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
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”
Dublin Arcbishop recommends Bethany as a prison - CLICK to read
Former Bethany residents demand acces to state's redress scheme
Derek Leinster, born Bethany 1941, hands letter in to Taoiseach - CLICK to read