Mediated Magdalene
Ireland
A Critical Discourse Analysis on how Ireland’s most
Popular News Brands have documented redress for
former residents of the Magdalene Laundries and the
Mother and Baby Homes against a backdrop of
historical discourses forged within Irish contemporary
history.
Abstract: In twentieth century Ireland, thousands of women were institutionalised within Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes by the duopoly of Church and State. These institutions housed women who were perceived to be sexually immoral; women who were consequently incarcerated and forced to engage in unpaid labour for their ‘crimes’. Both the former residents and the initiators of these institutions have been in the media spotlight since redress efforts began; calling for acknowledgement and compensation for the systemic human rights abuses that took place within these workhouses for seventy six years. This thesis examines both historical and present day discourses in order to provide a nuanced understanding of these institutions in a post-colonial Ireland. The engineering of the Magdalene system is also contextualised under the lens of power to provide a comprehensive insight to the role of the Church and State within Irish contemporary history. In addition to an investigation on historicised discourses, Carvalho’s method for critical discourse analysis will be availed of in order to dissect present day news text to identify how the plight of former residents has been framed by the Irish Press.
Rebekah
By: Rebekah Anne Daunt Student Number: S3660761
University: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen Module: MA Journalism - Extended Thesis Year: Class of 2018 -2020
Supervisor: Dr. Dana Mustata Second Reader: Dr. Ansgard Heinrich
Table of Contents: Dedication ... i Acknowledgements... 1 Chapter 1: Forward ...2 1.1 Introduction ... 2 1.2 Academic Positioning ... 6
Chapter 2: Historical Context – The Institutionalisation of Women in Ireland ...8
2.1 The History of the Magdalene Laundries ...8
2.2 History of the Mother and Baby Homes ...11
2.3 Survivor Experiences ...13
Chapter 3: The Role of the Church ... ..16
3.1 Catholicism in Colonial Ireland ... . 16
3.2 Catholicism and it’s rise to power in Republic of Ireland... 17
3.3 Sexual Inequality in Ireland ...17
3.4 The Current Role of the Church ... 19
Chapter 4: The Role of the State ...22
4.1 Womanhood as created by the State ... 22
4.2 The Role of the State in the Laundry Network ... 22
4.3 The McAleese Report ...24
4.4 The Mother and Baby Home Commission ...25
Chapter 5: The Role of Irish News Media... 28
5.1 Introduction to RTÉ, the Journal and the Independent... .29
5.2 Journalist Response to the Primary Years of Redress ...31
Chapter 6: Literature Review - Theoretical Framework ...34
6.1 Theoretical Introduction ...34 6.2 Power ... 34 6.2 Discourse ... 36 6.3 Magdalenism ... 38 6.4 Marginalisation...39 6.5 Silencing ...41 6.6 Censorship ...43 Chapter 7: Methodology ...45 7.1 Introduction...45 7.2 Research Design ... 45 7.3 Method ...46
7.4 Operationalisation of the Method ... ..47
7.4.1 Introduction to Interpretative Repertoires ... 48
7.4.2 Interpretative Repertoires in Operation ... 48
7.5 Textual Analysis ... 49
7.5.1 Layout and Structural Organisation ...49
7.5.2 Objects ... 49
7.5.3 Actors ...49
7.5.4 Language, Grammar and Rhetoric ...50
7.5.5 Discursive Strategies ...50
7.5.6 Ideological Standpoints ...51
7.6 Contextual Analysis ...51
7.6.1 Comparative-synchronic Analysis...51
7.6.2 Historical-diachronic Analysis ...51
7.7 Data and Sampling ...52
Chapter 8: Findings and Discussion ...55
8.1.1 Layout and Structural Organisation ...52
8.1.2 Objects ...58
8.1.2 Actors ...58
8.1.3 Language, grammar and rhetoric ...59
8.1.4 Discursive Strategies ...60
8.1.5 Ideological Standpoints ...62
8.3 Contextual Analysis ...65
8.3.1 Comparative-synchronic Analysis ... 65
8.3.2 Historical-diachronic Analysis ...66
Chapter 9: Interpretation of Findings ...71
9.1 Power Relations ...71
9.2 Resilience ... 72
9.3 Accountability ...73
9.4 Historicising Current Discourse ... .74
Chapter 10: Conclusion and Limitations ...76
10.1 Limitations and Further Research ... 76
10.2 Conclusion ... 77
Appendices ...79
References ...79
Sample Coding Forms ...90
Figure 8 ...90
Samples Articles ... 93
Coding Sheets...94
Dedication:
For the unidentified women and children of the Magdalene Laundries and the Mother and Baby Homes buried across
the Irish Republic.1
May they rest in peace.
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Above: Glasnevin Cemetery, Dublin, where just 33 out of 187 Magdalene women listed on the High Park Laundry gravestone are actually buried. (Ó Fátharta, 2015).
Image Details: Free for commercial use, no attribution required: TuendeBede (2017) Glasnevin Cemetery, Pixalbay. Available at: https://pixabay.com/photos/glasnevin-dublin-ireland-cemetery-2745818/
1 Acknowledgements
The subject of female incarceration in Ireland in the form of the Magdalene Laundries and the Mother and Baby Homes is one that I have been passionate about since a young age. I am very grateful that this thesis has provided me the opportunity to educate myself further on female marginalisation in Ireland as well as provide an insight into the complexities that exist within the development of sexual equality in Ireland to a wider audience. The following discussions would not have been possible if not for the guidance of my supervisor Dr. Dana Mustata who effectively helped me channel my resolve and steer me towards producing a piece of work that is situated within Irish current affairs. The patience and resilience that Dana exercises while managing her own role as an educator inspired me to keep going whilst working full time alongside this thesis.
I would also like to acknowledge my hardworking peers within my Journalism Masters who made my experience in Groningen all the more memorable. I would also like to mention my two best friends, Roisin Lynch and Jennifer Hosford, who continuously expressed enthusiasm in my research throughout the thesis process. Lastly, I would like to thank my sister, Rachel Daunt, a loving mother and carer of the elderly, who inspired me to write this thesis reflecting on the trials and tribulations of women in Ireland. At the age of 21, Rachel singlehandedly balanced her role as a single mother alongside the pursuit of her degree despite the opposition she faced within an backward, Irish community. Like the many women who will feature in this thesis, Rachel’s resilience is an example to all women that anything is possible once you believe you can achieve what you set out to conquer.
2 Chapter 1: Forward 1.1 Introduction
In 2009 I enrolled at University College Cork (UCC), and spent the next four years of my young adult life completing an undergraduate degree in political science and government. In socialising with my peers, I came to the realisation that discourses promoting sexual inequality were very much alive and well amongst the student population of Cork. In high school (or secondary school as it is referred to in Ireland), my friends and I would have naively considered sexual and reproductive rights to be relatively progressive on the Emerald Isle. However abortion was still outlawed in the Republic; the contraceptive pill could only be availed of through the approval of a GP; and, sex education was not standardised within school curriculums. Despite all of these setbacks, in our late teens we did not spare a moment to consider that the female population of Ireland might be somewhat at a disadvantage due to the limiting stances on sexual liberation. Compared to our tolerant and progressive European neighbours, sexual progression in Ireland was prevented by the continuation of
repressive discourses and narratives. Through observations I made in my university years, I discovered that attitudes towards premarital sex in Ireland were gender specific; men were often heralded as champions amongst their peers for boasting about their sexual escapades, whereas women were quite often demonised for daring to approach the topic of sex.
