In today’s Irish Times, an article about Drag Queens came back to the subject of, you guessed it, the septic tank conspiracy theory.
The article essentially justified Drag shows for children because opposition to it is rooted in a time in the past when ‘hundreds of Irish children they are so intent on saving ended up in a septic tank’.
It is now a common belief in Ireland that nuns, with permission from the church, shoved the bodies of malnourished children (some of whom they had intentionally murdered (if not all)) by the hundreds (896 on the dot) into a septic tank in Tuam, with some of these bodies flushed down the toilet (possibly after being murdered).
It is easy for people to believe this.
It has been repeated by the media repeatedly, originally as a hypothesis, then as fact. It has been repeated by Leo Varadkar as if it were fact.
Most importantly, not a single priest, bishop or nun has publicly (barely even privately), asserted the absurdity of the claims. If the church will not even defend itself against the claim that it intentionally killed 796 babies and shoved them into a septic tank, only to be caught out by an amateur historian a century later, then surely it must be guilty?
Some Irish people even believe that excavations have been carried out and that the bodies have been found, showing signs of having been murdered by the nuns or at least starved to death by neglect.
When the abortion referendum passed in 2018, it was a significant talking point. When Pope Francis’s poorly organised 2018 visit turned into a disaster, it was a major reason why many people stayed away. When people discuss not returning to Mass, it is given as a significant reason.
A similar story broke in Canada during the pandemic, with church authorities immediately acting in order to get to the truth of whether or not a ‘mass grave’ contained ‘murdered’ children, especially urgent when the story had led to over 100 arson attacks on churches within months, similar numbers to the period immediately prior to the Spanish Civil War.
What was found was conclusive, there were no murdered children. Those who died young? Yes, in accordance with similar figures for those living in poverty at the time. Were they ‘dumped’ in a ‘mass grave’? No, they were buried in graves on the grounds of the residential school because the government refused to pay for their bodies to be sent home to their families.
All that the church had to do was take some ownership and get to the bottom of the situation.
The Tuam conspiracy has been around for almost a decade now and continues to grow legs, despite no excavation being carried out and despite an extensive government report
In 2014, a now forgotten Irish Times article actually pointed out the absurdity of the claims.
Written by Rosita Boland, it was entitled Tuam mother and baby home: the trouble with the septic tank story.
The subheading said: Catherine Corless’s research revealed that 796 children died at St Mary’s. She now says the nature of their burial has been widely misrepresented.
It opens with:
‘I never used that word ‘dumped’,” Catherine Corless, a local historian in Co Galway, tells The Irish Times. “I never said to anyone that 800 bodies were dumped in a septic tank. That did not come from me at any point. They are not my words.”
In case that did not register, read those words again:
‘I never used that word ‘dumped’,” Catherine Corless, a local historian in Co Galway, tells The Irish Times. “I never said to anyone that 800 bodies were dumped in a septic tank. That did not come from me at any point. They are not my words.”
Boland then recounts the numerous headlines which twisted the story after the initial revelations.
The Washington Post for example, claimed Bodies of 800 babies, long-dead, found in septic tank. Al Jazeera said Nearly 800 dead babies found in septic tank in Ireland. The New York Daily News said 800 skeletons of babies found inside tank at former Irish home for unwed mothers.
None of these were true. But you can imagine the psychological effects that this had on the Irish population. How many people stopped attending Mass, kept their kids from Catholic schools or reconsidered their vocation because the church was happy for them to believe that this had really occurred?
Boland points out that Corless’s work did indeed highlight 796 babies died, over a 30 year period, but then points out that infection spread rapidly and consequently compared to high death rate of the time in society at large, it was not unthinkable.
Boland then quotes Corless:
“I never used that word ‘dumped’,” she says again, with distress. “I just wanted those children to be remembered and for their names to go up on a plaque. That was why I did this project, and now it has taken [on] a life of its own.”
Boland then mentions how the story about bones occurred because some boys “came upon a sort of crypt in the ground, and on peering in they saw several small skulls. I’m told they ran for their lives and relayed their find to their parents.” This was in proximity to the home, hence the conflation between the grave being definitely of those in the home with no other explanation.
She spoke with one of the boys, who said: “But there was no way there were 800 skeletons down that hole. Nothing like that number. I don’t know where the papers got that.”
The boy said that the number was closer to 20.
Towards the end of the story, Boland states that she pointed out to Corless that the sewage tank remaining in use between 1925 and 1937 means that it was not possible for 796 babies to have been put into it. Boland tells us that ‘Corless admits that it now seems impossible to her that more than 200 bodies could have been put in a working sewage tank’.
In a follow up post, Boland addressed Corless’s daughter, who had written a blog in response, in which Boland says that Corless’s daughter said that ‘this is false’, regarding the admission of the impossibility of the burials between 1925 and 1937.
Boland says that she recorded a video in the morning where Corless said ‘it’s quite possible’ that 796 bodies were in the tank. Boland then writes.
‘I called her about 5pm, and asked if she would check the number of deaths registered between 1925 and 1937. She phoned me back some minutes later, and told me it was 204.
I had carefully read and reread her article, The Home, which was first published in the Journal of the Old Tuam Society. In it, your mother states “the new sewage and drainage scheme was brought into Tuam in late 1930.” Your mother had earlier qualified that date as being 1937.
We then had a conversation about the fact the sewage tank was clearly still in use at the Home until the arrival of the new public water system. It was then that your mother stated to me on the phone that given the tank was in operation between 1925 and 1937, it thus now “seemed impossible” to her that bodies would have been put in a working tank during those years.
‘‘I put it to her that it could not then be the case that all 796 bodies could be in the tank, as other media outlets were reporting. She agreed. I have my notes of that phonecall’’.
The official state report into the matter mentioned that:
Nuns actually paid out of their own pocket for a handyman to build coffins for those who died young.
Former residents spoke of how they had shoes when other schoolkids did not.
Chaplain stopped secular teacher from administering corporal punishment.
The saddest thing about the official report is how these people were forgotten by their families and by wider society, the church made a mistake by playing a part in these homes, which were brought here by British Protestants.
Yet, there is no evidence that 796 babies were murdered, flushed down toilets, intentionally dumped in septic tanks.
The initial scepticism with which some greeted the story has now all but subsided with the state now set to have an excavation there in the coming year.
Bishops, nuns and priests are all so demoralised that they have allowed young Catholics to bear the brunt of abuse for this story, in conversations with friends and family, in public and online discourse, in their own reckoning with their faith. Meanwhile, they retire to their Synod meetings and block out the noise.
If the church is to reclaim that large numbers of people that it has lost since the last Census, thousands of them, it needs to finally start defending itself and defending the truth.
You can read the Irish Times article here: Tuam mother and baby home: the trouble with the septic tank story (archive.md)
