The home, which was run by an order of Catholic nuns and closed in 1961, was one of many such institutions that housed tens of thousands of orphans and unmarried pregnant women who were forced to give up their children throughout much of the 20th century.

In 2014, historian Catherine Corless tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who died at the home in Tuam between the 1920s and 1961 — but could only find a burial record for one child.

    • @PattyMcB@lemmy.world
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      642 days ago

      Religion is a social cancer. Sometimes it’s benign and the host reabsorbs it. Other times it’s spreads and kills living tissue

      • @abbadon420@lemm.ee
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        42 days ago

        I’d say it’s like a tailbone. It was once useful (when we were apes), but has long since lost all purpose. Now it is just a useless appendage and if you touch it the wrong way, you can end up paralized for the rest of your life. We can’t go without though, because it’s attached to out spine and muscles.

    • Sal
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      2 days ago

      There’s only two religions in the planet that do this kind of fucked up shit with any frequency, and it’s only because they’re the norm in both of those regions. Don’t make yourself sound like a literal Reddit atheist. You’re here exactly because Reddit sucks. Don’t bring it back.

      Many people are religious without doing this kind of shit.

    • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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      82 days ago

      If you’re not religious why are you upset that some people didn’t get a proper burial?

      There were death certificates so it’s unlikely there’s foul play, unless there’s some details this poorly written article is missing. It’s just they didn’t observe proper religious ceremony on the disposal of the deceased.

      So your argument is that religious people are bad because some religious people don’t always follow religious ceremonies? Like if you don’t think religion is good, why would you be upset over improper disposal of the deceased?

      • @Rooty@lemmy.world
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        292 days ago

        Yeah, I’m sure there was no foul play in an abusive institution dealing with most vunerable members of society.

        Why do people simp for organized religion so hard?

      • @taxiiiii@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        I dont agree with the original commenter, but come on.

        This is a thread about babies.

        Do you really think people need a religion to see that throwing their dead bodies in a septic tank is an incredibly disrespectful and dehumanizing act?

        I dont need to wish for a christian burial to understand the implications of christian nuns doing this.

      • @PunkRockSportsFan@fanaticus.social
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        322 days ago

        I don’t give a fuck about proper burials.

        Burying bodies in cemeteries is an incredibly selfish thing. All cemeteries and golf courses should be converted into income based housing.

        I only said religious people are fucked in the head. Full stop.

        All religious people are mentally unwell and a danger to society.

        I hope that cleared it up!

        • Gloomy
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          2 days ago

          Honestly I think that thinking that having a place for people to grieve their loved ones is a selfish thing is realy fucked in the head.

          • ddh
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            152 days ago

            Sure, plant and dedicate a tree. Or a bench by a lake. Or keep an urn on your mantle. Or thousands of other ways. But, sorry you can’t live here because we need this space exclusively to grieve?

            • Gloomy
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              52 days ago

              Well, the tree thing is reality for those that chose forest burials (at least thats a thing in my country).

              I think we would run out of benches by lakes rather quick. Also, that is a thing already.

              Keeping an Urn is not legal everywhere. I agree the it should be.

              The thing is, that humans want to do something with he their loves ones remains. We are incredibly social creates, to the point where our bonds last beyond death. We have buried our dead for thousands and thousands of years. Neanderthals buried their dead. It’s just an extremely human way to process grieve, complete independent of any religion.

              So having a dedicated space to do so makes total sense. Of course that takes up room. But I’d argue that having a park like, walkable and often very beautiful place in your neighborhood is a net win for everybody. Unless you think that we should also get rid of parks and other recreational areas.

              And, you have the possibility to visit a dedicated place of grievance close by, which is sensible especially for elderly people.

      • @TheWeirdestCunt@lemmy.today
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        162 days ago

        You realise you don’t need to be religious to believe that people deserve a proper burial right? There doesn’t need to be some man in the sky watching everyone 24/7 for people to be buried with dignity

        • @ZeffSyde@lemmy.world
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          62 days ago

          Yeah, burial is mostly just to make sure critters don’t drag your rotting bits out into the open and your putrid parts don’t contaminate the water supply.

          • @nieminen@lemmy.world
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            102 days ago

            That’s the practical aspect, but I believe the dignity and respect shown throughout the process gives people some closure.

      • @ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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        142 days ago

        These homes existed purely to punish unwed mothers, because Catholicism. Don’t even try to minimise the deep national trauma still felt today because it might show a weirdo cult in a bad light.

        • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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          32 days ago

          Priests molested altar boys. That’s some real fucking trauma that left lifetimes of emotional scars on people that still alive now.

          But sure something that happened to some dead bodies over 60 years ago is something you want to devote your two minutes of atheist hate towards today. You’re well adjusted and have everything in the proper perspective, LOL.

          • @ohulancutash@feddit.uk
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            21 day ago

            You don’t think it was traumatic for young women (plenty of whom are still alive) to be kidnapped into these institutions, physically and mentally abused, and have their newborn child (again, a great number still alive and wondering who they are) forcibly removed from them, with no idea where they ended up?

          • @GreyEyedGhost@lemmy.ca
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            32 days ago

            That’s not very fair. It’s fairly safe to assume that each of those babies were linked to lifetimes of emotional scars, too, just not for the babies.

      • Bo7a
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        2 days ago

        Holy shit.

        Article - 800 dead babies.

        You - There was no sign of foul play why would you heathens care about burial?

        Get your fucking head checked.

      • @palarith@aussie.zone
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        2 days ago

        Wait what? 20 deaths a year and because there is a death certificate there is no fouls play?

      • @explodicle@sh.itjust.works
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        22 days ago

        This is the second time this week I’ve seen this argument:

        • Religion has historically done X
        • religion is bad
        • why do you care about X, that’s religious!

        (The last one was about marriage)

        I suspect that you’re a religious person making a slippery slope fallacy.

        • @SpaceCowboy@lemmy.ca
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          12 days ago

          slippery slope fallacy

          Did you just randomly select some fallacy from a list in an attempt to sound clever?