Despite the constitutional victories in recent decades, (the decriminalisation of same-sex relationships in 1993 and the legalisation of divorce in 1996), Ireland did not hold a socially liberalised discourse on female body autonomy until the decriminalisation of abortion in 2018. I discovered how frequently Irish women were considered ‘loose’ if they found themselves with an unplanned pregnancy or considered overly promiscuous for daring to discuss a personal sexual encounter in a public setting. Women were discouraged from voicing opinions about sex and owning the narrative on sexual relations inside or outside of marriage; talking about one’s exploits was regularly considered shameful within contemporary society. Fuelled by the desire to comprehend the inequalities behind this marginalising public discourse, I gradually came to understand that there was an extensive history behind Ireland’s need to preserve female virginity, or at the very least, discourage narratives of sexually confident women from entering the public domain. Up until 1996, just 24 years ago, a single woman in Ireland could risk stigmatisation, arrest and subsequent incarceration for
partaking or supposedly partaking in premarital sex. Such women were not arrested by the police and brought to justice before a court, rather they were detained under the authority of the Roman Catholic Church to an institutional facility such as a Magdalene Laundry or, if found pregnant, to a Mother and Baby Home to pay penance for their hypothetical wrong doings.
While such punishment seems archaic and demoralising today by western standards, it has to be noted that the newly formed Irish State went to great lengths to strengthen the nation’s Catholic identity from its colonial past upon securing independence in 1922. Sexual ‘immorality’ specifically in unmarried mothers was perceived to be a threat to the ideal of social purity. The breakdown of British colonialism created a vacuum for a new power, a power that was to be manufactured by the Irish State in collaboration with the Catholic Church. This duopoly of power drafted a new rule of law in the form of the 1937 Constitution, through which popular sovereignty could only be exercised within the moral limits imposed by the Catholic Church (Barbrook, 1992: 204). Inside these Magdalene facilities, women were stripped of their birth names and forced to give up their identities, were subjected to harsh working conditions for up to 18 hours a day, predominantly washing clothes and linens using dangerous industrial machinery, all in atonement for their ‘sins’ without payment (Manning, 2014:14; Humphries 1998). Outside of these institutions, the livelihoods of the Magdalene’s and women withheld in Mother and Baby Homes remained a mystery and a social silence fuelled by the shame of sexual immorality persisted. Such silence allowed the Church and State to continue with their lucrative operation
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without public criticism and subsequently paved a culture of unaccountability for aspects of Irish society that were troubling to the national identity for several decades (Killian, 2015:18).
The women that survived the Magdalene regime were obliged to remain silent about their experiences upon their release or escape in order to avoid further stigmatisation and exclusion within Irish society. The dominant narratives of the Church and State also ensured that the stories of institutional abuse remained uncovered by enforcing tight censorship laws to monitor the press and the release of any material or opinion within literature and film that would pull their unchallenged power under question. Following the closure of the last Magdalene Laundry on Sean McDermott Street, Dublin, in 1996, the former Magdalene’s became some of the most economically, politically, socially and culturally vulnerable people in Ireland (O’Donnell, 2018: 94). Without the education or the knowledge through which to empower themselves, the former inmates were pushed to the margins of society, all but forgotten until various advocacy and human rights groups sought redress for their unwarranted suffering. Gallen and Gleeson (2018:46) describe the journey towards acknowledgement, answers and compensation for these women and their families to be a frustratingly slow one.
The ways in which Irish journalists are now communicating the narrative of Mother and Baby Home survivors and former Magdalene’s is paramount as those mediating discourse are faced with the challenge of breaking down the power structures within these histories to equip news consumers with the knowledge they need to understand the complexities of these controversial experiences. It is important to highlight that many of these women were imprisoned until death, their bodies buried in unmarked graves:
“many women were never released and died in the Magdalene Laundries after serving what was effectively a life sentence. Using the details from the 1901 and 1911 censuses and comparing them to burial records, it is clear that a high proportion of women lived and died in the Laundries” (Justice for Magdalene’s, 2012:20).
Little was known of the horrors that occurred inside the walls of the Magdalene Laundries until the McAleese Report, published in 2013 exposed the State’s collusion with the Church in maintaining these asylums. The Commission of Inquiry into Mother and Baby homes, established in 2015 is also due to publish a report on life and death within these institutions in June of this year. For far too long the Irish government has avoided engaging with the legality of detaining women in such facilities, denied knowledge of human rights violations and abuse and has evaded responsibility in authorising the continuation of these institutions for 74 years (Gallen & Gleeson, 2018:56).
Therefore the focus on this research will centre on the following core question: How has Irish news media
documented the journey towards reconciliation for Ireland’s Magdalene women?2
This process will be broken down into two layers, the first layer will focus on the current discourses within news media to understand how the abuse of political and ecclesiastical power has been mediated by the Irish press in the present day. The second layer will evaluate how these discourses have emerged from the historical narratives at work since the dawn of the Irish Free State To conduct such analysis the first layer will be centred on news text within three of Ireland’s top online news brands using the qualitative research method, Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) and the second layer will comb through historicised research to create a nuanced
2
The differences between the Magdalene Laundries and the Mother and Baby Homes will be outlined later in this thesis. The Irish State has separated these two institutions in their redress efforts however there is a definite common denominator, both institutions subjected their penitents to similar hardships and various forms of punishment for their ‘immoral’ failings. Therefore in order to better compartmentalise this marginalised group within this body of research, the term
Magdalene women will refer to both women who were incarcerated within the Magdalene Laundries as well the Mother and Baby Homes. When distinction is
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awareness of the abuse which emerged from a longer history of female exploitation, in which the State, The church and the media played a key role.
Critical Discourse Analysis can reveal a range of new and alternative social subjects positions which can consequently give power to the most vulnerable of individuals (Morgan, 2010: 4). Alternatively Irish news media can either empower or discourage former residents through the positioning of mediated narratives. By historicising the CDA findings and situating them within the historical context one will be able to reflect on the development of these discourses within the Irish context.
I will be utilising Carvalho’s framework for Critical Discourse Analysis in this thesis which has been catered towards interpreting journalistic texts (Carvalho, 2008). The three news brands in question, RTÉ News Online, the Journal.ie and the Irish Independent provide news online in various mediums. RTÉ interweaves news text with archival news video footage from its own news broadcasts, the Independent also features news videos borrowed from RTÉ amongst other networks on occasion to strengthen and position its text, whereas the Journal.ie traditionally provides news solely in the form of textual articles. I will be focusing purely on written discourse in this dissertation. While digital media makes affordances for video to strengthen or reiterate resolve, the use of archival footage by both RTÉ and the Independent rearticulates older discourses and calls for research methods beyond the scope of Carvalho’s method and the limitations of this thesis. Older discourses will be explored throughout this thesis as emphasised through the explanation of the second layer, but in order to distinguish between current and historicised discourses, the CDA will centre on the current discourses within Irish news media.
