Barry Clifford: Fillius Nullius: The Child Of No Man

There is nothing more nauseating than having a priest in the winter of his years trying to vie for the title of a populist one, otherwise caricatured as Fr. Trendy, in trying to airbrush his past. In this case even his real name helps to permeate the myth that somehow he was different than the rest: Fr Good. He ran one of the quasi-adoption agencies for the Catholic Church in England in the 1950's for young mothers –to be, fleeing from Ireland and its regard for them and their unborn child from a fate that was a living death. The Catholic Clergy created that terror which ran like a plague through every town and hamlet in Ireland. It was the inquisition of the modern age in an Island apart that still embraced the dark ages.  

I believe that at the very least Fr. Good was indifferent and downright culpable in the illegal adoptions of Irish children in England. The byword by his fellow clergy for these ‘adoptions’ was ‘Pregnant From Ireland.’ The devil though is in the detail of his words as he remembered his past fondly in Ireland’s Sunday Independent today, seen of course through his rose tinted glasses. He has to, for under the norms and beliefs of his religion then hell is surely around the corner waiting for someone who looks remarkably like him.

“Get rid of the baby, that was the main idea.” He tells without remotely acknowledging his quilt in the apparatus of getting rid of the babies in his charge: 954 to be exact. He then tells us we have no concept of the shame of those days, a shame fostered by the Catholic Church Clergy, of which he is still a member, alone, which drove some of its financial engines using the fuel of a superstitious craven Government and its citizens.  

I became enlightened to know by him in the article that a child whose father was unknown was classed as Filius Nullius: The child of no man. 

“Things are only coming to light now” he says, yet Fr Good has known about it when in much younger clothes and in a position to have actually done something too. He probably started his coin and stamp collection at that time and taken too much with the importance of it all. We are also told in the article that Fr Trendy was some kind of radical in 1968 when he opposed the anti- contraception stance of his beloved Church. That makes him one of ours I suppose: a hero of the working classes or any class; and he might have had a drink or a smoke too. Radical stuff for sure.

Yet, he was the terrifying figure of the man in black waiting for the young mothers to-be at the Fishguard port in Wales. He was the only alternative to them being put into a Magdalene Laundry or an Industrial institution, or to be ostracized by the village of idiots who outnumbered the one on his own. At some point in his ramblings he tries to blame the Irish Government alone that they covered up the adoptions in the 1950’s, and that the real number was 9000 babies rather than the 1500 admitted by them.

You can bet safely that it was much higher than that again for the Catholic Church has proven to be quite adept at figures or missing files by earth, fire and water. The child/mothers who came to him underscored an even more bigger crime than the forced adoptions in Ireland and in England: the crime of rape and incest against children, for those that came to this man in black were children themselves ranging from 12 to 18 years old.

Only 9 babies of the 954 were returned to their mothers by Fr Trendy, which proved he was very good at this particular job: the task of separating mother from baby. As I suggest the devil is in the detail.

When asked about the notorious Bessborough mother and baby home in Cork Fr Trendy showed his true colours even more: “We knew nothing about it at all. We kept away away from Bessborough. We didn’t want to be linked up with them as they were local babies. And we were fairly sure the nuns weren’t obeying the adoption laws. Various things about the signing of consent. We kept our distance.” 

In the end of the interview when asked about the abortion problems of today, Fr. Trendy concluded: “I suppose it goes back to the age old question: ‘What is morality all about?’

I know for sure Fr Trendy/Good will never want to find that out because the truth will terrify him, for to find out that you were the bad guy all along believing that you were the good guy can be the most terrifying just before the bell tolls.

Barry Clifford