Protestant clergy must apologise for neglect

The leadership of the Protestant Churches of Ireland have to finally accept their historic responsibility as their counterparts in the Catholic Church did recently in Scotland. 

Not simply to apologise for the inhuman ‘care’ they provided in the Bethany Home in Dublin and many others, from the foundation of the State in 1922, but to apologise to the survivors and to more than 227 children who did not survive that hell and who lay forgotten in Mount Jerome Cemetery for generations until the Bethany Survivors erected our memorial to them in 2014.

It was clergymen themselves who watched babies and children dying before their eyes every day.

These were crimes against Irish children by the State and there was no humanity shown to us by our very own State or Church.

The State and Church have a duty to survivors, to Ireland, and to God.

The clergymen baptised me and signed my illegal adoption papers.

I was in the parish of Dugganstown, Co. Wicklow, and clergy witnessed my wretched and impoverished state on a daily basis. The most I received was a smile as they went about their business.

Derek Leinster

Bethany Home Survivors

Southey Rd

Rugby

Warwickshire