As described by Mogashoa (2014: 106), CDA helps the analyst dissect the social problems that are mediated by powerful institutions and mainstream ideology through written texts in our daily lives. The desire is therefore to understand how redress is being communicated within Irish current affairs and this concerns the lives of the women who have been historically marginalised. In writing an extended thesis, I will be producing an extensive literature review, through which I will seek to comprehend the power structures that enabled the
marginalisation of women in Irish contemporary history. In addition to answering my research question, this thesis will aim to: (1) shed light on the current discourses within Ireland’s most popular news brands; (2) contextualise current discourses within a more historical/longer-term dynamic of power that played out between the Church, the State, the media and the women; and, (3) understand if the dominant discourses seek to empower or marginalise the former Magdalene’s.
There is little to be found in academic literature analysing how Irish news outlets have documented the continued quest for compensation in recent years as any record of abuse was well hidden for the majority of the twenty first century. The Censorship of Publications Act in 1929 was very effective in silencing victims of the Laundries for speaking out about their experiences or speaking ill of the Church, “although this Act was not the first of its kind, its inception marked a long-standing tradition of censorship in the Republic of Ireland. Not surprisingly, the Catholic Church had direct influence over the creation of this Act” (Manning, 2014: 16). Only now has the State recognised the harm their predecessors caused by incarcerating these ‘fallen’ women and are hesitatingly acknowledging the abuse and punishment carried out by the religious orders who ran these institutions (Thomas, 2019).
The continuation of traditional ideals on sexuality in Ireland made uncovering the truth behind the Magdalene Laundries a complex and monumental task. While the preservation of Catholic morality was the driving force behind the institutionalisation of subsequent ‘fallen women’, the economic agendas of the Church and State that secretly coursed their way underneath their sanctimonious cover were slowly revealed by those who chose to investigate “the material and economic functions of these institutions should not be forgotten, as they
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involved the widespread delivery of competitive laundry services to both State and society— government departments, private enterprises and households alike—with profits maintained by the religious orders in charge” (Gleeson, 2017: 294).
The Journal.ie, RTÉ News Online and the Irish Independent are Ireland’s most consumed online news brands yet censorship placed heavy restraints on the Irish press until the Freedom of Information Act gave Irish journalists the power to provide a more effective public service and maximise their role in maintaining the 4th
Estate in 1997. In the years that followed, reporting on the failures of the Catholic Church was a liberating yet daunting task, “Editors knew the great risks involved as leaders in the Church, newly enriched entrepreneurs, developers and powerful politicians were perfectly prepared to bring down a newspaper if need be by litigation, in order to protect their reputation. It was both an exciting and worrisome time to sit in an editorial chair” (Brown, 2015: 351).
In evaluating how Irish media groups have documented redress for former Magdalene’s, CDA can help uncover the ideological assumptions written in between the lines that seek to influence discourse (McGregor, 2010: 4). News texts are filled with discursive strategies that effectively utilise language to position the actors and their standpoints thus creating the capacity to realign reader perspectives with those of the journalist or outlet. Kovacra and Rosentiel (2001: 12), argue that the purpose of journalism is to provide people with the information they need to be free and self governing therefore the manufacturing of such information can influences perceptions, in other words, “authoritative discourse analysis can lead to fundamental changes in the practices of an institution” (Olson, 2007: 31).
The Magdalene Laundries and the Mother and Baby Homes could not have come into fruition if the abuse of power and marginalisation of women did not take place. Power is at the core of this phenomenon and yet the evident delay for state redress not only points to state complacency but also to the lack of priority given to female experiences of historical abuse (Gallen & Gleeson, 2018: 53). Therefore in applying CDA to a journalistic account of redress one can discover how the use of language has shaped the country’s understanding of the Magdalene Laundries.
The structure of the thesis will be as follows: I will begin with my literature review at the end of this chapter with an academic embedding section which will position this thesis amongst recent works on the Magdalene Laundries as well as other examples of CDA, specifically those utilising Carvalho’s framework. As this thesis is historically situated the second chapter will centre on an examination of historical narratives and provide a greater understanding of these institutions within the context of post colonial Ireland. This third chapter will shed light on the role of the State and the fourth will centre on the Church as both the State and the Church are power structures that engineered this unique system of containment. The fifth chapter will analyse the role of news media within the Irish context and help to position this thesis within the field of journalism. Chapter six will leave the historical and topical narratives behind and turn to theory and grapple with the theoretical concepts at work within my research. The seventh chapter will be focused on methodology and will provide a thorough introduction and application of CDA before the presentation of my findings in chapter eight and investigation of findings in chapter nine. The tenth chapter will cover the limitations of my analysis before ending with a conclusion which will return to the aims of this thesis and ultimately the hypothesis to understand how Irish news media have documented the journey towards reconciliation for Ireland’s Magdalene women.
Essentially, as a woman who grew up surrounded by discriminatory sexual discourses in the Republic of Ireland, I hope that this thesis will add to the existing literature on Ireland’s forgotten women and increase awareness of Ireland’s distinctive history of sexual transformation. As argued by Dr. Gillian O’ Brien, who serves as an
6
expert in modern Irish history, “women have been second class citizens for a very long time in Ireland and there is still much to be done. Telling the many stories of the laundries and the homes is vital'' (O’Brien, 2018). For if we continue to avoid the pain of Magdalene women, we insist again that we'll never turn towards them in an attentive silence, to listen, to make a careful response. We must know that whatever choice we make
determines how we share and shape the future. (O’Donnell, 2018: 94). 1.2 Academic Positioning
In this section I would like to situate this research within recent scholarly debates as well as within journalistic discourse and briefly discuss how theorists have examined other fields of mediated discourse. There is a wealth of information investigating Ireland’s unique story of sexual change in recent decades, for example, Brown (2012) provides excellent guidance in understanding how Irish Catholicism obstructed the progression of reproductive and sexual rights in Ireland, Smith (2007) discusses how the State attempted to contain
supposedly ‘sexually immoral’ women and Urban (2012) describes the lack of social and political accountability in admitting Irish women to ‘unlawful labour camps’ such as the Laundries or the Homes. However there is still a visible gap in such literature; there is still the question of mediated discourse and how Irish media brands have framed sexual change in conjunction with how Irish media brands are documented progress in the years of redress.
The story of the Magdalene Laundries is very much situated within the fields of Irish contemporary history, women studies as well as the ideologies of power. Lawyer Maeve O’Rourke and Dr. James Smith have
contributed extensively to researching the Magdalene Laundries and are Advisory Committee members of the Justice for Magdalene’s research group. In ‘Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries: confronting a history not yet in the past’, O’Rourke and Smith outline the campaign to bring about redress and reveal the horrors that took place inside the Magdalene asylums (O’Rourke & Smith, 2016). “For lack of accountability”: The logic of the price in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries’, author Sheila Killian takes a closer look at Irish power structures and hones in on the limitations of state responsibility regarding the Laundries and examines the efforts made to mute accountability in order to serve the interests of power (Killian, 2015).
