New Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin speaks on Bethany Home

dublin | rights, freedoms and repression | news report

Thursday February 03, 2011 17:13

by Bethany Survivors - Bethany Survivors Group

Home where hundreds died and suffered neglect

See previous stories on this issue:
Bethany Home Children’s Graves discovered
Former residents call for memorial - Wednesday 26th May, 12 noon, at MOUNT JEROME Cemetery
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/96739
From Wicklow to Wakefield - a victim of Protestant prejudice and state neglect
Derek Leinster survived to become a trade union convener, a father and a grandfather
http://www.indymedia.ie/article/92984

New Church of Ireland Archbishop of Dublin, Michael Jackson, spoke on the Bethany Home today. He was interviewed on RTE’s Morning Ireland, 3 February 2010 by Joe Little, RTE’s religious and social Affairs Corespondent.

LISTEN HERE:
http://www.rte.ie/news/morningireland/player.html?20110...h,257

Some children died of Marasmus, a form of malnutrition - CLICK graphic to read

In 1945, Archbishop Jackson’s predecessor, Dr Barton, recommended Bethany as a place of detention to then Minister for Justice, Gerald Boland. As well as unmarried mothers and their children, Bethany was also a place of detention for women convicted of infanticide, Prostitution and petty theft. Pregnancy out of wedlock (as well as the children born in that state) was considered ‘illegitimate’ at that time. The Bethany Home had a Protestant evangelical ethos, one in which Church of Ireland clergy played a prominent part, on its managing Committee and in referring women to the home.

Over 220 children of unmarried mothers died in the Bethany Home and were buried in unmarked graves in Mount Jerome Cemetery Harold’s Cross, Dublin.

When confronted by internal and external allegations of neglect in 1939 the Deputy Chief Medical Adviser of the Department of Health and Local Government said:

”It is well recognised that illegitimate children are delicate”

The adviser, William Sterling Berry, then forced the home to stop admitting Roman Catholic women and children it was accused of attempting to proselytise – on the basis that that would make the controversy go away. He wanted a level sectarian playing field, under which are buried dead children in unmarked graves.

The former Bethany residents are demanding access to the Irish state’s redress scheme, from which they are excluded. Another related group also excluded are the residents of Magdalene laundries.

See website of Bethany pioneer Derek Leinster:
http://www.derekleinster.com/
Also
Justice for Magdalenes
http://www.magdalenelaundries.com

Further reading:
Church and State and the Bethany Home – download PDF at
http://gcd.academia.edu/NiallMeehan/Papers/277737/Churc..._Home
“Protestants… were left as orphans” – download PDF at
http://gcd.academia.edu/NiallMeehan/Papers/315286/_Prot...hans_

Dublin Arcbishop recommends Bethany as a prison - CLICK to read