not diminish their suffering or their claims for compensation or the necessity of the society to prevent this from happening again.
Our opponents in the “culture wars” do not use those distinctions when they cry “Holocaust” about aborted fetuses, or call honorable doctors like Dr. Tiller “Mengele” in Goebbelian smear campains (you see I’m not at all against using Nazi-comparisons, but please proper ones) in which they try to dehumanise their political opponent. Their means show their ends: they obviously want a society build on lies and hysteria, on stupidity and ignorance instead of informed debates.
But ours is not only a struggle for the epistemology (which is part of “the ends”, maybe) but rather about the means:
We demand a clear and honest debate – our opponents opt for lies and demagogy instead and to point this out is our moral duty as humanists, that’s one way we make sure we have the truth on our side, we shouldn’t lose it, even in the heat of public debate and political struggle.
Remember: “Never again” is a slogan that does not only apply to the evils of genocide but to all evils and injustices.
Children who were Locked up in Industrial Reformatories Not only lost ,Roots,Birthdays,Names(by only been known by a number)Our Natural development,Our Childhood’s,We Lost our whole background and our Families,and any Siblings we might have had ,as the Courts sentenced Siblings to different Industrial Reformatories in different parts of Ireland where all contact was cut off between Siblings by the Dept of Education and the Religious orders.to this day Siblings dont know each other.A lot of Survivors who left ireland live Isolated Lonley Lives ,those who did try to return faced More Abuse,and are made to feel NOT welcome.The Religious and Guv Dept’sSet up Abuse Groups in ireland,and use those Abuse Groups to Hide behind, the person chosen to run the groups grew up in Reformatorie Industrial schools themselves how can they possibly help others who are damaged .those who try to return often with their families need outside Professional help.away from groups.this must be a right.survivors should have been given enough to buy themselves a home in order that they can return home.if they wish.
Support the protests in Iran:
http://reinikainen.co.uk/2009/06/iranelection-cyberwar-guide-for-beginners/
Re: holocaust/Holocaust phraseology.
OMG, The following snippet of information puts the holocaust/Holocaust terminology into proper perspective. It beggars belief. My stomach is absolutely churning – just merely thinking about what this monstrous professional doctor did to defenceless little children.
“He seemed particularly keen on working with Romani children. He would bring them sweets and toys, and would personally take them to the gas chamber. They would call him “Onkel Mengele”. Vera Alexander was a Jewish inmate at Auschwitz who looked after 50 sets of Romani twins:
“I remember one set of twins in particular: Guido and Ina, aged about four. One day, Mengele took them away. When they returned, they were in a terrible state: they had been sewn together, back to back, like Siamese twins. Their wounds were infected and oozing pus. They screamed day and night. Then their parents – I remember the mother’s name was Stella – managed to get some morphine and they killed the children in order to end their suffering.]”
Thank you SM for pointing out clearly to me the true definition of the holocaust/Holocaust/mini-holocaust. Gosh, one should not play around with words in light of the above knowledge. Yes, it is, as you say, “dishonest, demagogic and finally counter-productive because this strategy of inflated victimhood is in the end self-defeating: we reduce the public debate to a spectacle of competitive emotional claims, a “grief-fest” and shouting match.”
Perpetual mental, emotional, psychological depravation, child-enslavement, rape, and other integral bodily violations, forced imprisonment,lack of knowledge of parents, separation of siblings, stolen childhoods, over generations of children, should, in my estimation, have a word all of its own.
I recently read a memoir of an intellectual Polish professor, Countess, Carolina Lankcaronska -who had spent some years in various concentration camps -most notably, ‘Ravensbruck’. She wrote about experiments which ‘the rabbits’ (young girls) had to endure under the hands of a similar doctor to Mengele. Horrendous stuff!
To Any person who has Old Photo’s of Survivors taken when they were in Industrial schools for God’s sake have them COPIED< and send copies to the bodies who are connected to survivors ,ie if their place of abode is known in Ireland,or hand copie's to solicitor's, in Dublin,or Bernardo's or,,Manchester Irish centre, London Irish Centre,It would help<
Bernadette Fahy is right,every survivor must be given enough money to enable them to buy their own home back in Ireland if we want to,without Control.or anywhere we we want to settle. Stop the Bullies .it is time Survivors are properly COMPENSATED.
YES your right, it is heartbreaking to think those Survivors who returned to Ireland were put through shocking BULLYING ,which frightened them out of ireland.we should help them to come back and see there is protection in place.those who Bullied returning survivors should be ashamed.Think About what YOU DID.The religious did a good job .bullying and abuse of returning survivors will have caused more damage .Do the bullies care???they know who they are.
‘Children who were locked up in industrial schools/reformatories, not only lost Roots, Birthdays, Names (by only been known by a number)”
Yeah, so much more than just cruel regimes prevailed in institutions. As you say, deprivation of roots, birthdays, and names was also rife.
It is so painful for survivors not knowing their roots. I went down that painful ‘roots’ road of discovery and the pangs of pain still hang on in my being, as I am still only midway down that road, grappling with the painful legacy. I went looking for the grave of my mother when I was in my mid-twenties, as I was told by management at GB that I once had a mother but that she had died. She had initially worked part-time (as an outsider) for one year in GB when I first entered there – but had obviously disappeared into oblivion, hence my being given false information. I do know that this kind of information was habitually given to children – when they left their respective institutions at sixteen years old. It was such a common occurrence and many survivors as adults have never recovered from the discovery of finding their parents still alive. It ate/eats up so much of their emotional survival capacities. All this kit has to be contended with on top of having to deal with the after effects of their past incarcerations in institutions. Survivors cups are overflowing with the legacy of neglect and rights on many accounts of the industrial schools system.
