[narses]

This would reflect an Ireland that, in the first half of the 20th century, had one of the worst infant mortality rates in Europe, with tuberculosis rife. - See more at: http://www.shepherdstownchronicle.com/page/content.detail/id/517531/Irish-church-under-fire-over-children-s-mass-grave.html?isap=1&nav=5134#sthash.kdeb4zsP.hsOcOl2C.dpuf

[bramps]

“Conservative Catholic teaching at the time denied children of unmarried parents baptism and therefore burial in consecrated lands.”

What’s your spin on that?

[narses]

With no health service and deep poverty, the number of children working class parents had to watch die was horrendous. Infant mortality soared. In 1926 in Ireland 120 of every 1,000 babies under the age of one died compared to six of every 1,000 today.36 As late as 1949 over 50 of every 1,000 babies died before the age of one. One child in 16 born in 1949 did not live to see her or his fifth birthday. Diarrhoea and enteritis were the biggest killers of babies. Tuberculosis and other preventable and treatable diseases swept through the slums, killing older children. All these children died of poverty.37

http://pubs.socialistreviewindex.org.uk/isj91/horgan.htm