Ireland's forgotten mixed-race child abuse victims

[Music] our skin color was beaten into us as nothing of pure evil we would be ashamed of it we were illegitimate our mothers were whores our fathers were savages and we had to and we had to pay for those sins he knew anything at all basically you know it would be easy to break through CIA KGB files then to get through information on my background farm I was a little girl I knew I was black at the age of four and a half I knew what the word nigger meant they just don't see your Irish Flood listen to me on speaking with a Dublin accent countless children in Ireland suffered abuse in institutions run by the Irish Catholic Church but this is the story of the illegitimate children born to Irish mothers and African fathers in the 50s and 60s the abuse and racist treatment of these children have never been acknowledged by the Irish Catholic Church or the Irish state and the secrets of their identities remain hidden we didn't look like a community but we are a community you know we are there you know we are in Ireland you know we are experiencing racism people discovering the Adhan model he died a year ago and they've been 40 years searching I've given you a question did no parent unbelievable miscarriage of justice and nobody seems to accept responsibility for this the state just devolves all powers around education and child care and health to the religious the state didn't want to know their lungs and priests a complete control they were like gods mixed race illegitimate children were very rarely put up for adoption the majority were placed into industrial schools these are institutions run by the Irish Catholic Church to care for children they use euphemisms like condoms or orphanages they were industrial schools there were like work houses the last thing that they had in these places was love care attention or the welfare of a child when you've been in an institution for 18 years and you've been called nigger while golliwog beaten strips sexually abused you know why you're there you know you're there because your mother didn't want to look after you I never met my father I was never interested in meeting my mother if I'm really honest Rose may have spent her adult life kinda trade records of her father but it's almost impossible to find anything because all information about him has been redacted by the Irish state at 3 I was sent to do this dreadful couple I've got a letter somewhere this is where she says that we are rotting her bed I'm not keeping them any longer yeah we are filthy dirty work were three years old rosemarie now lives in london and has decided to travel back to Ireland in an attempt to search for information about her father this is the first time in 40 years that she will go back to some Joseph Industrial School in kilkenny where she was abused as a child from day one I was picked on the daily micro humiliations designed to hit the wing your place to feeling that one of us you need to be great for you even here you're not as good as the rest of them because they're like they fight grubbing the colour of my skin nothing allowed to have a bar first the balls will get dirty that's what cook any means to me but it also means meeting my son father meeting a man who gave me lovable [Music] I think this is it this is it my god that's it I thought they'd torn it down or something the world must have got out there was a black girl coming all these girls were standing there just looking at me and I'm looking at them and I don't know what the hell is going on these took photographs of us here somewhere in an archive our school photographs from my little black days of peeking out this was an unfitting and we were in the grey building yeah we were in those nasty buildings what an ugly building no wonder I was clinically depressed for the ten years I was here ah these are the playing fields this is the production site of the industrial school but I also remember being left in the chicken coop that was a common punishment you'd be taken out of play and the older girls would have responsibility for you but that's when they would take turns sexually abusing you as well they'd say I'm going to take you to the toilet because you need to go to the we you need to go for a wee so they take you into the toilets and do it they're like with you and the nuns didn't say anything because they had completely insulated themselves wrap themselves in luxury raids and sexual abuse were endemic in industrial schools and orphanages run by the Irish Catholic Church whilst the sexual abuse of children at st. Joseph's industrial school was documented in the Ryan report the ill treatment of mixed-race children has never been acknowledged it feels incredibly removed from it I I don't even know if I have a new motion about it I mean memory to this place just make me feel dead inside [Music] when Rose me was 16 she became pregnant and had to leave some jaded her son was put into a church run mother and baby home and Rosemarie was fostered by Brian and Mary who welcomed her into their family [Music] Rosalie came to us when she was just turned 17 and because Rosalie had just had a baby the nuns and the whole of our society believed that there was no way she could I had to go back to school or go back to the orphanage where she had been that's my first novel the American musician that's what I would look like exactly when she came that was I'd say Mir the reason the nuns had wronged my wife and asked me what they take away was because we had adopted a little girl sometime before that my wife stood outside the winds hotel in Dublin a winds hotel was where the priests and the nuns used to come to have