Printable View
3 different sources say it was 1973.Quote:
Originally Posted by stan
See posts 7, 9 & 13 in this thread.
If the school is still standing, they should know when it was built.
But that isn't really the point behind this thread.
The mystery is where did all the graves/corpses come from?
Personally, I thnk they were victims of some sort of plague.
Hi Philip and Stan
Ken Williams, the retired principal environmental health office who was in charge of disposing of the bodies, states that it was 1973 that the remains were first discovered, so there is no doubt about the year. See
http://www.yoliverpool.com/forum/sho...5&postcount=15
Chris
I doubt we will ever know.
It could be Plague victims
Or Irish holocaust victims
maybe the french prisoners bodies where cleared from st johns
whatever the answer they acted suspicious when they dug them all up.
Hi GnomieQuote:
Originally Posted by Gnomie
A mystery certainly. But a lot less suspicious if you check what Mr Ken Williams the former environmental health office had to say -- see link I just posted above.
Chris
An enjoyable read this thread.:PDT_Aliboronz_24:
Down Lockerby Rd. off Kenny, there used to be a monastery and a Nunnery (?) on opposite sides of the road that ran along the bottom. Sometime pre war a tunnel was found connecting the two and a great many babies bodies were discovered. I don't think that a there was a great commotion made of this at the time.
Hmmmm. I don't know but could that be similar to the scandal that surfaced in the Republic of Ireland about the unwed mothers sent to convent laundries that was portrayed in the movie Magdalen Sisters? With Liverpool's large Catholic population possibly something secretive was done about babies born to unmarried girls, to dispose of their bodies? Interesting.Quote:
Originally Posted by bobbymac
Chris
my grandmother told me that exact story :eek:Quote:
Originally Posted by bobbymac
There must have been some truth in it then ??? :ninja:
.. and she told me something similar about the Notre Dame - and 'goings on !!'
:ninja:
All of these urban "myths" are exactly that, MYTHS and were based on Liverpool's past, very sectarian, culture. I have heard the same story about the convent that once stood on Copperas Hill and St. Nick's also Notre Dame convent on Mount Pleasant. The latest one I heard about was in the early sixties when the sisters of the Franciscan Missionaries of Mary occupied St. Augustine's at the corner of Great Howard Street and Chisinale Street. Rumour had it that it was an abortion facility for rich Irish and English catholic girls, and nuns who had been impregnated by priests. And there was me thinking that priest only liked little boys!:rolleyes:
I think these tales fit neatly into the category of the Mariah Monk type sectarian slander. You know, just like the WMD that Blair was fond on quoting.
There certainly was a case of a nun made pregnant by a priest that I heard of. Under questioning by the mother superior of how it happened, the nun replied 'Benedictus'
Groannnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Ged
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ged
Aye and then there's the girl who confessed to the priest that she'd had sex with St. Michael because his name was on the label in his underpants. :celb (23):
Chris
Quote:
Originally Posted by Sloyne
I've heard some mention in the mists of time about Mariah Monk. Can you remind me ??
'The Awful Disclosures of the Hotel Dieu Nunnery of Montreal' or most commonly known as 'Maria Monk' was the figment of a very vicious anti catholic imagination. It was first published in 1836 in the United States of America with the above title, later edited as 'The Awful Disclosures of Mariah Monk'. Maria Monk was a famous American imposter who made a lot of money out of religious bigotry. She claimed to be a nun in a Montreal convent where she allegedly suffered torture, sexual degradation and exploitation at the hands of degenerate priests and nuns.Quote:
Originally Posted by lindylou
Incredibly, this book is still available and can be purchased from certain right wing American evangelical, so called, Christian groups.
Sounds an interesting book.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sloyne
I'd buy it! :shock:
I must be 5 years older than what I thought I was eh?Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilipG
The nuns were asked why they travelled to the convent on their bikes down the old cobbled lane. 'we always come this way' they said.
I didn't mean anything personal, Stan.Quote:
Originally Posted by stan
1973 was when the foundations were dug.
For all I know, the school was built 5 years later, or you might be remembering something else.
My memory is awful, so when I'm writing about history, I always check my facts.
Nah,it's just me being sarky.It's just weird being told it was '73.I used to play on that site where the bodies were and I remember when the high fences got put up.They must have discovered the bodies earlier and moved them when the site was cleared.
I understand Enid Blyton wrote good childrens fiction too. Do you think women are better at this sort of fiction?:)Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilipG
J K Rowling's doing quite well for herself.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sloyne
She only called herself that so people wouldn't know what sex she was.
Oops, we've strayed off-topic. :unibrow:
Well, maybe that was the reason. There's quite a tradition among English writers to only use initials - W. H. Auden, C. S. Lewis, T. S. Eliot, G. K. Chesterton, etc., etc. She may have thought that her using the initials might give her the cachet of being a top writer. . . .Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilipG
Chris
Chris.Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisGeorge
She said so herself in an interview.
Does anyone know if there's any truth in the story that a great rival of T S Eliots said in a radio interview "dont you realise that T S Eliot is almost TOILET backwards". I've always wondered if its genuine or something our English teacher made up to try and liven up a lesson.Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisGeorge
But wasn't PhillipG trying a bit of a wind-up?:) But yes, we have strayed a bit off topic.
No, it wasn't a wind-up.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sloyne
Just a response.
Anyway, back on topic.
Some of the graves were dated 1859, but as far as I can make out the closest epidemic was cholera in the summer of 1849.
So, it's still a mystery.
