The site of a former state-funded, Catholic-run mother and baby home in Tuam, Ireland is seen in this undated photo. Photo: CNS. Notebook
The report on the mother and baby homes is the latest in a line of painful spotlights to be shone into dark areas of our society during the decades following the setting up of the Irish Republic. One of the questions the report sought to answer was, why there had been the need to have mother and baby homes in Ireland back as far as the 1920s and continuing right up to the 1990s.
The report answers that question very clearly, “the institutions under investigation provided a refuge – a harsh refuge in some cases – when the families provided no refuge at all” (introduction to the executive summary). “Women were admitted to mother and baby homes and county homes because they failed to secure the support of their family and the father of their child” (section 5).
Commentary
In an interesting commentary on the report, Ryan Tubridy, during a radio interview, posed the question as to why we in Ireland have resorted to establishing institutions to address uncomfortable problems. Why did we lock away behind high walls those who did not fit into our image of what our country should be? He was thinking about the Letterfracks, the Artanes, the Magdalen laundries and the mother and baby homes and then he wondered if, in 50 or 100 years’ time, people would judge harshly our current approach to direct provision centres and how a modern Irish society tolerated such treatment of people. Ryan was in conversation with author Billy O’Callaghan and they were discussing Billy’s book Life Sentences. Billy’s much acclaimed book deals with many of the same questions about family touched on in the mother and baby homes report. Prompted by Ryan Tubridy’s comment about institutions, Billy made a frightening comment which stopped me in my tracks. He said: ‘In Ireland we have had a tendency to throw away people we don’t find a use for.”
That comment of Mr O’Callaghan has haunted me because I don’t think it just refers to the past. In 2018 abortion was legalised in Ireland. In 2019 the lives of 6666 babies were terminated in our country.
Are there any parallels in the circumstances which led to the need for mother and baby homes in the past and the circumstances which lead expectant mothers to choose a termination today?
The obvious common factor is the reality of unplanned pregnancies. I’m tempted to add the word ‘unwanted’ but then who can say that all the unplanned pregnancies of those women who ended up in mother and baby homes were unwanted. There is significant evidence that many of the mothers wanted to keep their babies but sadly, as the report states: “There are many contemporary accounts throughout this report of Irish parents who were willing to welcome their daughter back to the family home following the birth but were not prepared to accept her child” (section 42).
Circumstances
What are the circumstances that lead so many expectant mothers today to choose a termination? In many cases the parents, families and partners may not even be aware of the pregnancy or the termination.
When we read the mother and baby homes report and indeed many of the others that preceded it, we are shocked and horrified that such things were allowed to happen.
Sadly however, the truth is that such institutions and how people were treated in them, were broadly supported by many sections of society at the time. There were of course voices, sometimes ‘crying in the wilderness’ who tried to challenge the prevailing culture but those voices were ignored or over-ruled. Today, the prevailing culture supports a new kind of ‘institution’ called abortion. A majority in our country voted to bring this institution into being. Yes, there were and are many voices, again crying in the wilderness, who have tried to challenge that prevailing culture but they too are silenced and over-ruled.
So I go back to that comment from Billy O’Callaghan about our country “having a tendency to throw away people we don’t find a use for” and I wonder has anything really changed.
The hill we climb
“So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left with. We will rebuild, reconcile and recover in every known nook of our nation, in every corner called our country our people diverse and beautiful will emerge battered and beautiful. When day comes, we step out of the shade aflame and unafraid. The new dawn blooms as we free it. For there is always light. If only we’re brave enough to see it. If only we’re brave enough to be it” (from the poem read by Amanda Gorman at President Joe Biden’s inauguration).