FIVE THINGS ABOUT THE `APPALLING' DEATH RATE AT HOMES FOR UNWED MOTHERS

Thousands of infants died in Irish homes for unmarried mothers and their offspring run by the Church from the 1920s to the 1990s, a government inquiry found, an “appalling” mortality rate that reflected brutal living conditions.

1 HIGH NUMBERS

The report, which covered 18 so-called Mother and Baby Homes, where young pregnant women were hidden from society, found some 9,000 children died — a mortality rate of 15 per cent, five times higher than that for married mothers. The proportion of children who died before their first birthday in one home was as high as 75 per cent in 1943.

2 `STAIN' ON IRELAND

Relatives have alleged the babies were mistreated because they were born to unmarried mothers who, like their children, were seen as a stain on Ireland's image as a devout Catholic nation. The homes admitted rape victims and girls as young as 12. The remains of 802 children, from newborns to age 3, were buried between 1925 and 1961 in just one home, a 2017 interim report found.

3 APOLOGY COMING

Children's Minister Roderic O'Gorman said “the report makes clear that for decades, Ireland had a stifling, oppressive and brutally misogynistic culture, where a pervasive stigmatization of unmarried mothers and their children robbed those individuals of their agency and sometimes their future.” Prime Minister Micheál Martin will this week make a formal apology and will provide financial recognition and laws to support excavation, exhumation and identification of remains.

4 STATE-FUNDED

A coalition of survivors' groups said it had mixed feelings because the inquiry left out a number of similar institutions and did not fully account for the role the state played. The Church ran many of Ireland's social services in the 20th century. While run by nuns, the homes received state funding.

5 SIX-YEAR STUDY

The investigation began six years ago after an unmarked mass graveyard was uncovered by an amateur local historian who said she had been haunted by childhood memories of skinny children from the home. The homes were the subject of the 2013 Oscar-nominated film Philomena, starring Judi Dench, which charted the failed efforts of Philomena Lee to find the son she was forced to give up as an unwed teenager.