Tuam’s heartless moral judges will now be judged

A quantity of bones had been detected, the papers said. But their previous owners had long since passed to a peace beyond human understanding.

A total of 796 names on the death register. Angels all, they shine bright as stars in a crisp winter’s sky. Buried in secret in the depths of Hidden Ireland – in dark chambers that once reeked of sewerage – their mortal bodies carried there by God’s Anointed, peering over their shoulders to ensure nobody saw them.

But God saw their illegitimate work and one day a brave historian would bring it to light.

The self-righteous ones stood over the babies in judgment. The moral judges have become the judged. The innocent ones are blessed among the saintly. Looking down from above, they behold the ‘quantity of bones’. Evidence of guilt – but not theirs or their mothers’.

The proof that convicts Church and State and all who knew and looked the other way… The earth yields forth an indigestible truth. The Angelus bell rings. Hail Mary, full of Grace. Our Lady of the Septic Tank, Pray for us.

John Fitzgerald,