But not beyond the realm of posibility when you consider Britain was the originator of concentration camps. But I think it implausible for the reasons given above. However, thousands of famine victims died, not just enroute, but in places like the quarantine station at Grosse Ile, QC., Canada. In 1847, 50 ships arrived from Liverpool filled to the gun'nels with Irish famine victims who were discharged at Grosse Ile in the St. Lawrence River. That same year 5,424 people died of various deseases, but mainly typhus, at the quarantine station.Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilipG
Liverpool, the largest port for transportation of Irish famine victims to the colonies, sometimes picked up victims at Irish west coast ports and transported them to Liverpool, with some voyagers taking between two and four weeks, depending on weather and winds. Those passengers were landed in Liverpool in various stages of ill health, then transported to quarantine camps outside the Liverpool municipal boundry. Could this gravesite be on one of those ancient camp sites?
Canada, Australia and the USA have elevated thier quarantime camps to National Historic Site status. It would be very understandable for the UK, given the "Irish Troubles" of the passed 4 decades, to want to keep such a site, as a concentration camp for famine victims, quiet. However, nothing of this magnatude can remain hidden for ever and, just like the Sarpedan affair after WW11, truth will, eventualy, out.
Has anyone ever wondered where these starving, pennyless Irish peasants got the money to pay for passage to Canada, Australia or the USA?Quote:
Originally Posted by PhilipG
Irish emigration during the famine was NOT entirely voluntary. When the British parliament passed the law making landlords responsible, through taxation, for their starving, destitute tennants, they (landlords) found it cheaper to charter ships and dispose of their charges by shipping them abroad. And just who would refuse to go when they were starving in their homeland? So, for all intents and purposes the emigration of Irish famine victims, in the vast majority, amounted to forced transportation.
Further to the above and with reference to todays BBC news concerning RUC and Special Branch collussion in the murders, by "Loyalist" para-militaries in Northern Ireland, of a number of catholics. One can readilly see why the UK government would want to keep a grave site, containing thousands of Irish famine victims, very quiet.
Except that it is by no means proven that the bodies discovered in Old Swan were Irish famine victims. It would seem to me to be wild and irresponsible speculation to assume the bodies were those of Irish famine victims disposed of by the British government.Quote:
Originally Posted by Sloyne
Chris
Yes, your right, I should have made myself clearer and included the word "IF" in my submission.Quote:
Originally Posted by ChrisGeorge
I think the Irish would have chosen to stay in their homeland and be fed rather than be shipped all over the world. my ancestors came over in the 1840`s from Dublin,Mayo and Roscommon. they lived in and survived the courts of Vauxhall.
As for the mass grave in Old Swan . there are rumoured to be a number of sites around the city containing Irish. They called it the Irish Holocaust. nothing connects them to Old Swan, its just another suggestion. Funny thing i heard once in the Red House pub in the 1980`s . an old fella was talking about the graves and swore blind it was Canadian Soldiers in there? ive never heard anything on this mind? maybe to much beer:PDT_Aliboronz_24:
mind you read this. Canadian!!! Old Swan!!!!:shock: :eek:
http://www.biographi.ca/EN/ShowBio.asp?BioId=37876
Really i doubt we will ever find out:disgust:
Goes without saying. My ancestors also arrived in the mid eighteen hundreds escaping deprivation and starvation. And they settled in what is now known as Vauxhall. According to stories told by my granddad Fitz (Fitzpatrick), the English were less than welcoming and treated the Irish like lepers. He too told stories of Irish immigrants being kept aboard ships in the river then landed at night and herded through deserted streets to the outskirts to, presumably, camps. He told me a story of renting a house for himself and his new bride, Mary Anne O'Brien, at the top of Rose Vale, Everton, and having the house dowsed in parafin oil, by religious bigots, and set ablaze while they slept. They escaped with thier lives and nothing else. He would say; "They made a bonfire of our few little pieces and sticks, just because we were Irish and catholic".Quote:
Originally Posted by Gnomie
Thats a sad story Sloyne. it must have been horrible to be Irish back then.
It is in fact true and recorded that many who came to the inner city liverpool from Ireland and in particular the Scottie road area did die of their illnesses and in fact if you check out the grounds and crypt of St. Anthony's - over 2,300 are buried there.
I also have an history dvd with Cliff Hayes, Historian and author of a couple of Liverpool books being interviewed throughout it, saying that the Liverpool authorities were actively paying ship captains to discharge the Irish emigrants at Anglesey as Liverpool was getting beyond the bounds of coping with the influx.
Was at my Cousin's Christening yesterday at St Oswalds Old Swan for the latest arrival of the O'Shea clan...
Tim O'shea was my uncle being married to my Mams sister and arrived here from Cork pennyless..He built up a Civil Engineering firm and at one time or another Every Liverpool Irishman must have worked for him pulling the big Cables from BICC in Prescot..and Quite a lot of Scousers as well..Yours truly included..The Perfect Gentleman..
I most likely know your family, me having grown up in 13 Rose Place right facing Comus Street. I knew a Mr. Tim Hogan who married one of the McMullen women and I think, listening to me mam, her best mate, Dolly Hickey, was courting a Christy Hogan before marrying into the McMullen's, I forget whether it was to Dan or Pat McMullen.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gnomie
Hi Sloyne
I only know the brothers and sisters for my grandfather.
and the sister and brother of my great grandfather.
all from comus street and surrunding area. im sure they had cousins so these hogans sre interesting as they are in the same place.
cheers mate
Tony
"...'Containment Squads' moved in on the diseased and starving immigrants, removed their children, then herded the Irish men and women to a containment camp in a field on the outskirts of Liverpool. They were then systematically shot and buried in unmarked coffins".
Fascinating stuff- but why bother going to the trouble and expense of providing coffins?
Hi SteveQuote:
Originally Posted by knowhowe
You're right. The story that Tom Slemen and Keith Andrews are promulgating doesn't quite add up.
Chris