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Breeda Murphy

@breeda_murphy

Jun 20

1/4 Our history. Almost 100 years ago in 1925 the State drew up the Civil Service Regulation (Amendment) Bill to preclude women from applying for some Civil Service jobs. Enactment was delayed to Sept 1926 due to its defeat in Seanad - see contribution by Jennie Wyse Power ⬇️

In 1935 the Conditions of Employment Act extended the marriage bar of the Civil Service Amendment Act to the entire civil service (except for workers in lower grades such as cleaners) and gave the government power to limit the number of women employed in any particular industry/2

This is the reason women could not progress in Ireland. A woman’s role was reduced to “within family home” . Wholly dependant on the male head of household; father, brother or husband. Our grandmothers + mothers suffered under this regime and had to attend for “churching” 3/4

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Breeda Murphy

@breeda_murphy

Jun 20

1/3 This is an aerial view of the Tuam site; walled memorial garden tiny compared to the playground area. There is also car park where we park when we visit + a large stone structure to six anti-treaty soldiers executed at the site in April 1923 when it was a military barracks

The memorial walled garden was built originally as a sewage collection pit with outlets and inlets that could be connected to mains or other systems. There are twenty separate chambers with small openings within the pit.
⬇️ from Technical Report published Apr 2019. 2/3

Each of the chambers had a small opening on top and walled sides. Links in next tweet provide resources to the two technical reports worth reading as they detail the test excavation and are a useful reference for full excavation overseen by Director of Authorised intervention /3

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Breeda Murphy

@breeda_murphy

Jun 19

I/4 I wake every morning with the fear that we will never get Justice for all who suffered in #MotherAndBabyHomes; those who survived and those we lost during the years of operation and in the interim. Apologies don’t cut it; words on a page are meaningless if unaccompanied

by action; action that can bring closure. We cannot turn the clock back to right the injustice of the time; but we can acknowledge it today. The apology is null and void when redress amounts to days spent in institution; it ignores the lifelong inter generational trauma of 2/4

forced family separation; the experiences cited by survivors who endured discrimination and a catalogue of abuses; recognition of unpaid work by one category of mothers but not others. The lost children - 9,000 in 18 institutions- what about the others? We deserve better 3/4

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Breeda Murphy

@breeda_murphy

Jun 18

1/3 Re/ #MotherAndBabyHome regarding overseas #Adoption of Irish Children (dated 31/5/1951) twenty months before law was in place (Jan 1953) to allow for adoption. This correspondence relates to #Castlepollard “home” and contact with American Embassy with regard 2adopting a child

“It was our opinion that the mother of the child could not alienate her natural right to bring up her own child, that her surrender of her child to a convent .. + was alright as far as it went but that if she was to take it back the Court in this country would uphold her” 2/3

The author of this Memo Joe Horon explained that a “foreign decree of adoption valid in the country where it was given would be recognised as valid by our courts in the same way as a valid Decree of Divorce”

It’s clear the State knew it was the mothers right to rear her child /3

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Breeda Murphy

@breeda_murphy

Jun 17

1/4 Letter from the Irish Government to the Catholic Church 29/2/1948
“On the assumption of office and our first Cabinet meeting, my colleagues and myself desire to repose at the feet of your Holiness the assurance of our filial loyalty and devotion as well as of our firm resolve

“ to be guided in all our work by the teaching of Christ and to strive for the attainment of a social order in Ireland based on Christian principles”

Signed: John A Costello
Prime Minister

2/4

The response:

Pope Pius’ response to Costello message in Documents of Irish Foreign Policy dated 05/03/1948 ⬇️. 3/4

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Breeda Murphy

@breeda_murphy

May 5

1/7
Peter Tyrell was born as Ireland was fighting for her independence and the country was in poverty. In desperation his mum begged for food and when he was eight years old, the authorities petitioned the Courts to place four boys in the feared Industrial school at Letterfrack,

Peter entered hell, suffered and witnessed the most appalling cruelty. He spent eight years there and upon release remained a short time in Ireland. At 19 he went to England and at 23 joined the British Army. He was taken prisoner 2/7

by the Germans WW2 and described the treatment as better than Letterfrack. On return to UK he wrote of the brutality of Letterfrack; few listened. He wrote to Senator Sheehy-Skeffington and others but his writings never made it to print 3/7

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