The ‘good done by the institutions’
All the good done by individuals and institutions can be submerged in a sea of outrage and condemnation for the failings and sins of the past.
But the newspapers over the years, have also given us expressions of gratitude from former residents of Mother and Baby Homes for the shelter, kindness and education provided to them, when none else was available.
I give just a few examples: *Eileen was four years of age when she went to St. Joseph’s in Kilkenny. Her mother had died leaving seven children and her father was drinking too much.
“I was very happy in St. Joseph’s. It was the only home I had...If we’d stayed at home we would never have got an education, or had proper food or a clean bed at night.
“Now I find it very sad to hear people talking about my home like that..When I left and went to Dublin, the nuns provided a “halfway house” to give us time to find our feet.”
* Patricia attended Goldenbridge industrial school from 1955 to 1963:
‘School was hard .. but that was the way it was for everybody else..None of us were scruffy urchins. Sister worked very hard keeping things in order”. When she left the school, Patricia kept in touch through re-unions and maintained the friendships with her fellow-pupils. She is now married with two children.
* Florence Horsman Hogan’s mother was disturbed and her father was an alcoholic.
She was six weeks old and in the last stages of starvation, when the nuns took her in:
“We got an education; we were looked after when we got sick.... I would not have survived without them. They told me to hold my head up high and I’ve always done that!”
As Shakespeare put it: “The evil that men do lives after them, but the good is oft’ interred with their bones!”
Yours faithfully,
Eamon Fitzpatrick, Strandhill Road, Sligo.
**From: “There were also States of Grace in Institutions” by Liam Collins; Sunday Independent 2/11/2003.