The home, which was run by an order of Catholic nuns and closed in 1961, was one of many such institutions that housed tens of thousands of orphans and unmarried pregnant women who were forced to give up their children throughout much of the 20th century.

In 2014, historian Catherine Corless tracked down death certificates for nearly 800 children who died at the home in Tuam between the 1920s and 1961 — but could only find a burial record for one child.

  • BeMoreCareful@lemmy.world
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    19 days ago

    I’m old enough to remember everyone getting all bent out of shape by Sinead O’Connor ripping up a picture of the Pope.

    She was a couple of years early, but right.

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          Oconnor was a victim of child sex abuse. Can you blame her for going after her church which actively hides child rape and murder? I think whatever your views are on Islam, you should let her have this choice without judgement. Shaking your finger at rape victims is… not a great response here.

          • WizardofFrobozz@lemmy.ca
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            18 days ago

            Can you blame her for recognizing and turning her back on a harmful patriarchal religion that victimizes women and children and turning to… Islam? Yeah, I can.

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              I don’t. Her talent doesn’t make her anything special outside of that talent. A person can do the wrong thing for the right reasons.

              Also, it happened during a time when Muslims were facing torment from the outside world because of 9/11. She wasn’t the only artist to convert to Islam during that time, but most of the ones I remember reading about at least had some potential connection to the religion through their ancestry.

              Some people cannot fathom a world without religion, even when they see the destruction in what they’re familiar with. If you spend your heart fighting one enemy, it’s a lot easier to miss the crimes of the enemy next door, especially if that enemy is a perceived underdog.

              Edit:

              2018 is when she converted apparently, but she still would have seen and felt the post 9/11 world. I don’t know much of anything so disregard everything I said if you want to or tell me why I’m an idiot if I deserve it.

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                18 days ago

                I question your judgement, and hers, but I also think people should be able to make poor choices so long as bystanders aren’t hurt. If she’s funding jihad, that’s a problem (and I don’t know if she is or not). If she’s living and letting live, I’m not going to criticize. I’ll make my own, different, poor choices.

        • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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          16 days ago

          Kinda, though I think her idea of Islam was about as idiosyncratic as her view of Christianity.

          She was a seeker, and someone who could only do things her own way.

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          18 days ago

          Islam in and of itself is not problematic, not anymore than Christianity at least. Like with literally every religion, it’s the strict conservatives within the religion that are the ones who enforce ridiculous mores and dress codes and other things that are detrimental to the health of the followers of that religion.

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              Again, religion does not equal church. She spent a lot of time as a Catholic trying to make other Catholics see the evils within the church. I think she just became tired of being the town cryer in a world that doesn’t give a shit. And Islam, the religion and belief system not the various organized churches, might have held some amount of peace for her soul. Criticizing her for converting and not starting a whole new crusade to stop the myriad of abuse found within the various sects of Islam is just silly. Especially since there are already a million voices pointing out the faults in the Islamic churches already.

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                17 days ago

                Sinéad AKA Shuhada begs to differ

                “This is to announce that I am proud to have become a Muslim. This is the natural conclusion of any intelligent theologian’s journey. All scripture study leads to Islam. Which makes all other scriptures redundant. I will be given (another) new name. It will be Shuhada’”

                — Shuhada’ Davitt (@MagdaDavitt77) AKA Sinéad O’Connor

                She left main stream catholicism before the SNL incident: “The 51-year-old was previously ordained a priest by a breakaway Catholic sect, the Irish Orthodox Catholic and Apostolic Church, in the late 1990s” source: Irish Post

                She was a troubled being (who wouldn’t be with her childhood?), so not all her decisions are relatable. Converting to main stream (Sunni) Islam still sticks out as weird.

                • buddascrayon@lemmy.world
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                  17 days ago

                  Yeah, you are still pinning her for her belief in Islam because members of Islam have been and continue being vile detestable people. But they aren’t vile detestable people because of their belief in Islam any more than the Christians, Catholic or otherwise, are evil because of their belief in Christianity. They are vile and detestable people regardless of their belief. Their religious beliefs isn’t the source, though it does end up being a justification for those acts. But that’s just sophistry used to cover their own prejudices.

                  She dumped Christianity and chose a different religion. That doesn’t make her culpable for the evils of that religion any more than anyone else is for the deeds of others who believe in the same religion they do.

    • ChickenLadyLovesLife@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      It’s worth mentioning that Joe Pesci did SNL the following week and said “I would have gave [sic] her such a smack. I would’ve grabbed her by her … eyebrows.” AFAIK he has never apologized for this.

