A presentation by a Tuam Babies denier – hosted by a contributor to the sensationalist Catholic paper ‘Alive!’ – didn’t go to plan, when historian Catherine Corless and others challenged his conspiracy theories. Donal O’Keeffe was one of those...
“Some things are more important than a rock show and this fight against prejudice and bigotry — which is happening as I write — is one of them.”
So wrote Bruce Springsteen last week, explaining his decision to cancel his...
It was all true. Every word. 796 babies, dumped in a septic tank in Tuam.
Last Friday, the Mother and Baby Home Commission of Investigation announced it has found “significant amounts of human remains” in what was a disused sewage...
In life and in death, babies who died at Bessborough were considered disposable, and to be born in the Cork mother and baby home in the early 1940s was akin to a death sentence.
Just over a year ago, I...
If you have a young daughter, you need to watch RTÉ's Prime Time report on the HPV vaccine, writes Donal O'Keeffe. It might just save her life.
In 1998, the internationally respected medical journal The Lancet published a paper by...
The Irish State knew at least four years ago of a historic child-trafficking scheme. In August, Justice Minister Frances Fitzgerald referred the matter to the Gardai. The woman who alerted her has heard nothing since, writes Donal O'Keeffe.
I wrote...
‘Little Nellie of Holy God’, Cork’s unofficial patron saint, was four and a half years old when she died in 1908. Her short life was marked by severe pain and extreme religious devotion. Her knowledge of Catholic doctrine and...
"I don't think anybody in RTÉ really cares about children or what children want," Bosco tells Donal O'Keeffe.
One of my earliest memories is of being five and in a very bad mood. My mother, trying to cheer me up,...
As archaeologists excavate the Tuam Mother and Baby Home site where 796 children are believed to be buried, questions remain unanswered, writes Donal O'Keeffe.
Last Monday was the first day of the test excavation of the former site of the...
Wouldn't you get heart-sick of Christmas all the same? writes Donal O'Keeffe.
This Christmas seems to have been going on now forever. It was certainly well-underway long before the Americans decided that 83 years was long enough of a break between...
