Somebody’s Child memorial matters – please don’t cover it up
■ I burst into tears as I read that the ‘Somebody’s Child’ memorial had been covered in opaque green sheets ahead of the papal visit. On social media there was the usual venting and I admit I played my part, though more politely than some.
Then it transpired Councillor Mannix Flynn, the man to whom we owe the memorial in the first place, covered it himself, intending to hang a temporary installation directly addressing the Pope on clerical abuse.
I stand with Cllr Flynn on his intentions and his questions to the Pope: “Why is he saving the guilty? Why does he continue to cover up? Why does he continue to forsake us?” But it is my firm view that it was a bad judgment to delegate this memorial to another cause for the duration of the papal visit. It is precisely during this visit that all effort, in vain or not, should be made to present the Pope with the litany of abuses this country’s people have suffered, from clerical abuse to mother and baby homes to the missing financial dues to victims.
Could another wall have been found? I learned Cllr Flynn was subjected to harrowing abuse and for that I am sorry. I have spent most of my life outside Ireland for reasons I will explain. I also sympathise that his work was hampered and that can be immensely frustrating when your work is emotionally charged.
I am an adopted person and it helps me immeasurably to see Tuam’s lost children commemorated, in particular under the potential gaze of the visiting Pope. I realise that to some of you it may just be symbolism but to some of us – or many of us – symbols have an ethereal effect. And in light of a slow and truculent inquiry into the homes, it may be all Ireland gets.
I was adopted in the 1980s after my biological mother received terrible advice from a 20-year-old nun acting under Church strictures.
The story, like all stories, is more complex but in essence my biological mother and others like her lived under the dogma of the time. Since then I have traced members of my family. For tracers it can be a tough journey of sad truths and raw emotions. For the traced, too.
Tuam, its commemoration and investigation, matter immeasurably to people like me. The children who were buried on the Tuam site cannot represent themselves. But if they could, how do you think they would feel? Please don’t cover ‘Somebody’s Child’ up.
Claire Davenport
Brussels