On March 27, we posted an article written by an orphan who grew up in a Mother and Baby Home in Ireland. It is a well-written and researched account of conditions in Ireland in the twentieth century, and the care provided by nuns. It also debunks the myths about those “evil” nuns, the kind of propaganda promoted by Irish Central and others.
Predictably, Irish Central was upset. Good news about the Catholic Church’s contribution to society is generally not welcomed by Niall O’Dowd and his staff. So he unleashed Cahir O’Doherty to offer a response to the orphan’s piece. That was a mistake.
On March 7, Bill Donohue wrote a news release, “The Dunces at Irish Central.” He cited O’Doherty as Exhibit A. Why? Because in his attempt to validate the Tuam “mass grave” hoax sponsored by Catherine Corless, he said she “never spoke of” a mass grave. In fact, she has, as Donohue demonstrated.
O’Doherty quoted the following from the orphan’s article.
“Perhaps was there more to the behavior of their daughters who may have been uncontrollable, wild, even loose women, we don’t know. We can only assume by today’s standards that if a young girl got pregnant and she came from a good family that her family might support her. But even by today’s standards if the young women were wild and uncontrollable and came home expecting a baby she too would be expelled from the family….” (Our italics.)
“So there you have it, loose, wild and uncontrollable young women had no one to blame but themselves,” O’Doherty wrote. (Our emphasis.)
As anyone who is not a dunce can see, the orphan put the blame on the family, not the women. This explains why O’Doherty screwed it up.
Then, after floating the idea that maybe Donohue wrote the article, O’Doherty pivoted, saying, “there’s no difficulty finding elderly reactionaries to write poison pen missives in defense of the indefensible in Ireland.”
This is a new low, even for Irish Central. Without a scintilla of evidence to the contrary, it viciously attacked the orphan. To say this is morally reprehensible is an understatement.