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          NBC did not rebroadcast the live performance unedited until 2025, when it was featured in the documentary film Ladies & Gentlemen… 50 Years of SNL Music. In it, Lorne Michaels stated that he had “admired the bravery of what she’d done, and also the absolute sincerity of it”, though no mention was made of prior negative comments from him or the show.

          Oh FUCK Lorne Michaels. What a lying sack of dog feces.

    • Blackmist@feddit.uk
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      18 days ago

      She didn’t really explain much at the time though, and when she did it never got a lot of publicity. People thought she was just attacking Catholics as a whole.

      All most people saw was her ripping up a picture, going “fight the real enemy” and then a bunch of smear articles about her going mental.

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      16 days ago

      Sometimes, all it takes to be ostracised and threatened is to be the first to say something that’s true.

      • friend_of_satan@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        Yeah, and the irony is that in the Bible, Lucifer never even asked for an animal or human sacrifice, but god did.

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          18 days ago

          Excellent name.

          Also, under the Christian dogma, Satan has no authority beyond what God allows. Who then is truly responsible for his actions?

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            16 days ago

            Satan is God’s QA guy. Maybe a bit more prone to destructive testing than he really needs to be.

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          17 days ago

          The serpent never even told Eve to eat the fruit (the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil, why would God create such a tree and why wouldn’t he want humans to have such knowledge? So stupid). All it did was tell her that it was an option.

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            17 days ago

            Not to mention they literally had no concept of good and evil prior to eating it. Therefore they literally could not have known disobeying God was a bad thing. It’s all just so fucking ridiculous that people buy this shit.

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              I asked that question when I was a kid in catechism class. To the credit of the Dominican brother who was teaching the class, he wasn’t reactive, but later had a side-talk with me about demanding logical consistency from allegory. But that realization planted the seed that eventually led to my abandoning religion.

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          If we go after things that weren’t said in the Bible then hell as we imagine should be among the first. Maybe that’s the reason clergy are so beyond repair?

          And while we are at it, the description of hell we used to is Dante’s storytelling of Hieronymus Bosch’s interpretation of an Irish monk’s account of a early medieval Cork knight’s bagd trip.

  • FirstCircle@lemmy.mlOP
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    Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bon_Secours_Mother_and_Baby_Home .

    The mothers were required to stay inside the home for one year, doing unpaid work for the nuns, as reimbursement for some of the services rendered. They were separated from their children, who remained separately in the home, raised by nuns, until they could be adopted – often without consent.

    Some women who had had two confinements were sent directly to nearby Magdalene laundries after giving birth, as punishment for their perceived “recidivism”. According to Professor Maria Luddy, "Such a stance, though not intended to be penal, allowed for the development of an attitude that accepted detention as a means of protecting society from these reoffending women.

    Confinements. Punishment. Detention. Reoffending women.

  • Bluefalcon@discuss.tchncs.de
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    18 days ago

    To the “religion is what makes us civil” crowd, fuck off all the way to whatever hell you believe in or just the sun.

    Disclaimer: This is not a call for violence.

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      I have never understood this pseudo-argument. Christian morality is based on the fear of eternal punishment. Do these fools even realize that?! Morality can be explained much more comprehensibly and naturally through evolution and empathy.

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        It’s a major self-report without them even realizing. They’re basically saying that, without the threat of eternal damnation, nothing would stop them from raping and murdering.

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      18 days ago

      My main issue in discussions on religion is that either side generally claims that either “it makes us civil”, as you say, or that “it’s the cause of evil”. In reality it’s neither. Religion has traditionally been (still is, I’m afraid) a powerful form of crowd control that in past times has steered some believers into doing better deeds by the duality of the hell-heaven system, and likewise has twisted others into extremism and using religion as justification for evil acts. Most of the time it’s just a simple way of life that rids you of the need to question the universe and to carve your own path. As a “Muslim” I sometimes, in some ways, envy those that simply view the etiquettes, laws, and traditions that govern their lives as unquestionable truths. There’s no need to search for purpose, you’re already born with it.

      Humans are flawed and evil. That is true with or withour religion.

      Sorry for rambling.

      • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        Religion, from the start, has been used primarily as a means of control. It is a system that is built for “flawed and evil” humans to exploit in order to oppress and control others.

        Anything good that might come from that is incidental and in spite of that.

      • merc@sh.itjust.works
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        18 days ago

        I think you nailed it here. The successful religions are the ones that are useful as tools for the powerful. It’s not the cause of evil, but it’s something that lets powerful people convince people to do awful things.