Simpson et al (2014: 258). take a more explorative route and grapple with two opposing theories, first, the idea that the Laundries were created as part of a compassionate agenda to help troubled women verses the second, that the Laundries were created as part of a disciplinary aim devised to impose total institutional life (Simpson et al, 2014). The authors analyse a number of comments made by readers of an online Irish Times article, surrounding a radio interview with two nuns who were involved in the Laundry operation, defending the Church and it’s position (McGarry, 2013). The primary focus of this study is to understand the status of these institutions, if they were “caring or penitential organizations”.
Similar to Simpson et al, Benítez-Castro & Hidalgo-Tenorio’s research also follows a linguistic approach and seeks to comprehend the various beliefs that are communicated and reinforced by the women who survived the Magdalene Laundries as they revisit their traumatic experiences through their narratives. The authors used critical metaphor analysis, a variation of critical discourse analysis on a sample drawn from materials gathered by the Justice for Magdalene’s advocacy group. Essentially by breaking down the hidden ideologies at work within the survivor narrative, the authors can learn to understand the former Magdalene’s perception of sin and redemption as well as concepts of womanhood (Benítez-Castro & Hidalgo-Tenorio (2018: 102). This specific study is closely related to my own aims in that the authors utilised a linguistic approach is the analysis of testimonies of former Magdalene’s, however, as expressed in the introduction, there is still a need to examine the present day mediated discourses to see if the frames presented by Irish news publications are enabling a culture of accountability or avoidance, further marginalising former Magdalene’s or Mother and
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Baby Home survivors who are seeking to educate the masses on crimes committed by the Church and State within the first century of independence.
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Chapter 2: The Institutionalisation of Women in Ireland
The roles of the Catholic Church and the Irish State are tremendously embedded within the Irish institutional narrative; for the vast majority of the twentieth century, these two actors stole the spotlight. However in order to outline the origins and characteristics of a) the Magdalene Laundries and b), the Mother and Baby Homes, it is important to step away from the dominant narrative and in doing so create space for these women’s
experiences. In naming and claiming these experiences, former residents can help provide a more accurate interpretation of the past. Therefore the aim of this chapter is to provide an alternative narrative compared to the one traditionally produced by the victor. At least 14,000 women were detained in the Magdalene Laundries from 1922 to 1996 within the Republic of Ireland3 “though victim-survivor groups suggest these figures are underestimated” (JFM, 2013). It is also estimated that up to 90,000 unmarried women gave birth within the Mother and Baby Homes and were subsequently forced to release their babies to the care of the governing religious orders within a similar time frame between 1922 to 1998 (Finnerty, 2019). Such numbers legitimise the presentation of an alternative view of history, one that is free from State censorship and seeks to share the perspectives of those incarcerated.
2.1 The History of the Magdalene Laundries
The literature on the Magdalene Laundries is incredibly rich as many scholars and human rights activists have explored the history of the origins of the Magdalene Laundries. According to Costello Wecker (2015: 265), the very first Irish Magdalene Laundry was opened by Lady Arbella Denny in Dublin in 1767 as a refuge for women in a time when prostitution was heavily criminalised by the Irish Courts. On Irish soil, these institutions were managed by affluent Protestant laywomen from the Church of England and Ireland, aiming to nurture and guide selective ‘sinful’ women back to the Protestant Church. However the very first Magdalene asylums did not originate in Ireland or Great Britain, the very first Magdalene rehabilitation centres were believed to have originated in the thirteenth century Europe, however by the 1750s similar facilities had emerged right across Europe, Australia, the United States and Canada “to alleviate prostitution and the social, political and
pragmatic problems associated with prostitution” (McCarthy, 2010: 10).
Manning discusses how the Laundries were originally founded as a solution to the rise of prostitution as perceived by members of the Protestant faith (Manning, 2014: 12). Finnegan (2001: 18) supports this
argument, claiming that the Laundries were part of a British initiative called the ‘Rescue Movement’, designed to help and shelter wayward woman with the aim of releasing them back into society in the hope that their renewed faith would prevent them from reverting back to the sex trade. The overarching belief is that this ‘Rescue Movement’ eventually became part of a Catholic initiative that Gallen & Gleesen describe as one that “contribut[ed] to the colonial civilising mission” (Gallen & Gleeson, 2018: 47). A newspaper advert from 1838, shared via Twitter by the Limerick City library initiative, provides an insight into the ideals of the ‘civilised mission’ through the promotion of an upcoming charity sermon in aid of the Magdalene asylum on Clare St. in Limerick. The asylum, writes the advert, “has during a series of years been a home to numberless unhappy females whom it has reclaimed from vice by religious and moral instruction, provided with food and clothing during the term of their probation, and sent back after its expiration to society, formed to habits of virtue and industry” (Hyland, 2012).
3
There are two accepted spellings of the following name: Magdalene or Magdalen and while both are commonly used in the context of the Laundries, I will use the former throughout my thesis to maintain consistency.
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Figure 1: Advert for Charity Sermon in aid of Clare St. Magdalene Asylum – Limerick 1912: A Limerick City Library initiative (Hyland, 2012)
Despite the differences in religious doctrine, both the Catholic and Protestant denominations were equally responsible for holding the female gender accountable for the sexual ‘sin’ of their respective nations, specifically those who worked within the sex industry, “here a predominant view was of prostitutes as the cause of both male profligacy and sexual diseases and hence it emphasised the need to protect innocent young men from them” (Ward, 2010: 50). In developing a new nation and the philosophies behind Irish nationhood, men ruled supreme. As discussed by Ward above, the onus of sexual ‘deviancy’ was placed upon women, therefore Irelands’ women were expected to remain upright and morally correct in all manners of life. The Catholic clergy began to take considerable interest in these institutions in the nineteenth century and so, by 1850 all ten Laundries in Ireland had been taken over by four religious congregations of Catholic nuns: the Sisters of Mercy, the Good Shepherd Sisters, the Religious Sisters for Charity and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity (O’Rourke & Smith, 2016: 3). As the twentieth century progressed, Irish Laundries became dumping grounds for Irish social problems (Raftery, 2011). Impoverished ‘offenders’ were of greater interest to the Catholic Church than women from middle class or elite backgrounds. Such a desire in cleansing the nation of ‘immoral’ women specifically from the working classes communicates that the Church found it more effective to exert their power over the lower rungs in society especially those who were poorly educated or had less economic stability.
Ironically, there is little evidence to support that the institutionalising of over 14,000 Magdalene’s had any significant impact on curbing the prostitution industry (Raftery & O’Sullivan, 1999: 162). However in restricting the development of sexual and reproductive rights in Ireland, what these institutions did do however, was remove ‘deviant’ women from the public eye. Once a woman had been delivered safely to a Magdalene
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Laundry, the nuns were free to detain her for as long as they saw fit. Some women were incarcerated for as little as a few months, however many others lived out the rest of their lives inside the Laundries.
