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Forbes: Why That Story About Irish Babies In A Septic Tank Is A Hoax
Forbes ^ | 6/09/2014 | Eamonn Fingleton

Posted on 06/10/2014 9:04:38 AM PDT by Mrs. Don-o

Few of us are inclined to look a gift horse in the mouth, and that applies in spades to journalists running with a sensational news story. But even by normal media standards, recent reports about the bones of 796 babies being found in the septic tank of an Irish orphanage betray a degree of cynicism and irresponsibility rarely surpassed by allegedly reputable news organizations.

Although the media attributed the “dumped in a septic tank” allegation to Catherine Corless, a local amateur historian, she denies making it. Her attempt to correct the record was reported by the Irish Times newspaper on Saturday (see here) but has been almost entirely ignored by the same global media that so gleefully recycled the original suggestion.

Today the Irish Times has published a reader’s letter that has further undercut the story. Finbar McCormick, a professor of geography at Queen’s University Belfast, sharply admonished the media for describing the children’s last resting place as a septic tank. He added: “The structure as described is much more likely to be a shaft burial vault, a common method of burial ...in many parts of Europe.

“In the 19th century, deep brick-lined shafts were constructed and covered with a large slab which often doubled as a flatly laid headstone. These were common in 19th-century urban cemeteries…..Such tombs are still used extensively in Mediterranean countries. I recently saw such structures being constructed in a churchyard in Croatia. The shaft was made of concrete blocks, plastered internally and roofed with large concrete slabs.

[T]he verifiable facts that have emerged so far amount merely to a strong story for the media of one small country. The one “fact” that turned all this from a disturbing national story to a screaming global sensation is one that is almost certainly false.

(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: bethanyhomes; bonsecours; duplicate; hoax; infanticide; maternity; orphan; prolife; tuam
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To: boatbums
Sure...go back to the original thread(s).

Yeah I couldn't find any either, thanks for confirming that.

121 posted on 06/12/2014 7:01:06 PM PDT by verga (Conservative, leaning libertatian)
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To: boatbums

The problem that these erstwhile defenders of their faith on FR have, is that I’m following the news in Ireland as it occurs, which bears little resemblance to their frantic efforts to deflect. There is far more going on here than has been reported. The Irish are very perturbed about drug and vaccine testing being the cause of premature deaths. in this home as well as others. “Dying rooms.” It’s pretty ugly, regardless of the ultimate resting place of these unfortunate children. The next line of defense on the unmarked mass grave issue is to claim that it’s a bomb shelter.


122 posted on 06/12/2014 8:04:26 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: Eccl 10:2

>> Plenty of Freepers here are going straight to Hell

LOL... we’re already in Hell, not to mean FR. It’s a matter of getting out!


123 posted on 06/12/2014 8:10:28 PM PDT by Gene Eric (Don't be a statist!)
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To: boatbums; RegulatorCountry

I don’t see any reason in his posts on this thread. What I see is moving from one topic to the next in order to keep that anti-Catholic bigotry going. This is exactly the kind of leftwing trash that the FreeRepublic was built to resist. Note his next effort a few posts down.


124 posted on 06/13/2014 5:18:48 AM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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To: annalex

I’m citing Irish Catholic sources, annalex. If that to you is “anti-Catholic bigotry,” then I suggest checking your assumptions.


125 posted on 06/13/2014 5:32:26 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry

There is plenty of anti-Catholic bigotry among the Irish as well. The point remains that once the fantastical idea of Catholic nuns dumping dead children down the toilet was discredited, you played dumb for a dozen post and when that did not work out you switched to “drug and vaccine testing”. Get lost.


126 posted on 06/13/2014 5:38:30 AM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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To: annalex

There is no playing dumb, there is still an underground structure there, recorded over half a century ago by the home itself as being a septic tank, that does appear to be where those boys saw skeletal remains. Facts are stubborn things.


127 posted on 06/13/2014 5:42:33 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: annalex

Mass graves, illegal vaccine trials: Ireland launches inquiry into mother and baby home scandal:

http://rt.com/news/165196-inquiry-ireland-mother-baby-home/


128 posted on 06/13/2014 5:45:07 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: annalex
Is the Archbishop of Dublin "anti-Catholic," annalex?

“We have to look at the whole culture of mother and baby homes; they’re talking about medical experiments there. They’re very complicated and very sensitive issues, but the only way we will come out of this particular period of our history is when the truth comes out.”

- Diarmuid Martin, Archbishop of Dublin

129 posted on 06/13/2014 5:52:25 AM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry
The next line of defense on the unmarked mass grave issue is to claim that it’s a bomb shelter....to protect them against PROTESTANT bombs, no doubt!
130 posted on 06/13/2014 2:10:04 PM PDT by boatbums (Proud member of the Free Republic Bible Thumpers Brigade.)
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To: RegulatorCountry
Some of the comments attached to that article describe the very thing we already stated we feared - that ALL pro-life Christians would be smeared by this scandal and others.
131 posted on 06/13/2014 2:20:46 PM PDT by boatbums (Proud member of the Free Republic Bible Thumpers Brigade.)
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To: RegulatorCountry
Except these are conjectures, not facts. The researcher herself, Catherine Corless, does not support the septic tank theory:
“I never said to anyone that 800 bodies were dumped in a septic tank. That did not come from me at any point. They are not my words.”

132 posted on 06/13/2014 5:35:45 PM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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To: RegulatorCountry

LOL, Russia Today quoting Daily Mail.

Get some credible sources.


133 posted on 06/13/2014 5:39:57 PM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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To: RegulatorCountry

The archibishop did not say anything we don’t know. “They are talking”. Of course they are.


134 posted on 06/13/2014 5:40:56 PM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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To: annalex

Local historian Catherine Corless believes that the remains of the 796 children from infant to age 9 for whom no record of burial exists are at this site that belonged to the Sisters Of Bon Secours home, annalex.

There are published plats showing the septic tank, it exists. There are corroborated accounts of boys breaking into this tank through a concrete slab in 1975, and seeing skeletal remains inside. This is why local residents began maintaining the site, out of respect for the dead.

These are facts, not conjecture. The site has been checked with ground penetrating radar just this week. There are reportedly two anomalies, one 15 meters by 15 meters, and one larger.


135 posted on 06/13/2014 6:26:29 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: annalex

Take your pick:

https://www.google.com/?gws_rd=ssl#q=illegal+vaccine+testing+tuam


136 posted on 06/13/2014 6:34:50 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry

The conjecture is that the gravesite somehow is also a septic tank.


137 posted on 06/13/2014 6:47:14 PM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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To: RegulatorCountry

Right, media frenzy.


138 posted on 06/13/2014 6:47:37 PM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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To: annalex

Would a septic tank known to contain skeletal remains not qualify as a gravesite in your opinion, annalex?


139 posted on 06/13/2014 7:23:21 PM PDT by RegulatorCountry
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To: RegulatorCountry

No because that would not be a proper Catholic burial. That would be precisely what the left wing journotrash would like it to be: nuns for some inexplicable reason disposing of dead children like abortion doctors are known to do. That is the entire point of it: to discredit Catholic doctrines of human dignity in life and in death.


140 posted on 06/14/2014 6:12:31 PM PDT by annalex (fear them not)
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