Liam Neeson: Open up the Tuam graves and identify the remains
THE Tuam babies’ mass grave should be opened and the remains identified, according to Hollywood superstar Liam Neeson. Neeson is developing a new film about Tuam after the discovery of children’s remains in a septic tank on the old site of a Tuam Mother and Baby Home – a story first brought to prominence by the Irish Mail on Sunday in 2014.
As historian and Tuam babies campaigner Catherine Corless joins a vigil at the site today rather than attend the Papal Mass which begins at the same time, Neeson told the MoS in a statement that he was ‘stunned and outraged’ by this dark episode in Ireland’s history.
The crowds of protesters are expected to demand a forensic exhumation of Tuam’s grisly cemetery and the identification of the tiny remains that still lie beneath the ground – a sentiment that Neeson is in full agreement with.
‘DNA technology is now available to identify all these bones, belonging to possibly over 790 babies and children, still lying in the ground in Tuam,’ an emotional Neeson said.
‘The Irish Government, aided by the Catholic Church and especially the nuns order, The Congregation of the Sisters of Bon Secours, must not shirk the responsibility of giving these souls the dignity and respect of identification.
‘They had a right to exist. They were not “the devil’s issue” as some people and establishments referred to them. A wrong is still a wrong and a crime is still a crime no matter how many years have passed. A proposed bronze plaque isn’t going to absolve those responsible for this horror.’
The Tuam story – which is still being unravelled by a Commission of Inquiry – has now become a focal point for protests during the Papal visit this weekend.
It is one of many wrongs to strike a chord with ordinary people while reflecting on the nation’s relationship with the Catholic Church, including the so-called Magdalene Laundries; the forced adoption of babies born out of wedlock; the systematic cruelty dealt out to those falling on the wrong side of respectability; and clerical child sex abuse. These things have been highlighted by among others, Martin Sixsmith – a British journalist whose investigation into a woman’s 50-year search for her son became the Oscar-nominated 2013 film, Philomena.
The anger shows no sign of subsiding soon, nor does the growing pressure on the Church. That pressure for answers stems, in part, from a happy but poignantly linked occasion – the birth of a grandchild.
Cradling her grandson Joshua in 1996, Annette McKay, now 64, looked up to see her 70-year-old mother Maggie Heaton sobbing. ‘It’s the baby, it’s the baby,’ her mother repeated, shaking with grief. ‘My baby who died.’ It was only then that Mrs Heaton revealed she had been raped and become pregnant when she was 18 and living in an Irish children’s home. After giving birth on December 7th, 1942, mother and daughter were forcibly separated by the nuns and Maggie was sent to another home. That child, Mary Margaret O’Connor, the family discovered, is one of the Tuam children for whom a death certificate has been issued. Now Annette, a local councillor from Bury in Lancashire, England, is among those demanding a forensic investigation of the site. ‘Mary died aged six months,’ explains Annette. ‘On that day, a nun came to my mum and spat out the words: “That child of your sin is dead. Leave the home.”’ The seeds of the whole traumatic story were sown when Maggie’s mother died in 1936, leaving eight children to care for themselves as their father was largely absent. ‘Her dad was a drinker and worked away for months at a time so after their mum died, the children came to the attention of the powers that be,’ recalls Annette.
Maggie and her seven malnourished siblings, aged from three to 16, were marched by the local priest through the streets of Galway City to the local court. Annette produces a piece of paper dated 1937. It is Maggie’s ‘charge sheet’ and details that she was a slightly-built 12-year-old and outlines what Margaret O’Connor was charged with: ‘Found destitute’.
There, in January 1937, Maggie and three of her five sisters were given a ‘sentence of detention’ at St Anne’s Industrial School at Lenaboy, Galway. Their two brothers were sent to a Christian Brothers home with the two oldest girls put to work in domestic service.
What was supposed to be their salvation turned out to be the beginning of years of abuse by the nuns.
‘As we grew up, Mum had several breakdowns and would cry as she recalled being beaten repeatedly for anything from not walking in a straight line to defending her sisters. It was like a concentration camp for children. She tried to tell her father about their treatment on his rare visits, but a nun would be standing behind her. She confided in a priest, too, but wasn’t believed. Mum lived in fear of them,’ says Annette. ‘And she didn’t know she was free to leave the home at 16.’
Maggie developed into a beautiful green-eyed 18-year-old woman and was raped by a male member of staff at the home. ‘Mum knew nothing about sex – why would she as she never left the home,’ adds Annette. ‘When she started her periods, she thought she was bleeding to death. But that day in 1996, she graphically recounted the whole horrific story. She wept as she named the man who did it and his job. “It was his fault, he raped me. He had been nice to me, then he did that,” she repeated. ’
The pregnant Maggie was sent to the Tuam home run by nuns from the Bon Secours order. There, she gave birth to Mary on December 7th, 1942. ‘She was so bonny and such a weight on my hip, oh she was bonny,’ was Maggie’s only memory of her first child.
Maggie was then moved to a different home, St Bridget’s, where she was so callously told of her daughter’s death – and subsequently ordered to leave. Mary died, according to her death certificate, on June 6th, 1943 from cardiac failure after suffering whooping cough for two months. In the 1940s, the Bon Secours nuns were paid by the State nearly £100 per child per week to care for children in their care. Yet the harsh conditions of the Tuam home meant the infant mortality rate there was five times the national average.
After the secret of her lost child came tumbling out, Maggie never spoke about it again. She never registered her daughter’s birth, never saw a death certificate and died earlier this year after developing Alzheimer’s never knowing where her baby was buried. Indeed, Annette is not fully convinced her sister is dead: ‘I have a death certificate, but no burial site and no record of a grave – so where is my
sister? Was she also dumped in the sewers or has she been trafficked to America like so many others?’
Annette gave evidence to the Residential Institutions Redress Board in Dublin, set up in 2002 by the Irish State to determine damages for children who were abused in the Irish homes. The board paid substantial damages to Maggie after Annette named the abusive nuns and the alleged rapist, and detailed how her mother’s tragic early life impacted on her family.
She says: ‘Mum suffered depression and anxiety all her life. She tried to take her own life, had several breakdowns and was cruel to us at times. ’
The fate of the missing children at the Tuam home was uncovered by Rehab Person of the Year award winner Catherine Corless as she researched the home’s history for a regional magazine. Remarkably, she has paid out of her own pocket for the death certificates of 796 children who died there between 1925 and 1960.
And it was Catherine Corless that Annette would contact for more details before travelling to Tuam Garda Station to report her sister as a missing person.
‘The officer laughed in my face and said, “Oh, that was all a long time ago,” and sent me on my way. As I left the station, another officer discretely said, “There is stuff going on, a cover-up. Keep pushing on.” It is outrageous that the Church, the State and police are not supporting every family affected by this. What are they scared of?’
It may never be known how many children died in Ireland’s unmarried mothers’ homes, or indeed, how many were sent abroad for adoption. However, the Commission of Investigation is currently investigating a total of 18 homes across the country. A month ago, Annette travelled to Tuam and, with her fellow truth campaigners of the Tuam Families’ Group, challenged Children’s Minister Katherine Zappone. Now she wants the Pope to confront the scandal on behalf of the Catholic Church.
She says: ‘He seems a compassionate man – we want him to visit the site and support our fight.
‘The Tuam site is a crime scene and needs to be fully excavated.
‘It is the right thing to do – for the children who died, their mothers, and those of us who had to pick up the pieces in the ensuing decades.’