If you're following the #TuamBabies story, @AlisonOReilly3 reports in the Irish Mail on Sunday the AG has refused to exhume the 796 bodies.
— Donal O'Keeffe (@Donal_OKeeffe) October 26, 2014
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Everything. As It Happens.
Exhume from where? We still don’t know where 796 listed as having died are buried, that’s the whole point.
It’s the MoS. They won’t let stuff like facts muddy the waters.
heaven knows I’m not interested in defending the MoS. But surely exhuming the bodies in the grounds/sewer in Tuam would be a first step in figuring out a) how many bodies there are and b) perhaps identifying some of them? This is a serious question, why would the AG not sanction that exhumation?
I led to believe that most of the remains have rotted away, in any event.
Terry Prone indicated in a e-mail to a journalist, (no story here), that there wasn’t much in the way of visible remains in the tank (according to Tuam Guards).
Seemingly, the main evidence are the books the nuns kept and witness testimonies.
I sincerely hope that a PR statement isn’t being taken as evidence of anything other than the cheque the nuns paid to Prone. As for the bodies themselves, much (much) older bodies than this are found fairly often – I know that soil type and precise conditions make a big difference, but bones don’t rot, so they’ll still be there. I really don’t understand why the State wouldn’t choose to exhume and examine bodies discovered where bodies weren’t supposed to be, and in unknown number. It’s a fairly basic implentation of law, surely?
Baby bones though, that is, still soft bones, not hardened like an adults and so yes, they will have left little trace over a shorter ‘time’… I won’t even stab at what length… when compared to an adults. Or, so I understand it anyway.
No, I’m not prone to believe her (generally speaking) . But I imagine there’s some truth to her claims about what the Tuam Guards say. Merely, because she is rarely caught out.
I recall this fellow I used to know who was a gravedigger, from around that area. Seemingly, bones do rot. I remember him flicking up “Jimmy’s teeth” (a set of dentures) when he was digging a grave, whilst I was talking to him. Not much else came up but a few lumps of rotten wood. And Jimmy had been down there about ten years. (True story)
Ashes to ashes. Sludge to sludge.
…imagine…the nuns didn’t pay up…I know that seems an unlikely scenario…but
Maybe some of them are worried about any DNA tests and where it would lead us.
If a relative of one of the deceased was to ask for a search to be undertaken as to where a body was, knowing it may be in that plot in tuam could they ask for it to be exhumed so they could bury in a marked family grave elsewhere?
This is not being properly investigated in my view
+1
International headlines have died down. We’re in the clear!
exactly Kieran, but sadly this kind of indifference has become a poison in Ireland and has led the church to so easily conceal ITS horrors