Birthday’s just never existed in GB excepting that of la la’s. Most inmates never questioned anything about themselves, not even their names, let alone their birthdays, when they were in Goldenbridge. As they did not know there were “themselves”. Children were given hints of the disgracefulness of their mothers (mostly) when they were holding up their wets sheets in shame to the head honcho – but never any hints as to their birthday dates. The only numbers they knew were the ones given them on arrival in the institution and they were referred to by these numbers throughout their whole penal period. Like food we have big issues as adults with birthday’s and even cry our hearts out and become irrational when people forget to send us cards or remember us.
BTW, what number were you when you were in Goldenbridge? I was number 155 when I first went there. Subsequently, though, at the age of nine years old I went out to stay with a host family for ten months. Alas, I was found wandering alone around O’ Connell St, (centre of Dublin city) and was hauled back to Goldenbridge by the merciless sisters in a black Maria. I never had the privilege of ever going out again with a family, or even had visitations of any description from human beings. I envied so much, pets, (la la’s) who were especially selected to go out with posh families and who had visits – they were given not only one family – but a multiplicity of families to go out with – while children of my ilk were hidden behind closed prison walls. Pets consequently suffered at the hands of very frustrated children (like moi )who derived immense joy in sticking out their tongues at them or pulling the big aeroplanes off their shiny long haired swelled heads.
Oops, to conclude, I had the privilege of having two numbers, because, when I returned to Goldenbridge and was departed with my mane I was given number 39. From there on in as well as never having an earthly soul to visit me, I basically also never saw the outside of the institution until I was sixteen years old.
I would like to state here that I do not belong to any survivor organisation. In fact I was frozen out by Aislinn Centre, sent to eternal coventry, a few years ago, because I took a personal stand of protesting outside the premises, when Brian Lenihan, the now minister for finance visited there. I was told in no uncertain terms to take my banner down to the Dail. This was done for self-preservation purposes and I try to look at it from that perspective. It was beholden to the government. Please do not think that survivors from abroad are the only ones on the receiving end of the cold shoulder at the hands of abuse organisations, such as Aislinn Centre. Some survivors in Ireland also feel they are not catered for properly. I have felt the same type of pain as you have and I know there are many more survivors out there who feel a similar pain. I know too, for definite, that traumatised survivors in Ireland have given helping hands to their fellow survivors from abroad and some of the the former have been treated abominably by those they helped. There are therefore bullies who raise their voices, but there are essentially, also, psychological bullies who are very manipulative, who do need to raise their voices but who vehemently point the finger and play dangerous games. One has to look at the bigger picture. If you cannot beat them join them by trying to better yourself – because you will only be eaten up by anger – try to turn your anger around. I do – it is not easy, but you will be amazed, it does work, albeit, very very slowly. Try to look to the bigger world, the outside world, do not implode and make other survivors your tormenters – because all you are doing is projecting on to them so obvious – big time.
“… presently residing on the plant are completely wrong, evil and must be opposed to the last?”
If such errors can occur in this day and age – with [F7] and all – and not even copied or translated, imagine how much room for miscontruing (misconstrument?) in 4000 years!
We can learn from this: If I print this out and preserve it, will the people in 4000 years be arguing about whether evil people were forced by a god to live in trees or whether it just means they were all vegetarians, or were/are all vegetarians evil?
Traumtised survivors who gave a helping hand to survivors from abroad HOW?its impossible.and psychologically damaging for all concerned as all survivors especially those from the 1930’s-1950’s early 1960’who left ireland would have been totally cut off alone most never hinted to anyone at all about where they grew up,many changed their names,and created a whole new identity for themselves,not even their husbands nor children knew .those survivors minds were locked for years.it was those who were treated Abominably, The trauma of going back after so long the fear.alone and desperately searching for someone to belong to or anyone who might remember them as a child.often suffering from depression.professional trained help should have been available and must be.as thoseof us who stayed were at least in our own country and knew others help though little was there,returning survivors knew noone .and should have been treated gently with care.returning Survivors were treated ABOMINABLY.and Bullied.Noone wanted to know.How” Cruel is that??
Roman Catholic priests in Ireland became quite uneasy as the drink-drive limit on blood-alcohol was further reduced, to the extent that after a morning of several masses they might find themselves over the limit… so Roman catholic priests do not actually believe in transsubstatiation ? tell that to all the martyrs they burned at the stake
Survivors have been used enough by others who only line their own pockets$$$$$$$$$££££,IF????any compansation is paid out it has to go to each individual survivor, Not to be put into some corupt trust fund where survivor’s would be remended of the horrible past every time we want OUR MONEY to beg from some Lawyer, most don’t belong to any groups or so called services for survivors.and don’t want to.and most Dont live in Ireland anyway,but Austraila like my Brother, Canada, England, Germany,Ect, We are Grown Up’s now.and want control IF????we are given compansation most of us would buy our own homes and be able to leave it to the benifit of our Families.
I know many survivors who faced daily hell in those places, And all those who worked in them should be named and shamed Yours michael
Hi Michael.The nun’s in goldenbridge industrial reformatory have already been named often in news papers ect by mrs buckley who gets huge funding and pay from the guv dept to run the aislinn As its ok for her then it has to be ok for all of us survivors to name our Abusers What can they do arrest us and put us in prison ,>>>Dont think so,they are the Wicked monster’s .leave your e-mail blank.for your welcome comment.justice for survivors.Kind regards to you.from another survivor.
Marie Therese O’Loughlin where are you??keep up the fight,survivors need to have as many voices as possible.