Thread by @AdrienneJoCo

SO this whole consultation process by Galway Co Co for the minister was so obviously an elaborate and confusing waste of time and money and energy from the start and the report confirms it #TuamHome #tuambabies

dcya.gov.ie/viewdoc.asp?Do…

At best, this report is, as my mother calls it, “fluff”. It is also a sinister and elaborate exercise in amplifying a line of dissent. Sorry now if I have no time for any NIMBYism here. This is a CRIME SCENE we are talking about.

The whole idea of this consultation was an insult, and its process and findings are a sham. Ironically, that word #Sham is slang for a person from #Tuam, the very people this report purports to speak for. But it doesn’t. The people are not so polarized as this report would insist

It looked like the consultation process dug deep to find resistance to full excavation, which they seemed to think would be from people closest the site. They seemed to hyper focus on Dublin Road Estate, who have houses backing onto the estate or across the way from those houses

Excavation here is not a new idea or experience for local residents. Don’t forget, there has already been a test excavation by archaeologists at the site, the results of which announced in March 2017 that there was a ‘significant’ number of human remains in evidence

In the consultation process, the turnout for the Local Residents closed session seemed not to be enough: they ran a SECOND day. Which had lower turnout. Then they went door to door in Dublin Road estate. They went to great lengths to get comment from people on this estate #why

Why did they do this? Why were local residents even isolated as a target group in this? Yes it’s a curiosity at best in their neighbourhood. It’s also surely weird to have this type of focus on their area but it’s on a seldom-used, out-of-the-way PUBLIC space

My Mam attended the “Dialogue with Former Residents and Relatives of Former Residents of Tuam Mother and Baby Home and Supporters” meeting

All 29 in attendance voted for for full excavation of the total available area.

The attendees at this meeting gave their vote one by one. The facilitator stopped them half way through to suggest that not everyone had to vote the same: as if to skew or invalidate the unanimity!

Curiously the report enumerates the the attendance for the survivors and supporters closed session (there were 29) but doesn’t enumerate attendance for the local residents closed sessionS (read: because there was significantly less than 29)

At one of the sessions a resident from Dublin Road estate said that they shouldn’t even be asked about this, that it should be all up to the people who have family there and the survivors

My impression is that yes there are a handful of dissenters. And yes, some make themselves plain to my mother. It’s not pleasant for her I guess but she handles it with grace; and truth be told, before all this came out in 2014, we feared local criticism would be much worse:

In June 2014, for a couple of weeks after the story broke my mother was afraid to go into SuperValu in Tuam: what she wasn’t prepared for when she finally did slip in was the overwhelm of local support that she got, and still gets

And in November 2016 we wondered if the candlelit vigil organised by artist Sadie Cramer at the site would meet resistance. But people turned up in droves in the cold and dark, and what’s more, locals lined the lane way in with candles. That teared me up

And what of the local residents who held a gathering at the site in March 2017, with candles and poetry and music and a big bouquet of flowers for my Mam, which she laid on the burial site. There was a minimum 50 local residents in support there #Tuam

My impression is that there are
1. A few local residents who would NIMBY
2. A LOT who care
3. Like anything else in life, a lot who are not involved in the politics or the activism of the story either way and who are going about their own lives not thinking about it at ALL #Tuam

This report then has sought to amplify **the few ** - so that Patsy McGarry’s article could be published in the Irish Times yesterday with a DRIVELOUS and misrepresentative headline, based on a DRIVELOUS and misrepresentative report #Tuam

“Division in Tuam between residents and mother and baby home relatives
Many locals want only a memorial, while families favour total forensic excavation”

I’m sure “many locals” in Tuam would scratch their heads at that. It is after all the findings of an engineered consultation

This process has sought to fit a an insidious official narrative of downplaying the blindingly obvious need for IMMEDIATE full excavation - just as an example the insistence that the remains would be commingled or somehow disintegrated.

Even if they were, the excellence of the archaeological approach would go far to dissemble them.

I warn that this following is gruesome.

We have reason to believe that there are complete bodies - in archaeological terms this is “articulated” bodies. Further, we also have reason to believe that there is flesh on bones and that there are bodies with leathery preservation

My thoughts turn to my fellow archaeologists - I don’t know them - and I commend their bravery at undertaking a dig like this. I wonder if they had trauma training or decompression support for what they saw. It should absolutely be a factor for when full excavation does go ahead.

I’ve dug human remains myself. It can be weird and disconcerting but you get caught up in the work of the day and get on with it. There’s a moment of pause and respect when it comes time to “lift” them. And it’s always more emotional if it’s a child. Of course Tuam is v different

I personally wouldn’t be able to undertake an excavation like at #Tuam. Because it’s not a proper archaeological site for one thing - it’s too new. Of course there had to be preservation. Of course it would be gruesome. I commend them for going in there

Where is the full picture of what my fellow archaeologists actually saw in Tuam? Which babies or children did they see? Were there any of the women in evidence? Where is their original archaeological report as submitted to the Commission of Investigation?

Why are we having at best a FLUFF and at worst a misleading consultation process to muse over what to do with the concealed dead in Tuam?
There was only ever one thing to do!
Excavate the site and DNA test the remains

Why please downplay a situation where babies and children up to about the age of 3 mostly, with more up to the age of 9, and at least SIX WOMEN are either missing cos they are trafficked or because they are dead and concealed in a sewage tank? #Tuam

WHY this elaborate and roundabout exercise in amplifying the most offensive “option” which is to suggest that they be left there?

Never mind that the consultation process doesn’t mention the #women at ALL

- 9 women died in #Tuam Home
- A 10th died in hospital

We know the burial spots of 4.

Where are the other missing SIX women? We HAVE to excavate to find them and get them out, along with every child