Irish Examiner view: Let us now give Tuam babies the dignity we denied them in life

Irish Examiner

2 days ago

With the preparatory work for the exhumation of 796 infant bodies from the site of a former mother and baby home in Tuam underway, the hopes for closure for so many families has redoubled.
The hope too is that this country as a whole can put behind it a dark chapter whereby the nearly 800 dead babies were buried — some in a disused sceptic tank — without any burial records being kept.
Between 1925 and 1961, the Tuam home run by nuns from the Bon Secours order was effectively an orphanage and adoption agency which was sanctioned by the State. Like so many others, what went on there was unknown to a majority of Irish society and, critically, unchallenged.
Only those who ran these homes, those in authority who turned a blind eye, and those unfortunate enough to be sent to them know the full extent of the horror of the mother and baby home experience.
While the government did appoint a commission of investigation into the appalling legacy of these homes and later formally apologised for its shortcomings during the period in which they operated, the sad truth is that the full story of the Tuam home and the wider scandal would never have emerged had it not been for the tenacity of historian Catherine Corless and former Irish Examiner journalist Conall Ó Fátharta.
That the nation owes a debt of gratitude to the tireless work of campaigners is not in doubt but, over the next four weeks, as the site is secured and prepared for full excavation expected to begin on July 14, the deprivation, high infant mortality rates, and stigma that these homes represented will be laid bare.
As a country, we have found it difficult to absorb the full horror of existence in places like the Tuam home, but what faces those charged with the excavation work will undoubtedly be grim.
That this exercise is necessary is undoubted and particularly so as the nation faces up to its responsibilities with regard to those we so blithely discarded to a reality of unbearable distress and, as we now know, death.
But perhaps the single most important aspect of this whole operation will be to afford those buried there a level of dignity in death that they were not accorded in life.
Tourism pressure
As protesters squirted water guns at tourists in Barcelona and Mallorca at the weekend, it was entirely incongruous that Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos was planning a virtual takeover of Venice for his upcoming nuptials.
With thousands of demonstrators across Spain, Italy, and Portugal marching to demand an economic rethink of a business model they say is fuelling a housing crisis and erasing the character of their cities and towns, Venetians expressed exasperation that their city is becoming a playground for the wealthy. They gathered in a square near the Rialto Bridge and vowed to organise a series of protests when the city is
expected to be besieged by hundreds of guests invited to the wedding of Bezos and his fiancee, Lauren Sanchez.
Organisers said their intent was to stop Venice from turning into a city where locals could no longer afford to live because its properties were being snapped up by outsiders driving up prices.
Focusing their anger on the Bezos wedding, which will occur in peak season in Venice with tens of thousands of tourists arriving daily, the protesters say it will markedly disrupt the lives of the city's dwindling resident population.
Venice, like Barcelona and Mallorca, is fighting to have it given back to its residents, who say they are systematically being pushed out of their homes by short-term rentals. Their cities, they say, no longer have a relationship with their citizens.
The cost of the Bezos wedding has been put as high as €18.5m and while city authorities dismiss locals' fears, calling this 'just another wedding', locals feel it is a wedding too far. Over-tourism is not yet a factor in Irish lives, but it might only be a matter of time.
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Maritime security
Twin announcements on the placing of a contract with a French company to supply sonar technology to Ireland to monitor sea cables in our waters and of the potential siting of a new naval base in Galway seem to indicate the Government is finally taking our maritime security seriously.
Following a period in which it has become clear that we have neither the manpower, technology, nor facilities to protect our waters from pretty much any form of malevolent activity, the Government is intent on taking whatever steps necessary to bolster maritime defences.
At a time when naval service numbers have fallen drastically — to the point where we cannot man all our naval vessels — and when security issues have become clear thanks to conflicts elsewhere in the world, the need for action has never more obvious.
The deal signed last week with French company Thales DMS will see Ireland being equipped with a 'towed sonar array', a device which is pulled along underwater behind a naval ship and monitors the sub-sea domain. Intended to be operational by 2027, its purchase coincided with the announcement of a public consultation for a Maritime Security Strategy, which may see the development of a second naval base somewhere on the west coast, most likely near Galway.
These are profound but necessary changes in the way we go about the business of protecting ourselves from any and all foreign threats, while also allowing us share critical information with fellow European maritime nations.
They are also long overdue.
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