Letters to the Editor: Sean Ross Abbey must be excavated
The Sean Ross Abbey in Roscrea, Tipperary, was a mother and baby home operated by the Sisters of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary from 1930 to 1970.
With the latest information released from the Tuam excavation, I felt I had no choice but to write this. What is happening in Tuam is showing the country that the truth can stay hidden underground for generations, even when everything looks normal on the surface.Â
And that is exactly why Sean Ross Abbey needs to be excavated before more time is lost, while the mothers of these children are still alive.
At Sean Ross Abbey, 1,090 babies died. Only 269 burials were recorded. That leaves more than 800 babies with no confirmed resting place. Twenty-three young women also died there. These children did not simply “pass away”.
Many died from preventable causes such as malnutrition, untreated infections, overcrowded and cold rooms, neglect, and a lack of proper medical care.
The Government uses phrases like “manifestly inappropriate” to avoid digging. It says there is no evidence. But how can there be evidence when it refuses to look?
Tuam has already shown Ireland that babies can be buried beneath ordinary ground, that scans cannot detect remains, and you only find the truth when you excavate.
Sean Ross Abbey deserves the same truth.
The Government has locked away the institutional records for the next 30 years. These are the medical files, inspection reports, internal letters, adoption documents, correspondence about deaths, and the State’s own communications about how mothers and babies were treated. People deserve to know exactly what is being sealed. These records include what inspectors wrote, the warnings that were ignored, the conditions the children lived and died in, and who allowed it. They also include the truth about the mothers: The forced labour, the punishment, the dangerous birth conditions, the lack of pain relief, the medical neglect, the babies taken without consent, the coerced or forged signatures, the illegal birth registrations, the adoption arrangements, and what really happened to the 23 young women who died there.
They also contain information about pharmaceutical companies entering these institutions and carrying out trials on babies without their mothers’ knowledge. These are the facts being hidden.
The Government has seen these records. We have not. They know the truth, and they have chosen to lock it away from the very people who lived it. That is not preservation. That is control. And it is cruelty.
And while all this truth is kept from survivors, the Government continues to talk about what it has spent and what it has “delivered”, while ignoring what still lies buried in the ground and buried in its own files.
So I want to ask the Government directly, in front of the Irish people:
Why are more than 800 missing babies not enough reason to excavate Sean Ross Abbey?
Why are the records still sealed from survivors and the public?
Why do these files remain hidden when they contain the truth about the babies and the mothers?
Why did inspectors report horrific conditions and nothing changed?
Why were babies left to die from causes that were entirely preventable?
Why is the truth still being buried in 2025?
The mothers of these children are elderly now. Some have already died without answers. Every day of delay is another day of cruelty. The institutions may be gone, but the way survivors are treated tells us that the system which failed us then is still failing us now. The harm did not end when the buildings closed.
It continues in every refusal, every delay, every sealed record, and every unanswered question.
Ireland deserves honesty. The babies deserve dignity. The mothers deserve closure. Survivors deserve the truth, not excuses.
Excavate Sean Ross Abbey.
Open the records.
Tell the truth.
Find the missing babies.
It is nothing short of a miracle that our wonderful swimmers had such a successful trip to Europe when you consider we have only two Olympic-size swimming pools, one in Dublin and one in Limerick. This is a national disgrace in my humble opinion.
It must be extremely difficult for parents to get their children to Limerick or Dublin. There should be facilities in every county for our swimmers who aspire to swim at the Olympics. This doesn’t need to cost a fortune, because you don’t need a full Olympic-size pool for the purpose of training. An Olympic-size pool measures exactly 50m in length, 25m wide, with eight lanes each 2.5m wide. For training purposes you could have just 4 x 2.5m wide lanes x 50m long. All you then need is washing facilities and a roof and walls to cover the whole thing.
Nothing extravagant or luxurious, just functional, and it doesn’t need to cost a fortune. The pool itself could be made from pre-fabricated stainless steel, which means very little maintenance in future.
Every county should provide half an acre of land and erect such a building for our swimmers.
If they wanted to guarantee we watched The Life of Brian, they couldn’t have done a better job.
In 1979, banning it ensured that everyone in my friend group watched it. Just like the people who think they can stop children accessing inappropriate content on social media. Have they ever been young? Do they have any idea how resourceful teenagers can be?
Children will always find a way to see the things they want to hide.
How about we educate our children about the dangers of the things they’re likely to come across? Let’s teach them stuff that’s actually useful and might protect them, instead of pretending we can stop them accessing the internet.
Fine Gael senator Seán Kyne claimed that fox hunting is not carried out for sport, and maintained that “we are a long time from the Irish RM, which was set during the time of the gentry”.
In actual fact, those shamefully participating in this abhorrent animal abuse indeed do it for sport.
This is clear from the Irish Masters of Foxhounds Association’s website, which states that “fox hunting as a sport is the hunting of the fox in its wild and natural state with a pack of foxhounds”.
It is further described there as “an organised sport”, with those coming along to see foxes running for their lives told: “Do not get into such a position as to head the fox as to do so is to spoil your own and everyone else’s sport.”
It is appalling that Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, and Sinn Féin would even contemplate voting against Ruth Coppinger’s upcoming bill which seeks to stop an activity based on disturbing foxes from their natural habitat, terrorising them for miles across the countryside, and cheering as dogs attack, bite, disembowel, and rip them apart.
Hopefully, when Ms Coppinger’s bill returns to Dáil Éireann on December 17, political parties will unite in denouncing the sadistic minority involved in this recreational cruelty, particularly when poll after poll leaves no doubt that most people in Ireland want fox hunting outlawed.
Since the time of the legendary Aeneas, the notion of a “force multiplier” has been central to military thinking. A single weapon or system (think Trojan horse) which can have such an effect that it decisively changes the dynamics of a conflict. This is a very attractive proposition.
By way of example, the sniper, a highly trained man/woman (assisted, on every occasion, by an equally skilled “spotter” who identifies wind speed, direction, air pressure, and the Earth’s gravitational pull) is a person whose actions can bring to a halt the advance of opposing troops.
Bizarrely, in the 21st century, the drone is in the same category: Not necessarily built to stringent scientific specifications or controlled by specially trained operators, a simple uncrewed aerial vehicle (UAV) can call a halt to aircraft operations in a particular zone of activity (airport, landing ground, or maritime asset). It carries considerably more impact than its cost suggests (I priced one in a local shop at around €75.00).
Recent activity, apparently linked to the visit of Ukraine’s president Zelenskyy, although officially unattributed, poses questions for our government. [Russia’s ambassador to Ireland] Yury Filatov, take a step forward, please.
Lest we feel unimportant or neglected in these goings-on, French personnel fired live ammunition on UAVs flying close to a national submarine base near Brest. This was authorised by French defence minister Catherine Vautrin.
