Roman Catholics and Protestants were controlled by their clergy in Ireland

In response to Niall Meehan ('˜Letter exaggerates the suffering of Protestants in the Republic,' May 25), it wasn't all sweetness and light for Protestants in the Republic of Ireland.
"The abuse was horrendous." A bunch of flowers marks the spot where 40 infants who died in the Bethany mother and baby centre were buried in unmarked graves at Mount Jerome graveyard in Dublin. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire"The abuse was horrendous." A bunch of flowers marks the spot where 40 infants who died in the Bethany mother and baby centre were buried in unmarked graves at Mount Jerome graveyard in Dublin. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire
"The abuse was horrendous." A bunch of flowers marks the spot where 40 infants who died in the Bethany mother and baby centre were buried in unmarked graves at Mount Jerome graveyard in Dublin. Photo: Niall Carson/PA Wire

I was cast out like many others into an evangelical mother and baby home, on whose management committee sat all of the Protestant denominations.

As a Protestant I was in no position to enter Trinity College, because I was denied an education. Aged 18, I left for England unable to read or write.

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The Bethany Home was one of the main Protestant mother and baby homes in the south. The Church of Ireland took direct responsibility for the other one, the ‘Magdalen Home’.

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Both took in those who ‘broke the law of God’, by having babies out of wedlock. They scrubbed floors and engaged in other manual labour as a punishment, and then were supposed to pay for the pleasure of their child being taken from them. Many became free labour for prosperous Protestant farmers.

Bethany Home was also ‘a place for detention’, a prison for women who broke ‘the law of man’, by stealing or after killing their unwanted offspring. It was all men’s law, basically.

Roman Catholics and Protestants were controlled by their clergy and more ardent supporters, supported and regulated by the state. Our mothers were hidden from view and then these institutions tried to hide the children, before getting rid of us as quickly as possible.

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There was no border as far as Protestants were concerned. Bethany, the Magdalen Home and other institutions (like Smyly’s and the Westbank) took in children from Northern Ireland. The Republic was used to sweep women and children under the carpet.

The abuse was horrendous.

When I told a relative of mine in the Orange Order, who raised money for the Bethany Home, what went on there, he cried deep and sincere tears of remorse.

I have no time for Archbishop Charles McQuaid, the bigoted Dublin bishop who was insulting toward the Protestant faith, who tried to stop Catholics entering Trinity College. He did not insult me. My existence was an insult to those who made Protestant rules.

The southern government currently has a Mother and Baby home Commission. It is very exercised about up to 800 babies’ bodies from a Roman Catholic mother and baby home in Tuam, Galway.

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Some 200 children from the Bethany Home in unmarked graves, discovered in 2009 / 2010, does not get the same attention. There are more to be discovered.

I hope News Letter readers will take notice and, more important, action by speaking out.

Derek Leinster, Chairperson, Bethany Survivors Campaign, Warwickshire