        On the other hand, for the believers, it’s a source of community and comfort. They’re given simple rules to follow and promised that their suffering is not in vain. It gives them simple answers to complex questions.

        It also allows people to get over feeling bad. A bad thing is “part of god’s plans”. A bad thing you did is not really your fault because a trickster god made you do it, or the devil made you do it, so you don’t need to do any self-reflection. Or, a bad thing happened to you or someone you love, that’s just a bad god, or a devil, or a complex part of a god’s plan, so you don’t need to worry about it. This is all really useful for leaders, because they’re inevitably closer to the gods than the people they control, and they get to use excuses like “you’re suffering because the gods are unhappy with you” or “it’s your lot in life, because you were born to that caste” or “this was all because of this wicked group of other people who believe in a different god, so we should kill them and take their land”.

        Humans are flawed and sometimes evil, but religion is a very useful tool to manipulate those people.

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      18 days ago

      “civil”

      Recently in England there was a Turkish man burning the koran… a Muslim guy came out and lunged at him several times with a knife he just happened to have on him shouting “you will not burn my holy book” or some such, the book burner was charged by the police (the bible can be burnt in England but for some reason the koran cannot). Kier Starmer didn’t want to progress an investigation into child abuse because of how it will expose the Muslim men abusing working class young white girls because their religion states girls who don’t cover their hair are sluts.

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      18 days ago

      I’m pretty sure it’s more like: religions define what we find civil as a society. Personal spiritual beliefs define what people find acceptable and unacceptable. Religion align spiritual beliefs among social groups.

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        18 days ago

        Numbers 31:18

        But all the women children, that have not known a man by lying with him, keep alive for yourselves.

        You can keep the “religion defines what we find civil as a society.” Miss me with all of the shit.

        • Lv_InSaNe_vL@lemmy.world
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          18 days ago

          Id say religion tends to be more of a reflection of what a society finds as civil. Look at other religions around the world, or historical religions and there are some things that would be entirely unacceptable in my local society at least.

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            I find them more to be a reflection of a small group. Then it is pushed on others to force them to assimilate. Christianity, Hindism, Islam, Judaism, and every other group has “do what we say or else.”

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    Religion has historically provided a safe haven to the sick and twisted among society, where they’re allowed to act with impunity due to their perceived status.

    That’s not directly due to the religion; but rather due to the societal pedestal being devout seems to put people on; “a holy person could never do that to a child” etc…

    The reality is, other areas that benefit from this sort of status too find themselves riddled with bad actors… Just look through charity organisations and I can guarantee you’ll be combing over a sea of sociopaths buying themselves good credit with public opinion rather than people looking to make a difference because they want to (not to say these people don’t exist; they just don’t end up running the show normally)

    • catty@lemmy.world
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      18 days ago

      mental health nurses who work in an asylum/“hospital”/“mental health unit” too according to a friend who works in one as a nurse.

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      18 days ago

      All inequality creates abuse.

      Your last paragraph reminded me of Ashton Kutcher… I can’t watch that 70s show anymore. It was my favorite tv show of all time.

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        I can’t watch that 70s show anymore. It was my favorite tv show of all time.

        I used to love The Cosby Show. Unwatchable now even if they would still air it.

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          17 days ago

          The both of them are complete gross. Ashton started a charity when he was with Demi on combating child sexual abuse and exploitation, and he wrote a letter defending/supporting Danny in the trial.

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            Ah right, I remember that.

            To be fair, those are two different levels of shittiness… I would say his monetary contribution probably accomplished much more than his letter.

            Yes, gross thing to do. But does it really compare to the actual crimes Masterson committed?

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      The rosy romanticisation of what should be a humanitarian entity is probably worst with Buddhism. The Buddhist majority-Burmese oppressing the Rohyngian Muslims, some Buddhist monks advocating for dominance in South East Asia, and even pre-CCP Tibet where the dalai lama and his ilks were decadent and corrupt, seem unfathomable for many who view Buddhism as the most secular and least dogmatic religion. There was an article I have read lamenting this corruption in Buddhist communities, and I was like “they are still humans, what do you expect?”

      • BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        Fuck off sino shill, CCP is not doing any Tibetans favour’s by invading their country, they are a bunch of corrupt dictators

        • TankovayaDiviziya@lemmy.world
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          18 days ago

          Not making CCP any better here, but truth is truth and doesn’t care about your feelings. Was it China’s business to invade Tibet? No, but pre-CCP Tibet was a corrupt theocratic state similar to Iran and Renaissance-era Vatican.

          • BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world
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            18 days ago

            And what’s your source for any of this, I can bring up multiple sources for the atrocities done by the CCP on their own citizens (tiananmen square massacre) and those of neighboring nations, can you back up any of what you claim about Tibet, and even if it were true that does not give China any rights to invade them. Should the other countries invade China for their corrupt leaders then?

            • FruitLips@lemmy.ml
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              18 days ago

              Unhelpful American chiming in: if the Finns, or Danes are feeling feisity we could really use a regime change…

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                16 days ago

                I don’t want those fuckers taking over, building saunas and nice bakeries everywhere, forcing us to have government accountability, good universal healthcare and employment rights.

                Actually, I may have spoken too soon…

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              18 days ago

              You could literally google and see sources what life was like in Tibet before. China is bad, and Tibet before was bad. Many things can be true at the same time. It is just the fact of life. No one is backing up China, it is only you problem if that is you are being emotional on a factual statement.

            • phutatorius@lemmy.zip
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              16 days ago

              Take a deep cleansing breath. Now look at it with this more neutral framing: the last time the lamas were in power, what was it like? Was it some ideal, benign society or not?

              And whether life under the CCP is any better is a separate question. From what I can tell, there’s been a systematic effort by the CCP to extinguish all aspects of Tibetan national identity. That’s probably Han racism packaged as anti-nationalism, but regardless, it’s shitty and slow-motion genocidal.

    • Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      18 days ago

      Look into any situation where there is a massive disparity of power between some people and other people and that’s were you will find the most abuses and I totally agree it’s for the reasons you said of there being far less risk for the abusers due to their “status” and that such places actually attract the worst people in society so it’s a bit of self-fullfilling prophecy that putting too much power and not enough transparency and accountability in a position will invariably end up with it being abused, even if you start with the purest of people and the purest of intentions.

      This is also probably why there was (and only time will tell if that’s still or not the case) so much child sexual abuse in the Catholic church: adult in high standing in the community and implicitly trusted by all vs child (generally from a poor background).

      Thinking about this over the years (mainly for Politics, but it applies to other areas) has led me to conclude that the “good” exercise of power is impossible to get from a static situation (i.e. the idealistic idea that “give power to honest people” solves it) and instead it has to be setup as a dynamic mechanism with frequent rotation of people and multiple unrelated (ideally, competing) people watching over each other other (which is probably where the ide behind the Three Pillars Of Democracy) and whose power balances.

      • BackgrndNoize@lemmy.world
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        18 days ago

        Exactly concentrating power in the hands of a few is a recipe for disaster, doesn’t matter if you elect uncle Roger to the post. Power needs to be distributed and the people who have it should be in constant fear of losing it if they don’t work towards gaining the favor of the masses by working towards the betterment of society. This is why I find morons who pick political sides as if it’s a sports team so stupid, neither side should think you belong to them, they should worry about you flipping your mind all the time.

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    18 days ago

    If your society cannot or will not support an unmarried pregnant woman on her own, your society is a failed one.

  • abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    Every time I run into a pro lifer, I tell them about what happened in Ireland.

    Most of them ignore me, some say it’s worth it.

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    My dad recent got a decent payout for being the internationally trafficked childhood victim of one of these unwed mother homes…

    Not worth his lifetime of trauma, nor the issues that came with being sold at age 4 to a “keeping up appearances” family that sent him away to boarding school on top of everything…

    But it’s something… he’s mid 70s, so you know, totally enough time to use the money.

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      19 days ago

      One of the selling features of Christianity is that you just need to ask Jesus forgiveness and it will be granted.

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        With Catholics you’re supposed to confess to a priest, but same difference to them, basically

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          If they pay an indulgence, even the rich will get into Heaven.

          (So there must be a massive divine operation passing camels through the eyes of needles)

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      19 days ago

      Honestly if hell could be livestreamed I’d love to have a kick out of watching a 24 hour stream of them burning on it.

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          18 days ago

          “The remains ranged from 35 weeks gestation to 3 years old.” So not abortions but stillbirths and dead children. Conditions were appalling, rampant disease etc.

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          If you wait till it’s born, it’s not abortion anymore but sending those poor little angels directly to God who’s the only one who will ever be able to properly care for them or whatever kind of bullshit they used to justify what they did…

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      I’m guessing that God probably knows the infant mortality rates throughout history.

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    Religion is such hypocrisy. No wonder people are turning away.

    On one hand, they tell people don’t use birth control, no abortion ; on the other hand, they don’t protect them.

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    All these institutions of god trying to tell us our souls will be saved if we follow them. and that the “other” religions are prophligates, infidels, devils and heretics. LMAO

    I’ve yet to find one that isn’t hiding a history of butchery