No excuses can justify our shameful history

One opinion I have seen written since the dreadful Tuam story broke in the media is: That the public must consider the tragedy in the context of the country’s economic and social profile of the time.

Well I say this: No particular time in our history should be an excuse for what happened here.

All our shameful history needed to be brought out in the open: Corporal punishment in our schools; the dreadful Industrial Schools; the Magdalene Laundries; clerical sex abuse; and now this latest report on the remains of 796 babies, who died at a religious-run and state funded home for unmarried mothers in Tuam from 1925 to 1961.

We must not separate these dreadful happenings, and realise and accept, once and for all, that as a society we have no excuses whatsoever.

Brian Mc Devitt

Ardconnail

Glenties

Co Donegal