Ireland: Institutional Abuse

This book provides a detailed account of the history of maternity and child welfare in Dublin between 1922 and 1960. It places maternity and child welfare in the context of twentieth-century Irish history, offering one of the only accounts of how women and children were viewed, treated and used by key lobby groups in Irish society and by the Irish state. Mother and child is of critical importance to understanding the political and social history of modern Ireland as it examines the responses of the State, the church, voluntary groups and women to the emergence of the welfare State in Ireland. As such it makes a welcome contribution to Irish political, social, medical and gender history.

Mike Milotte's expose of Church-State collusion in banishing thousands of vulnerable 'illegitimate' children from Ireland in the 1950s and 1960s was first published in 1997. It is a story of baby trafficking - organized by nuns, sanctioned by an archbishop, administered by civil servants, and approved by politicians who tried to keep it secret. For this new, updated, and expanded edition, Milotte has added previously untold personal stories from some of the 'banished babies' he met in the intervening period. Most of the banished babies ended up in adoptions in the US, and this Ireland-to-US adoption practice is revealed here. Delving deep into official archives and drawing on the papers of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, the book reveals how Church and State placed the avoidance of scandal above the welfare of children.

Mandated by the Irish state beginning in the eighteenth century, Magdalen Laundries were operated by various orders of the Catholic Church until the last laundry closed in 1996. Focusing on the ten Catholic Magdalen laundries operating between 1922 and 1996, Ireland''s Magdalen Laundries and the Nation''s Architecture of Containment offers the first history of women entering these institutions in the twentieth century.

A compelling narrative of love and loss, Martin Sixsmith's moving account of his search for his mother.