Interrogating institutionalisation and child welfare: the Irish case, 1939–1991^*

* The report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was published on the 20 May 2009. The commission was set up in 2000. For a copy of the report see www.childabusecommission.ie. The report is referred to as CICA.

Section 44 of the Children’s Act (1908) states: ‘The expression “industrial school” means a school for the industrial training of children, in which children are lodged, clothed and fed, as well as taught.’

ABSTRACT

The topic of institutionalisation and child welfare in Ireland has garnered increasing national and international public and scholarly attention over the past twenty years. This is not an Irish phenomenon. Governments internationally have utilised commissions to investigate a range of historical abuses against children and young adults, many in an institutional setting (see Age of Inquiry, http://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/research/ageofinquiry/). One of the most recent shocking historical revelations opens the paper – the discovery of the burial of 796 children in a septic tank in a mother and baby home in Tuam, Co. Galway (http://www.mbhcoi.ie/MBH.nsf/page/index-en). Following this, the historical approach – a history of the present – is explained. A number of questions about the past use of institutions in Ireland are posed to help illuminate the importance of this issue to the present day. We consider the nature of institutionalisation and the development of law and policy prior to and after the Second World War. Our questions lead us to a discussion of three themes: the role of economics; parentage and gender; and the relationship between the State and the Church. We conclude with a commentary on why such interrogation of institutional care is important in the present.

KEYWORDS:

• Child welfare
• gender/feminism
• history
• institutions/deinstitutionalisation

Acknowledgements

We would like to acknowledge Prof. Gisela Hauss in Cooperation with Prof. Joelle Droux, Prof. Thomas Gabriel, Prof. Martin Lengwiler and Prof. Anne-Françoise Praz Sinergia for the opportunity to present this paper at a seminar for their research project ‘Placing Children in Care: Child Welfare in Switzerland (1940–1990)’, funded by the Swiss National Foundation and located at five universities: Universities of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland and Zürich, Universities of Basel, Fribourg and Geneva. Leading house. For more information: http://www.placing-children-in-care.ch/

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Dr Sarah-Anne Buckley, is lecturer in history at the National University of Ireland Galway. Her research centres on the history of childhood and youth, women and gender in Ireland which she has published widely on. Author of The Cruelty Man: Child Welfare, the NSPCC and the State in Ireland, 1889–1956 (MUP, 2013), she was recently a co-editor of a special edition of the Journal of Childhood and Youth and Soathar: the Journal of the Irish Labour History Society. She remains one of the current editors of Saothar. She is President of the Women’s History Association of Ireland, Chair of the Irish History Student’s Association and co-director of the Irish Centre for the Histories of Labour and Class at NUI Galway.

Professor Caroline McGregor is Director of Social Work at the National University of Ireland Galway and Senior Researcher at the UNESCO Child and Family Research Centre. Formerly Dr Caroline Skehill from Queen’s University, Caroline has researched history of social work in Ireland and Europe. She has a particular interest in child protection practice and policy; history of the present methodologies and socio-legal studies. Her current work is focused on contemporary practice with an emphasis on: outcomes for young people leaving care, public awareness of child protection and welfare, family support services and policy and critical social theory and social work.

Notes

* The report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse was published on the 20 May 2009. The commission was set up in 2000. For a copy of the report see www.childabusecommission.ie. The report is referred to as CICA.

Section 44 of the Children’s Act (1908) states: ‘The expression “industrial school” means a school for the industrial training of children, in which children are lodged, clothed and fed, as well as taught.’