UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN
HONORARY CONFERRING
Wednesday, 4 September 2019 at 2.30 pm
TEXT OF THE INTRODUCTORY ADDRESS DELIVERED BY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR EMILIE PINE, School of English, Drama and Film on 4 September 2019, on the occasion of the conferring of the Degree of Doctor of Literature, honoris causa on CATHERINE CORLESS.
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President, Graduates, Colleagues, Honoured Guests
In the School of English, Drama and Film, we regularly discuss what we want our students to learn while at UCD. We talk about skills – critical reading and listening, delivering oral presentations, advanced analysis, articulate and knowledgeable writing – and we discuss how we can provide an education that will foster these vital skills.
But what we do here at UCD is about so much more than teachers teaching, or students acquiring, a list of skills.
We want students who will go out into the world and navigate it with confidence in their abilities, students who will graduate to even better things. But, most of all, we want our students to learn that skills are nothing without values – critical reading and listening, for example, are important so that we can all, as citizens, notice the world that we live in; oral skills are necessary so we can all of us find our voices. So that we can stand up for fairness, respect and equality. And when we put these values first, we learn to value ourselves and others most fully.
I begin with this injunction to values and value because this is the lesson exemplified by Catherine Corless. Catherine Corless represents what can be done by each and every citizen if we notice, and care, about the world and those we share it with, in the present, the past, and the future.
In 2012, Catherine Corless published research that changed how we think about our values, and how thousands of people are valued.
Catherine Corless is from Tuam, Co Galway, where she still lives. As a child, she had noticed the hierarchy in the town between children from the ‘home’ and those from family homes. The home, of course, was the Tuam Mother and Baby Home run by the Bon Secours order of nuns. Thousands of women spent time living in this institution, many of them against their will. During their time there, they gave birth to children. After giving birth, the mothers left the home, many emigrated. But what happened to their children? Many of them were adopted, many illegally so. Many lived in the home for years, or were ‘fostered out’. If they were lucky, they were sent to good, kind homes. But many were not lucky. Many died, of illness and malnutrition. Their deaths were not marked. Their mothers, their siblings, their families were not told.
This happened to hundreds of children, over decades, in one small town in Ireland. It happened because they weren’t valued.
After her own children grew up, Catherine Corless did a night-course in local history. She learned how to do research, how to follow a story, and, crucially, how to approach the unwanted parts of history. As she has said: ‘I learned an invaluable lesson: “If you don’t find something, you don’t leave it. You ask why it’s not there. You use ‘why’ a lot.”
The thing that Catherine Corless could not find was the story of what happened to the children who died at the Bon Secours mother and baby home. And why a pile of bones had been discovered in 1975, but never investigated. When she asked ‘why’, she got answers that made no sense. So she kept asking.
Catherine Corless sourced death certificates for two hundred children who had died in the institution. She cross referenced these against the burial records for the local graveyard. She found that only two children had burial records. Two out of two hundred. Where were the others?
We now know that there was a mass grave for children’s remains on the corner of the mother and baby home site. We now know that the Tuam home, and the network of Mother and Child institutions across Ireland, were terrible places. We now know some of their stories, their names, their values. We would not know any of this without Catherine Corless.
In preparing for this ceremony, I asked Terri Harrison, a survivor of the Bessborough mother and child institution, what she would like me to convey today. And this is what she said:
Once every so often, someone comes along and makes a difference. In doing so, they reach out to those who find themselves the target of injustices, hurt, and deprived of human respect. In many ways our voices were never allowed to speak, nor were we recognised as equal to every other human within our society.
I cannot put into words what it means when someone through selfless means and aims, aspires to take on the role of our vocal supporter.
I, a Mother, so unheard through years of silence, feared no one would believe us, or know what we endured. Our beautiful innocent babies, who would speak aloud their pain. Catherine never gave up on us. Through her dedication, strength, tireless efforts, Catherine has brought our Gender injustice to the world.
From the cockles of my heart Catherine, I wish you and your family every happiness, above all we all thank you for all your endless empathy and understanding, of how much our past means to our futures.
May you always be certain, you never gave up, and we acknowledge with love your great efforts and so many years of hard work.
Today UCD awards this honorary doctoral degree in recognition of Catherine Corless as an individual whose enormous and inspiring courage, in the face of significant resistance, has changed the lives of so many past and present. And we take this moment here now, as a community, to say: we honour you because you exemplify our values, the values of humanity, the values that we want to live by. Thank you for teaching us.
Praehonorabilis Praeses, totaque Universitas,
Praesento vobis hanc meam filiam, quam scio tam moribus quam doctrina habilem et idoneam esse quae admittatur, honoris causa, ad Gradum Doctoratus in Litteris; idque tibi fide mea testor ac spondeo, totique Academiae.