Tuesday, January 05, 2016

Bless Da Webz and All Who Sail on her.

Thank you Irish Examiner for this photo of a cillini

I was commenting on a friend's FB page, you know how that is. The chat was about all those nameless unbaptized babies buried in remote, separate burial plots all over Ireland. Tossed out like so much rubbish. There are thousands and thousands of such little babies. Read all about it here.

Can you imagine the grief of the parents? The RC church again and its superstitions and exclusions. When anyone says "Oh, it was the times" I always respond with "where was human compassion and charity - or are they just recent evolutionary traits in the human race?"

So well. I mentioned a cillini - a burial plot (if you could call it that) on an island off West Cork, where the unbaptized babies were. A large walled area without a stone or a cross or a sign. Rumour had it there were hundreds of such babies, stillborn, preemies etc. interred there. And some said those born severely handicapped were quietly done away with too. A haunted place for us children who explored it time and time again. These wee innocents were consigned to Limbo for all eternity, punished forever for something they had nothing to do with. Never to be seen by their parents even in the next world, whether heaven or hell. The cruelty of it all still has the power to take my breath away.

One of her other friends, not a friend of mine, came on board in the comments and asked me how he, a life long aficionado and visitor to Baltimore and Sherkin, had never known about this paricular cillini so I drew him a little map showing (roughly) where it was.

Then we got into this lively private conversation about Sherkin and our memories and the old people there and a small boat I would surreptitiously "borrow" and he in his turn did the same thing and the cranky lightkeeper who would chase us away from the lighthouse as he liked to go skinny dipping in Horseshoe Bay, and did I know about the island in WW2. It turns out he's over 80 and still climbing mountains. His age explains how our memories alight around the same people and places (and oh, what characters!) but he was that much older than me that our paths didn't intersect back then.

This webz business, great, yah?

And educational, if you have the fortitude and interest to click on all the links above.

10 comments:

  1. Remote burial grounds for nameless unwanted babies - such unspeakable contempt and cruelty. Any religion that treats new human beings in this way is nothing but an inhuman cult.

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    1. I so agree Nick and they still have followers who condone all their past horrors and depravity by financially supporting them. It beggars belief.
      XO
      WWW

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  2. How anybody could believe such an obviously cruel and heartless thing boggles my mind. Not Catholic myself, this gives me insight into how much power the Church has wielded. My Southern Baptist upbringing has had some crazy dogma and done hurtful things, but not this particular meanness.

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    1. Mean is a good descriptor Diane. Unconscionable in those who spout the opposite. Hypocrisy reigned supreme in the RC church and still does to a huge degree. Last week the pope exhorted believers to give more as he swanned around in a palace with 85 billion locked up the Vatican bank vaults.
      XO
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  3. When I had a stillborn baby girl in 1971 my Irish GYN refused to allow me to see her or hold her. They took her away immediately and when we asked what they did with her - we wanted to have a service - he said, "Don't be ridiculous. Its not like she was baptized, we burn stillborns with the medical waste." We have two sons, one older and one younger, and I still grieve for that baby girl everyone told me to "forget", "get over" and "not whine about". For years I kept that grief bottled up, but about five years ago I just couldn't do it anymore. Damned controlling men and their religions.

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    1. Oh Deb I am so very sorry to hear this, how totally and utterly heartbreaking. Cruel effing doctor, how they spout their platitudes about charity and fail to practise it.
      All religions are patriarchal in the extreme.

      Avoid to save sanity is my motto :(

      I hope you find some way to commemorate your beloved daughter.

      Hugs.

      XO
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  4. You tell 'em, Deb!
    Excuse me while I imagine lining up all those controlling men and the women who believed as they did, and giving them all a good slap. I hope there really is karmic payback for our cruelties to others.
    I'm sorry for your loss. Time doesn't make it go away.

    Sheesh, WWW, what's the pope's plan for that 85 bill?

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    1. Unimaginable horrors Kate from the industrial schools to the orphanages to the laundries to the intolerance and hatred of "unwed mothers." I honestly believe we have only heard a ssmall part of it. I remember one man telling me here in Canada that he was pimped out by Christian Brothers in a hotel in Donegal in Ireland. He even saw the money changing hands while he was being sodomized. I imagine young girls were equally abused. Horrifying, depraved stuff.

      The billions? Hoarding it of course and interest generation. They have NEVER contributed any settlements in the hundreds of thousand lawsuits brought against the RCs.

      XO
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  5. How the hell do they get away with it?

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