Mother-and-Baby Homes

Recent revelations in Ireland about mother-and-baby homes have received considerable national and international publicity. These homes were run for unmarried mothers by religious orders with the acquiescence of the State. Research by Catherine Corless, a local historian in Tuam, County Galway, revealed that 796 children died in a mother-and child home there run by the Bon Secour Sisters from 1925 to 1961 and that at least some of them were buried in a nearby mass grave. Recorded reasons for deaths include tuberculosis, convulsions, measles, influenza, bronchitis, meningitis and other illnesses. There were several other such homes in the country like Bessborough, County Cork, Roscrea in Tipperary (where Philomena Lee of the film Philomena had been), Castlepollard, County Meath, all three managed by the Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus, Saint Patrick’s on the Navan Road in Dublin run by the Sisters of Charity of St Vincent De Paul and Dunboyne, County Meath, run by Sisters of the Good Shepherd. Other auxiliary homes were provided by local authorities in Kilrush, County Clare, Pelletstown in County Dublin and St Mary’s in Tuam. Bethany Mother-and-Child Home in Dublin operated as a Protestant-run institution from 1921 to 1972. Deaths of children in these homes (and Tuam was far from the highest) were far in excess of the national infant mortality rates of the time. In addition to the high mortality rates, there are stories from some homes of forced adoptions (adoption was not legalised in Ireland until 1952), improper vaccine trials, and donation of bodies for medical research. Where mothers were unable to make contributions for their keep, they had to work in the homes for two to three years.

The immediate response to the revelations in Ireland was to find who was to blame, but that is too simplistic. The source is far more complex, originating in the strong moral mores of a dark era, with all of society responsible. In many cases, fathers absconded to England. One of the most unfortunate consequences of the strong moral climate for over half the twentieth century was the appalling treatment of women who became pregnant outside wedlock. They were shunned by their families, ostracised by society and generally treated with disdain. There were people in every part of Ireland who were prepared to cast the first stone, despite Biblical admonition. Local gossip and opprobrium were so abusive that such women had no choice but to emigrate, which many did, or to go to institutions. During the twentieth century down to the 1970s, it was common for many young women who were pregnant outside marriage to be hidden away by their families in a sense of shame and sent to religious-run homes for unmarried mothers. Later, if they had no one to look after them, their babies were cruelly taken from them and given up for adoption, while they were sent to Magdalene homes. There, they were kept indefinitely and made work in laundries without any payment with the acquiescence of Church and State. There was no legal basis for such incarceration and it was at complete variance with the emphatic assertion in Article 40.4.1 of the 1937 Constitution: ‘No citizen shall be deprived of his personal liberty save in accordance with the law’. Galway playwright, Patricia Burke Brogan, brought the story of the appalling exploitation of young women in Magdalene laundries to the stage with her play Eclipsed(1994). A film on the abuse entitled The Magdalene Sisters, directed by Peter Mullan, was released in 2002. Children born outside marriage were also treated disgracefully and the legal concept of illegitimacy was only abolished in 1987. Mother–and-child homes, like many other shocking stories from Ireland’s recent dark past, are reminders of the abuses suffered by many in an insular, authoritarian and intolerant society.

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