their afternoon tea when a young nun drove up skidded to a stop dump this creature which were on the street and said thanks very much and drove off that's how she came into our lives one week after she had turned her 17th birthday and a week or two after she had had that maybe taken how was she when she arrived and she had an air of bravado I think my wife found her quite exciting the business ventures because my wife was a wasn't exactly the adventurous type - a kind of very generous physically she wasn't in good shape and I realized that she aspect was emaciated she never talked about her experiences when she got to trust us she began to talk I asked her - what she writes down the most important part was that she was being treated as a sex object even within the orphanage but no way I could have used that in Ireland Ireland 7 is because there was nobody would listen to me nobody would believe me and even today it said it's hard to say these mysteries Irish children were not considered by the church in space to be appropriate candidate for adoption they're stories of racial discrimination physical abuse and mental abuse are actually shocking and Ferris is a former member of the Irish parliament she was adopted herself and has spent her career campaigning for a bill that gives adopted children access to their family records do you think there was a different policy to deal with children on this way I don't know I really don't know whether there was a the policy you don't say it's fate policy or religious policy it you know coming from on high but certainly listen to the stories there was a policy in the various Institute's institutions or orphanages that the mixed-race people were in in Northern Ireland if you're adopted you can go and get your records in England you can get your records here we cannot get our record and you can't get them and that's wrong of course it is a beautiful human life Jude who is now Union 70 has been searching for the identity of his parents for over 50 years all I know is that my father was from Trinidad now I still don't know whether that's the truth or not and modelsim Carlo slowly as you move on in life you realize that some ways it might be deliberately kept from you I realized something is not right here the things that be a barrier that you cannot break through and you wouldn't know where is that you know [Music] Denyce moved to london in her early 20s after both of her adoptive parents died she has also been searching for many years for more information about the identity of her father if you're born to an Irish mother and there's nothing there that leads you to your father you read I have to create one or be messed up with Irish because you haven't got it there too you know one of the reasons that I've never really fitted in because I'm not white and Irish but I have Irish sensibilities that have stood to me in this country you know so and all along I think are fair as well I balance my my two identities I know where I come from I know where my history comes from but I'm not going to let it hold me back [Music] rosemary believe she knows her father's name and that he once studied medicine in Dublin but beyond this she has very little information to go on so I spent years trying to track this name down it's like the name doesn't exist so I have I must admit as I've got known I thought maybe the name I think I have isn't even my name this is the magic room I'm so nervous oh my goodness oh my goodness oh so and this is the register of apocryphal and it yes in this the people admitted their examination so yes and the address it was gold closes Ghana yes his name I said he had gila graduate of Paris University who's already a GP by the time he got here four nine eight yes student four nine eight there he is I thought nigger and Savage was my pet names I actually thought it was my pet name you know always come here and always call a savage your father was establish a was a cannibal he was this he was that and I got this every single day day and night there was no exception so you know I'm just looking at this person like you all this week the skin here was considered a disability therefore I was effected by reason of my father's ancestry my father was I now can prove was a physician you know it's like so I wanna do a better one we are all people like you we love you you have traveled the goal and everywhere you go you play the video and go wherever know any of you

Channel: The Guardian

Views: 1,491,264

Rating: 4.8567562 out of 5

Keywords: child abuse, catholic, priest, paedo, paedophilia, paedophile, paedophile priests, mixed race, race, racism, racism in ireland, ireland, irish, children, abuse, child abuse in ireland, kilkenny, religion, god, christianity, jesus, church, rotherham, sexual abuse, mixed race children, mixed race kids, kids, black irish, irish slaves, ireland's forgotten mixed race, ireland's forgotten babies, rosemary adaser, black irish people, the guardian, black people in ireland, tuam, tuam babies, news, guardian

Id: OC_CpnwZPYM

Length: 15min 2sec (902 seconds)

Published: Fri Feb 24 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/[deleted]]

This show is pretty hard on Ireland, but we did protect the catholic church for so many years, we have to accept the blame for the things they did.

To this day they haven't been forced to compensate their victims.

[u/PurpleWomat]

Most of Ireland's child abuse victims are forgotten.

[u/EDI-Thor]

Good docu but I would have expected that it goes into more details about their experience being non-white in complexion. Out of all those interviewed, Rosemary is really the one who went to more details and is more outspoken.