Prior to the 1900’s, Luddy (1995) argues that the Laundries had a somewhat positive effect on the lives of those who lived there. In evidence, Luddy declares that 40% of the women who entered the asylums did so on a voluntary basis. However, in focusing on the Laundries after the formation of the Irish State in 1922, the McAleese Report (2013) presents a much lower figure, stating that only 16.4% of referrals were made by women seeking admission themselves. For those who volunteered and for the families or parishes that encouraged their institutionalisation, it was very much believed that the Laundries would “offer an
environment in which a woman’s spiritual as well as moral welfare would be reclaimed and protected” (Smith, 2007: 31). While such referrals might appear to have been made in a Magdalene’s best interest, the majority of referrals were made without the permission of the supposed ‘offender’, therefore the women who found themselves in these circumstances had little control of their fate unless they found safe passage to America or Great Britain before they were seized.
The social responsibility of the family members and clergy that placed their daughters, sisters and
parishioners in institutional care often goes unnoticed, but such was the influence of Catholic teachings on members of society, facilitating the need to control womanhood. While religious dogma failed to prevent Ireland’s youth from engaging in sexual activity, their families failed to protect them when their behaviour came under question. Thus Ireland settled in punishing women in the name of double standard; many of the Magdalene women and unmarried mothers were victims of incest, rape and paedophilia and consequently institutionalised whilst their male counterparts or abusers were automatically absolved of their sins (Costello Wecker 2015: 275). Irish nationhood thus facilitated the notion that men were not to be held responsible for sexual sin. Sexual immorality was a female issue; it was therefore a woman’s place to remain virtuous within the structures of nationhood and to abstain from leading men into temptation.
The day-to-day lives of the Magdalene’s revolved around manual labour, typically in the form of industrial laundry cleaning (Gallen & Gleeson 2018: 45). While these institutional facilities separated the ‘troubled’ members of society from the rest, the public were largely unaware of how women were treated inside the Magdalene Laundries or of the hours they worked, however on occasion, stories of the harsh living conditions were leaked to the outside world, “as Magdalene Laundries and other Catholic-run institutions in the newly formed Republic of Ireland rose, Irish authors in the early 20th century began to write about the living conditions and morality of such social institutions. However, due to Irish censorship laws, these authors were forced to mask their subject matter in covert metaphors” (Manning, 2014: 17). The fact that metaphors were needed to communicate knowledge and understanding of the Laundries emphasises how much the
Magdalene’s were isolated and removed from society, “up until recently only one voice has been heard regarding this dark time in history, and it was not the voice of survivor testimony” (Costello Wecker, 2015: 276B).
The deterioration of the inmates’ mental health as a result of this unlawful incarceration was not of concern to the ruling sisterhoods, in fact mental health care reform only came into effect in the latter half of the 20th
century (Manning, 2014: 46-47). It was widely believed that the depletion of one’s well being within such facilities was an additional consequence of one’s sin, “because detailed knowledge about the inner-workings of the Laundries was limited, this system remained a productive means for keeping girls imprisoned and
maintained positive public perceptions for many decades” (Manning, 2014: 14). As the women were forbidden from conversing with each other or anyone on the outside, the only means of communication between the outside world and the Laundries was through the clergy who convinced the public that these workhouses
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provided a positive and spiritual environment for the inmates, communication with the outside world was often intercepted or forbidden (O’Rourke & Smith, 2016: 4; Urban, 2012: 3).
What nuns within the Catholic Church held a significant amount of power, they were of no match to their male superiors. Despite the fact that authority in the Catholic Church was predominantly secure in the hands of male priests, archbishops and bishops, the responsibility of exercising discipline in the Magdalene institutions fell on the nuns. The image of the Christian nun as guardian of Catholicism was tainted, and despite the documenting of the nuns cruelty, the male masterminds of these institutions were often overlooked while the nuns became phallic weapons of the Church, fuelling a misogynist culture in the dehumanisation of the female gender.
“Most contemporary fictionalized portrayals of the Laundries, such as ‘The Magdalene Sisters’ and ‘Philomena’, depict cruel nuns who treat the penitent women as though they have contracted a contagious disease that causes them to act on their lustful and sinful desires” (Manning, 2014: 49).
While there is plenty of evidence and academic writing to support the motion that nuns acted very cruelly towards the women detained (Smith, 2007; Gleeson, 2017; Thomas, 2019), there is also evidence to support the idea that not all of the Sisters who worked inside these institution were unkind and abusive. Manning (2014: 51) recalls a particular tale of a nun in Waterford who regularly documented her time working at a Laundry in her diary in order to remind herself to “create a place for penitents to feel secure and as if they belong”. Such a desire to provide a place of refuge mirrors the aims of the Victorian, Rescue Movement, yet regardless of creating a sense of belonging and security, even the more compassionate of nuns were agents of a system that taught women to deny themselves and their right to speak freely. In fact, some Magdalene’s grew so accustomed to the lack of freedom and institutional upbringing that they began to internalise institutionalisation and struggled to lead autonomous lives upon their release, “the emotional toll caused by being placed in captivity and forced to work as essential slave labour, left many penitents so compromised that, even after being released, they were unable to function on their own and remained wards of the Church” (Manning, 2014: 15).
2.2 The Mother and Baby Homes
Similar to the Laundries, the Homes were also the result of a lay initiative, except this time it was that of a man. Catholic layman, Sir Joseph Glynn devised a solution to cleanse the nation of unmarried mothers and had his solutions published in The Irish Ecclesiastical Record in 1921 (Garrett, 2017: 361). Glynn believed that the creation of workhouse-style accommodation would serve as an adequate holding for unmarried mothers, where such women would be housed and in return, have the opportunity to atone for their sins through manual labour (Gylnn, 1921: 462).
While Catholic sisterhoods were very much in control of daily life at these Homes, it was male doctors and priests who were predominantly responsible for referring pregnant single women to these premises (Bourdieu, 1991). Much like the Laundries, these Homes allowed men to rid themselves of the responsibility of an
unwanted pregnancy and retain their unblemished positions within society. As outlined in the table below, several health boards and sisterhoods were responsible for managing these institutions.
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Figure 2: Mother and Baby Homes in the Republic of Ireland as documented by the Department of Children and Youth Affairs (Garrett, 2017: 362)
The two principal differences between the Laundries and the Baby Homes were 1) pregnancy was a prerequisite for a referral to a Baby Home whereas perceived sexual immorality or deviancy sufficed at a Laundry and, 2) where there was no limit to the length of a sentence one might serve at a Laundry, a typical term at a Mother and Baby Home was two years or greater (Barrett, 1952: 44). A woman would be categorised as a first offender if she was referred during her first pregnancy, however if this was a second or third ‘offence’, then the governing sisterhood maintained the right to hold the woman for longer to ensure reparations were thorough. The women at the Mother and Baby Homes were also subject to unpaid labour as devised by Gylnn (1921), often taking the form of laundry or kitchen work similar to the Laundries (Finnerty, 2019).
