Margaret McGuckin with some very traumatic thoughts following publication of the Report by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.

When I think back, the HIAI didn't cover half of it. To think as wee babies, crying out for someone to cuddle you, to come and rescue you, take you away from those bad nuns dressed in Black ..... . And no one did. They were allowed to do it. Leaving me all my life, blaming myself ... that I was to blame, it was My fault. I was hated, no one wanted me, I was bad, mad, and untouchable, unwanted, unloved and a total alien outsider. 

This will never go away, no matter who I talk to, or how many counselling sessions I get. Damaged For Life!!  

Was in Zoom counselling link with Julie Murphy Wave Trauma Counselling service there. Wow. Triggers of yesterday? Didn't realise they would affect me -  again and again. Stuff came up, thinking of the neglect, starvation, humiliation, beatings, treated like filthy scum of the earth, the Spawn of the Devil etc, by those So called Christian Religious Orders and Priests.. Hidden behind the high walls, covered in barbed wire and glass atop of them. Hidden out of sight away from  the outside world, where they could at will, under the cover of darkness, cruelly abuse children - a dark power unto themselves!! Answering to no one, as State and Church acted together as one, turning a blind eye, choosing together not to listen to the muffled cries of the innocents, dressed in rags, shoeless, hungry, rejected by society.

Any wonder they called me Mad Maggie on the Ormeau Road and Market's, etc etc, I was notorious. Even the Brits and peelers knew me so well. But, yet, underneath that exterior that persona was a real child crying out to be accepted, loved, wanted etc.  

The last few days, listening to the stories of the Mother and Baby Homes Report, brought it all back to me, and just how we all had been treated in these dark, cold, harsh and Loveless Institutions run by the RC Religious Orders and Churches. Memories, of babies, toddlers crying out for comfort and reassurance - had no one to lift them up, cuddle them lovingly or to feed them with the love only a Mother can do. These unholy nuns, these creatures of habit, in habits, dressed in black looked down on us children with disdain and disgust. We could see it in their eyes, the only part of them that was uncovered! They say, the eyes hold the secrets of your heart and your soul? These eyes of these nuns, I'll never forget, the hatred, the sniggering, that terrified me so much as that very young 3 year old, until aged 11 when I was finally released from their clutches and the dungeon-like prison. 

The absolute fear and dread I felt every time I looked at them! The harshness of this cruel un-Christlike regime, has come back to me in the stillness of the night, as I try to sleep, I'm awoken by nightmarish dreams, bringing it all back to me. Even though I've kept myself so very busy with the HIAI Campaign, I realise now why I kept so busy. I didn't want to dare think back in time, it hurt too much! I'd rather believe those things were in the past, they happened to others and not myself. That's why I looked after other abuse victims rather than think about myself as that very young child who also endured the barbaric torturous ill treatment and Neglect from these Church run Institutions. 

Now, I'm left as I've some time on my hands, in particular with this news in the past few days of how young children were left lying in cots, starving, cold, crying out, sick, ill, unchanged in filthy rags, and no one coming to their aid....children ending up lifeless, because of the Neglect and deliberate rejection and heartless uncaring attitude and behaviour from these cold hearted un-Christlike, so called Religious Orders and Churches. May God forgive them.

The stench was awful. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling. And cots were covered in dirt. In one battered pink cot was an 18 month old coloured boy lying on a torn and pitted foam mattress. There were no sheets on the mattress and the only covering was a tiny piece of blanket in one corner. A six-month old baby was in a cramped Moses-type basket. Another in a carry cot inside an ordinary cot, had his own sick all over his clothes. It had caked dry on him.

Margaret McGuckin emerged from a regime of abuse held in place by religious orders. She is the driving force behind Survivors & Victims of Institutional Abuse (SAVIA).


HIAI Didn't Cover Half Of It

Margaret McGuckin with some very traumatic thoughts following publication of the Report by the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.

When I think back, the HIAI didn't cover half of it. To think as wee babies, crying out for someone to cuddle you, to come and rescue you, take you away from those bad nuns dressed in Black ..... . And no one did. They were allowed to do it. Leaving me all my life, blaming myself ... that I was to blame, it was My fault. I was hated, no one wanted me, I was bad, mad, and untouchable, unwanted, unloved and a total alien outsider. 

This will never go away, no matter who I talk to, or how many counselling sessions I get. Damaged For Life!!  

