Sir, – I feel that (Fr) Con McGillicuddy’s letter (February 23rd) cannot go unchallenged. His attempts to paint the Catholic Church as victims of the Magdalene scandal, merely “carrying the can” for the State and society in general, left me with a sense of extreme unease that has not yet abated.
While the nation acknowledges its share of the culpability, the primary responsibility in this matter rests with the church. If it was somehow simply carrying out a necessary function within the State then surely it could have done so within the Christian ideals of compassion and respect? – Yours, etc,
Sir, – Hyperbole seems to have replaced reason in so much journalism today.
To compare Irish institutions like the industrial schools, Magdelene laundries or mental asylums with Soviet gulags for any reason, as Fintan O’Toole did (Opinion, February 26th), is a gross distortion of reality.
Fourteen million people passed through gulags, a further seven million were deported to remote areas and five million were sent to “labour colonies”. That’s a total of 26 million people. Out of this over 1.6 million died in captivity from 1929 to 1953. Most prisoners were compelled to perform harsh physical labour. In 1938 a procurator wrote “Prisoners deteriorate to the point of losing any resemblance to human beings”.
Nothing like this ever happened in Ireland, so let’s have a sense of proportion. Compared to large parts of Europe during the 20th century Ireland was a very civilised place. – Yours, etc,