The fate of a mother and child within these Homes was far from pleasant; once a mother gave birth, she was immediately separated from her baby and forced to give it up for adoption. Some mothers were expected to tend to the babies waiting for adoption in the nursery, and as documented by Finnerty, were permitted to spend about 30 minutes nursing each child, “the girls signed release forms to allow for the adoptions but they were under overwhelming pressure to do so. They knew they couldn’t return to their families with their babies”
(Finnerty, 2019). Essentially Mother and Baby Homes “facilitate[d] the international and local adoption and fostering of [illegitimate] children” (Gleeson, 2017: 295). Not only did the sisterhoods profit from adoptions but they were also endorsed by the State for housing the mothers and children, the sisters at the Bon Secours Home in Tuam received payment from the Tuam County Council (Darby, 2019). Even more controversial was the reality that some Homes demanded ransoms of £100 [approximately €4000 in 2020], from wealthier family members who pleaded for their daughters be released home after giving birth and to forego the subsequent sentence (Goulding, 1998: 36). Sadly, many children did not survive life in the Homes before they were of age to be adopted, infant immortality rates within the Homes were incredibly high with congenital debility, pneumonia, bronchitis and tuberculosis all listed as typical causes of death. The Department of Local Government and Public Health (1933: 58) stated that the great majority of these infant deaths arose from preventable causes.
Similar to the Laundries, the State also used the Baby Homes as substitutions for imprisonment and found reason to refer women who needed care under the various Health Acts (O’Rourke & Smith, 2016: 3). In 1951 only 443 people were held in Irish prisons, yet 5,844 children were confined in industrial schools, 1,983 women in Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes, and 18,343 in district and auxiliary mental hospitals
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(O’Sullivan and O’Donnell, 2007: 35). As emphasised by Gallen & Gleeson (2018: 50), 26.5% of referrals to such institutions were made by the State, though it is believed that this figure has been grossly underestimated, “throughout the middle decade of the 20th century, Ireland led the world in locking up more of its people per capita in psychiatric institutions than anywhere else in the world” (Raftery, 2011).
The strength of the Catholic Church was essential for keeping the Magdalene Laundries and the Mother and Baby Homes open, however the modernising of Irish domestic practices had a larger impact on the closure of these institutions than the awakening of moral consciousness, “it was cheap modern washing machines, more than changing social values or public outrage, that signified the death-knell of the Laundries commencing in the 1970s” (Gleeson, 2017: 295). However, the Department of Children and Youth Affairs introduced the Status of Children Act in 1987 which enforced equal rights for children born outside of marriage and sought to remove the social prejudice towards illegitimate children thus reducing the demand for Mother and Baby Homes in the late 80’s (Department of Children and Youth Affairs, 2014:8). This legislation partially helped to remove the stigma towards unmarried mothers and inadvertently removed the shame of bringing an illegitimate child into the world . However the secrecy surrounding life in the Laundries and Homes remained a mystery for several years after the closure of McDermott Street Laundry in 1996 and Bessborough House Mother and Baby Home in 1998. Yet, the demand for insight into these institutions, as well as Church and State involvement in them, has continuously grown in recent years as many Irish citizens have begun to demand information on the realities behind the phenomenon, (Manning, 2014:1). Such demand further emphasises the need for the survivors of these institutions to feel encouraged to tell their stories.
2.3 Former Residents and their Experiences
As articulated at the beginning of this chapter, it is important that survivors can name and claim their
experiences in order to provide a different perspective; a perspective that challenges the dominant narrative. The Church and State prevented first-hand knowledge and personal experiences from circulating for decades which subsequently facilitated the creation of an information monopoly, serving the interests of Church and State. Therefore it is vital that survivors are provided with a safe space to communicate their truth, break their silence and thus challenge the status quo.
Blakemore (2018) writes of former Magdalene Mary Smith, a victim of sexual assault, who was stripped of her identity and imprisoned at Sundays Well, Cork, “once there, she was forced to cut her hair and take on a new name. She was not allowed to talk and was assigned backbreaking work in the laundry, where nuns regularly beat her for minor infractions and forced her to sleep in the cold”.
In changing their names, and shaving their heads, these women were denied their femininity and individualism and alternatively required to take on the identity of Mary Magdalene, who biblically gave up her former
immoral self to avail of God’s forgiveness, “the aggressive act of renaming suggests a death to the former self and shifted the dynamics of power away from penitents and towards those running the Laundry” (Costella Wecker, 2015: 265B).
Another survivor, Phyllis Valentine took to the Irish documentary film Sex in a Cold Climate directed and produced by Steve Humphries for Channel 4 in 1998, to voice her experience of life in a Laundry. Many women never received specific answers as to why they were detained, and were left to guess the reasoning behind their detention, often for years on end. Phyllis however, required answers and took it upon herself to learn why she had been removed from society. Phyllis was told “you are as pretty as a picture, the nuns sent you here
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because they thought you would fall away” (Humphries, 1998). Phyllis, a virgin and a teenager, was innocent, yet the sisterhood anticipated that she might tempt men to sin in later life and thus Phyllis was institutionalised due to her physical beauty. This insight suggests that female beauty was perceived to be a threat to the moral stability of the nation. Not only was there no place for womanhood on the island of Ireland but there was no place for the celebration of beauty on the island of Ireland. A physically attractive young woman, could potentially encourage men to compromise their own therefore beautiful single women warranted monitoring. Phyllis also refers to the way she was treated by the nuns at her Laundry, “they were so cruel to us and we never did anything wrong” (Humphries, 1998).
Humphries also provides a platform for Brigid Young, who endured a particularly difficult upbringing as an orphan from a Mother and Baby Home and was eventually placed within an industrial orphanage. Brigid recalls how she and her fellow orphans were “forced to strip naked every Saturday night and stand before the nuns” (Humphries, 1998). Brigid explained that the nuns would then proceed to ridicule, mock and laugh at their nakedness and verbally abuse any girl who was of a heavier weight or had a visible deformity. In comparing Brigid’s and Valentine’s stories side by side it becomes evident that the Sisters condemned these young women for their very physicality but also created a very narrow, unrealistic and marginalised standard for femininity within these institutional settings. Such attitudes thus created a paradoxical culture where women were demonised for being beautiful but also ridiculed for failing to meet the Catholic ideals of aesthetic physicality. While Irish women were at risk of being mocked for appearing ‘ugly’ or different they were also forced to deny their beauty in fear of appearing overly confident and therefore stigmatised as vain; sexuality was forbidden and humility was paramount. Ultimately, to stand out could lead to unwarranted attention, in order to meet the satisfactory requirements set out by the Church, it was vital that the female appearance was
homogeneous. Survival was dependent on the denial of oneself, one’s femininity and sexuality.