Was in Zoom counselling link with Julie Murphy Wave Trauma Counselling service there. Wow. Triggers of yesterday? Didn't realise they would affect me -  again and again. Stuff came up, thinking of the neglect, starvation, humiliation, beatings, treated like filthy scum of the earth, the Spawn of the Devil etc, by those So called Christian Religious Orders and Priests.. Hidden behind the high walls, covered in barbed wire and glass atop of them. Hidden out of sight away from  the outside world, where they could at will, under the cover of darkness, cruelly abuse children - a dark power unto themselves!! Answering to no one, as State and Church acted together as one, turning a blind eye, choosing together not to listen to the muffled cries of the innocents, dressed in rags, shoeless, hungry, rejected by society.

Any wonder they called me Mad Maggie on the Ormeau Road and Market's, etc etc, I was notorious. Even the Brits and peelers knew me so well. But, yet, underneath that exterior that persona was a real child crying out to be accepted, loved, wanted etc.  

The last few days, listening to the stories of the Mother and Baby Homes Report, brought it all back to me, and just how we all had been treated in these dark, cold, harsh and Loveless Institutions run by the RC Religious Orders and Churches. Memories, of babies, toddlers crying out for comfort and reassurance - had no one to lift them up, cuddle them lovingly or to feed them with the love only a Mother can do. These unholy nuns, these creatures of habit, in habits, dressed in black looked down on us children with disdain and disgust. We could see it in their eyes, the only part of them that was uncovered! They say, the eyes hold the secrets of your heart and your soul? These eyes of these nuns, I'll never forget, the hatred, the sniggering, that terrified me so much as that very young 3 year old, until aged 11 when I was finally released from their clutches and the dungeon-like prison. 

The absolute fear and dread I felt every time I looked at them! The harshness of this cruel un-Christlike regime, has come back to me in the stillness of the night, as I try to sleep, I'm awoken by nightmarish dreams, bringing it all back to me. Even though I've kept myself so very busy with the HIAI Campaign, I realise now why I kept so busy. I didn't want to dare think back in time, it hurt too much! I'd rather believe those things were in the past, they happened to others and not myself. That's why I looked after other abuse victims rather than think about myself as that very young child who also endured the barbaric torturous ill treatment and Neglect from these Church run Institutions. 

Now, I'm left as I've some time on my hands, in particular with this news in the past few days of how young children were left lying in cots, starving, cold, crying out, sick, ill, unchanged in filthy rags, and no one coming to their aid....children ending up lifeless, because of the Neglect and deliberate rejection and heartless uncaring attitude and behaviour from these cold hearted un-Christlike, so called Religious Orders and Churches. May God forgive them.

The stench was awful. Cobwebs hung from the ceiling. And cots were covered in dirt. In one battered pink cot was an 18 month old coloured boy lying on a torn and pitted foam mattress. There were no sheets on the mattress and the only covering was a tiny piece of blanket in one corner. A six-month old baby was in a cramped Moses-type basket. Another in a carry cot inside an ordinary cot, had his own sick all over his clothes. It had caked dry on him.

Margaret McGuckin emerged from a regime of abuse held in place by religious orders. She is the driving force behind Survivors & Victims of Institutional Abuse (SAVIA).


7 comments:

  1. Very powerful piece... a memory flickered in me -I remember we, the fortunate kids, had to bring money to school for the 'Black babies'... those babies were probably not treated any better than our own. We were unwittingly financing organised abuse.

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  2. I too found it a powerful piece. The cruelty these children were subjected to was immense. The Brits hated you Mags back in the day but they did much less to you than the religious orders. But we didn't know that then. Great piece

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  3. Margaret is one of the strongest women I know, to come through all of that and to fight for others, amazing lady, xxxxxx

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  4. Words fail me to adequately express the disgust at the way you, Margaret, were abused like countless thousands of others in Ireland's gulag; that carceral archipelago of torture and abuse centres for women and their children who committed Ireland's only sin.

    As another survivor said on Sky News on Wednesday after the release of the Mother and Child Homes report women and children were persecuted people in Ireland; many accordingly escaped to England. So much for the glorious Republic that so many gave their lives for; the Republic that was supposed to cherish all its children equally unpersonned those who were not born in the cradle of respectively; a Republic where the status of illegitimacy was only abolished in 1987.

    I hope you find peace someday, Margaret.

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  5. Sign comments or they will not be carried

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  6. Thank you for your courageous and generous share Margaret.
    I can't even begin to imagine how you've managed to keep going after all you've come through.

    Ireland, like so many countries, has a very dark history.
    If I may borrow a descriptive metaphor from Richard Boyd Barret, we had an "Irish Catholic Taliban" shaping our culture for far too long.

    Though we have largely ditched those shackles there still yet remains in their wake so much human devastation.

    Best,
    HJ

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  7. Thank you for your courage to speak out and tell what happened to you and so many others. You have a hard won inner strength doing immense good for yourself and others by sharing your experiences in that home. You had reclaimed your power.

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