Roddy Doyle On The Septic Tank Babies

-The mother and baby homes.

-Shockin’.

-That’s the thing, but.

-Wha’?

-Yeh kind o’ get used to it, don’t yeh. The stories – all the fuckin’ misery. It’s been goin’ on for years. Am I makin’ sense?

-Kind of. I think so, yeah.

-I thought it was over, d’yeh know what I mean? All the enquiries, and the bishops an’ tha’.

-Consigned to history, like.

-Exactly – spot on. An’ then, when they’re on about eight hundred babies dumped in a septic tank, or whatever the fuck - .

-Nuns with buckets o’ babies.

-Yeah – I mean, I haven’t seen a nun in fuckin’ years, with or without a bucket. They’re like the fuckin’ dinosaurs

-Long gone.

-We’ll only be seein’ them in cartoons soon. But then - . Yesterday, I’m readin’ abou’ the kids in the mother an’ baby homes tha’ were used for vaccine tests. In 1973. An’ I think, ‘Oh – my – Jaysis.’

-I was workin’ in 1973.

-Me too. Or, I wanted to be. But those kids, like.

-They’re younger than us.

-Much younger than us.

-So, it’s not history, is it?

-Not, it fuckin’ isn’t. It’s current affairs.

 Roddy Doyle