Turning now to another experience, it has been reported that the oldest known survivor of the Magdalene Laundries died at the age of ninety seven having survived over sixty years in institutional care in the Republic of Ireland and yet there is no evidence to support that this woman, Madge O’ Connell was working in the sex industry or was suspected of sexual immorality. Gleeson (2007: 297) writes that O’ Connell was approached by a local parish priest in the 1930’s after her parents had died and was encouraged to sell the family home and farm and move to a Laundry. Madge subsequently spent much of her life at the Good Shepherd Convent in Sunday’s Well, Cork having committed no crime to condone such incarceration.
In 2003, three adoption rights activists formed the Justice for Magdalene’s (JFM) advocacy group in retaliation to a mass exhumation of a Magdalene burial plot in Drumcondra, Dublin, where 22 additional and unidentified bodies were discovered in the site that was meant for 133 persons. The land, which was to be sold to
developers by nuns, was originally part of the High Park convent, a Laundry that ceased operation in the early 1990s (Humphries, 2003). Activists Steed, Murphy and McGettrick, all daughters of former Magdalene’s, successfully lobbied for a memorial for the mass grave for which, “the nuns had received exhumation licences from the Department of the Environment for 155 bodies in 1993, without producing death certificates for 80 women or the full names of 46 women” (Justice for Magdalene’s, 2013). The Justice for Magdalene Group with the help of additional survivors and relatives, academics, lawyers, politicians and human rights activists carried out extensive research in a bid to uncover the truths behind the Magdalene operation.
As reported by the Irish Times, rather than investigate the burial of 22 unidentified bodies, the Department of the Environment granted an additional exhumation license for the bodies to be removed and cremated without identification. Further still, the list provided by the nuns to the Department did not match the headstone on the site, “only 27 of the names and dates coincide. So, either the list of names given to the
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Department to obtain the exhumation licence was substantially false, or the names on the Glasnevin gravestone bear little relation to the identities of those actually buried there” (The Irish Times, 2013). This communicates that even in death the Church and State had such little regard for those who were incarcerated and had served the State through their unpaid labour.
While this chapter has emphasised the hardship experienced by the former Magdalene’s and unmarried mothers, many international researchers who are not familiar with the intricate and unique relationship between Ireland and Catholicism, are astonished that such an abuse of power continued within the Catholic controlled Laundries, Homes and industrial schools until recent decades. A greater examination of the power held by the Catholic Church needs to be examined to fully understand how the law of the Church was
considered equal if not greater to the law of the land, these two power structures supported each others’ agendas. Therefore it is important to paint a picture of the power structures behind these institutions and point a light at the key players involved in these spaces.
I hence conclude that the alternative views on history shared above, coupled with survivor testimonies communicate that Catholicism found the opportunity to occupy the space previously dominated by Protestantism. Catholicism, which was a key player in the liberation of Ireland was not used as a force to continue empowering the masses post-independence, rather, once the Republic was in sight, Catholicism was used as a weapon to whip the nation’s women into submission for capital gain, subsequently devaluing women’s role in society and reducing them to mere vessels in servitude to men. Catholicism was the selected weapon to maintain control, as the possibility of eternal damnation in the fiery pits of hell was enough to allow the Church to retain their position in a time when scientific discovery or enlightened thinking was also limited due to the fact that the Church controlled the education system. As phrased by Keogh, “Irish Catholicism was a world surrounded with boundaries, negativity, and a sense of sin” (Keogh, 2007: 99), the power held by the Catholic Church was a unique and unrivalled phenomenon and set Ireland apart from the rising secularism on mainland Europe. Therefore the next section will dig deeper into the power of Catholicism and grapple with the strength and influence of the Church on this far removed island nation.
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Chapter 3: The Role of the Church
The unlawful detention of women in the Magdalene Laundries and the Mother and Baby Homes could not have been made possible if it was not for the unbridled powers of the Catholic Church in Irish contemporary history. The rise of Catholicism in twentieth century Ireland was a unique phenomenon and in stark contrast to growing secularism on mainland Europe. These differences have arrested the attention of many academics who seek to understand how the Church held such a draconian narrative on the island for over one hundred years. Therefore this chapter will investigate how the Church seized power in Ireland and examine the mechanics that were operationalised to maintain such power. I will argue that the Catholic Church was the driving force behind the marginalisation of women within the construction of nationhood in independent Ireland. I will first contextualise religious zealousness in Ireland by painting a picture of Catholicism in colonial Ireland before detailing the Church’s rise to power within the Irish Free State. I will next explore the formation of sexual inequality and, finally, examine the current role of the Church in Ireland.
3.1 Catholicism in Colonial Ireland
Before Ireland achieved independence, the British establishment was responsible for shaping laws and policies on the island. From the sixteenth century, Ireland’s Catholic population fell victim to penal laws when King Henry the VIII positioned himself as head of a new church, the Church of England. King Henry renounced Catholicism in favour of a more liberalised denomination, one that permitted the divorce of his Catholic queen, Catherine of Aragon. While the monarch had little interest in the principles of Protestantism, Catholic ideals and principles were consequently disregarded and those who continued to practice the faith were
predominantly viewed as second class citizens. In Ireland, Protestantism was used as a tool to enforce British rule, “the Tudor monarchy steadily asserted its de facto control of the country, either through political bargaining or, especially in 1594–1603, by military conquest” (Coakley, 2011:97).
Despite the fact that the vast majority of the population were Catholic, economic opportunity and prosperity was reserved for the Protestant minority, “after 1609, large numbers of English and Scottish Protestants were settled on lands confiscated from the native Irish” (Robinson, 1994).The penal laws placed heavy sanctions on the Catholic clergy and prohibited Catholics from entering public office or the legal trade, and from initiating Catholic schools or universities (Coakley, 2011: 97).
As the centuries progressed, Irish Catholicism became associated with poverty and the denomination was stereotypically reduced to the religion of the poor. Ironically, unlike the efforts made to convert and reform populations in other British colonies, the Crown did not seek to convert Ireland to Protestantism, rather, the Crown continued to penalise the Catholic population for capital gain. Although Catholics had little hope of changing their impoverished livelihoods other than converting to secure a better fortune, united in their contempt for the ruling Protestant minority, the masses eventually sought to overthrow their masters and reclaim Ireland for the Catholic majority. Protestantism was the religion of the invaders whereas Catholicism was part and parcel of Gaelic Christianity. Therefore in resisting Protestantism, Irish Catholics found a way to continue their ancient, ancestral traditions; by intertwining Catholicism and all that was Gaelic, the Irish resisted the Crown’s efforts to civilise the nation and developed their own sense of nationhood, religion played an important role in what Coakley (2011: 96) pens as ‘communal identification’ in Ireland.
By 1886 it was evident that the Crown was losing control of its oldest colony and the prospect of
independence fuelled Irish politicians to begin negotiating their freedom (Larkin, 1976: 11A). While there were many noteworthy Protestant nationalists fighting for Ireland’s corner such as Wolfe Tone and Horace Plunkett, it was the Catholic nationalist spirit, empowered by the Catholic press that had an all-important role in shaping the political attitudes of the country. While the 1916 Rising in Ireland took the British Parliament by surprise,
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for consumers of Irish news media, building resentment towards the Crown made the rebellion all the more predictable, “nowhere was this [rebellion] more evident than in the media” (Horgan, 2013: 16). The Irish had grown tired of the ruling Protestant class and were eager to establish an identity free from British influence. All attempts to curtail Catholicism before independence simply strengthened the resolve for Irish to resist and remain Catholic (Ganiel, 2001: 3). It is important to note that the Catholic Church initially disproved the rebel cause and the fight for independence, however when the British forces persisted to execute rising rebel leaders between 1916 and 1918, the desire for justice swayed all those sitting on the fence including the Catholic Church (O’Leary, 2016).
3.2 Catholicism and it’s rise to power in Republic of Ireland
As discussed above rejuvenated Irish Catholic spirit was carved from centuries of oppression and a common unfavourable outlook of the Protestant administration and the desire for freedom (Elliot, 2009:213). Catholicism was practiced with pride at the dawn of the Free State and gave those who had suffered at the hands of the English and Scottish nobility an opportunity to feel proud of their heritage. To be Catholic meant one had survived, one had been resilient and became ultimately victorious. Therefore when 26 of Ireland’s 32 counties finally emerged independent of Britain after almost 800 years of colonialism “the unifying image of the Protestant enemy thus facilitated the emergence of a wide, organically integrated, nationalist movement that left little space for dissident secular ideologies” (Coakley, 2011:110). The future of Ireland was Catholic and after centuries of alien rule any alternative from Catholicism was met with widespread disdain.
In independent Ireland, the Irish revolutionary leaders finally had the capacity to rule the Irish Free State without the interference of Whitehall and the British Houses of Parliament. Within the Free State, Catholicism was heralded as a superior force in reclaiming the island and de-Anglicising the State (Manning, 2014: 11). Support for the Crown dwindled post-independence and many of the former Protestant elite had little choice but to emigrate to Britain or accept their place as a privileged but nonetheless minority group within an Irish Republic. The abandonment of Protestant norms created space for a new influence or authority, this space was quickly filled with the principles of Catholicism, “the church was by far the largest and most powerful institution in the new Irish state that would emerge six years after the rebellion, and was determined to shape it” (O’Leary ,2016). Catholicism helped shape society and prompted a sense of togetherness and new found solidarity. The Irish Constitution written in 1937, fuelled by Catholic ideals and theory, stopped short of stating that
Catholicism was now the official religion of the nation (Coakley, 2011: 108). The Catholic Church was integral to uniting the masses, “the Irish state could not have been made stable before 1886 if the Irish clergy had not been accommodated. If the Irish clergy had not accepted the accommodation when it did, the character of the Irish state would have been a great deal different from what it eventually became” (Larkin, 1976: 11B). There was a definite link between religion and nationalism, religion provided a sense of identity and was an indication of one’s roots. The Catholic Church had a big influence on public policy formation such as the censorship of traditional media, the formation of the education system and on family matters such as the use of contraception and divorce. The population of Ireland were happy to succumb to the Catholic Church and sought no reason to question the very institution that endured years of oppression and vouched for their liberation.
Unfortunately, in the second half of the twentieth century, the Irish did not fare well outside of the European Economic Community (EEC) unlike their British neighbours, “innovation was deemed a foreign import and ultimately defeated. Suffering and endurance could attain their own levels of spirituality and there was a particular purity in poverty” (Elliot, 2006: 206). Following the successful formation of the EEC, the countries of Western Europe ascended into secular and integrated nation states while Ireland looked on in disinterest. When mainland Europe moved away from strict Christian teachings towards more worldly discourses, Ireland’s
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commitment to Catholicism and tradition remained steadfast, “the strength of the institutional faith was such that Irish Catholics did not experience, think about or question religion for themselves” (Ganiel, 2016: 3). While the ambitious and the unemployed found their way to Britain or America, the lack of economic development preserved traditional social norms and small-town politics.
Accompanying the impoverished element to Irish identity was the characterisation of a chaste Republic, the responsibility of remaining virtuous was placed on the shoulders of Irish women who were expected to remain faithful, passive and invisible (Mullin, 1991:47). Women had a tremendous responsibility in creating a uniquely honourable reputation for Ireland, one that would set the nation apart from the advancing secular attitudes on the mainland, “England was pagan, and Ireland was holy. And Holy Ireland had no place for liberated women” (O’Leary, 2016). Although the relationship between Church and State in Ireland did not mirror the authoritarian regimes on mainland Europe in the likes of Franco’s Spain, the Irish Catholic Church still persisted to influence all aspects of Irish life, “the Catholic Church’s dominance extended beyond political alliances and state power” (Ganiel, 2016: 3). Visitors to Ireland were amazed to see what a prominent role the Catholic Church played in the lives of the Irish. Attendance at mass was continuously high in contrast to the dwindling numbers in advancing, secular societies on the mainland (Elliot, 2006: 208B).
In providing education for the masses, the Catholic Church set the country’s agenda and had the power to influence the Irish population from the moment they entered the schooling system as very young children, “in independent Ireland the state fully accepted Catholic Church teaching that education was the sphere of the Church and the family and left it well alone. The Church had long resisted state inspection of its institutions, and we are only now learning about the consequences to vulnerable children and females” (Elliot, 2006: 211). The Church kept a very close relationship with their students and parishioners leaving little room for outside influences or independent thinking “to be a good Irishman or woman meant to whole-heartedly follow the rules laid out by the Catholic Church” (Manning, 2014: 9&10). The Church, recognising the potential in creating an educational monopoly, committed to educating the nation in predominantly state funded schools from 1967 (Elliot, 2006: 110). The years between 1850 and 1970 were penned as “the long nineteenth century of Irish Catholicism” by Inglis (1998:98), as the Church gained the control of primary, secondary and even third-level education in Ireland (Ganiel, 2016: 5). Therefore as the dominant source of education in the Free State, teachings on the dangers of sexual immorality and the role of women remained consistent. The Church
retained the right to define appropriate moral behaviour without question and demonised unmarried mothers and cast them aside, “few Irish people had given serious consideration to the nature of Catholic influence in virtually all aspects of Irish social, cultural, and political life” (Maguire, 2001: 353).
3.3 Sexual Inequality in Ireland
The Church’s interest in the Magdalene Laundries previously managed by the affluent Protestant laity, was not treated suspiciously as no one questioned the intentions of the Church or spared a moment to think that the very institution that had assisted in securing independence would seek to capitalise on the backs of the ‘immoral’ female population of Ireland. Irish women however, could not ignore the threat that the Laundries posed to those who pursued romantic and intimate relationships outside of marriage, and while detail of life inside Magdalene asylums was kept relatively secret it did not prevent the stigmatisation of Magdalene’s’ in public life, “women were frightened of the power of the Church and the culture surrounding them; sexual misbehaviour was scrutinised closely and punished severely” (Brown, 2012: 138).
Sex education was prohibited due the Catholic censorship laws, even knowledge on safe practices, conception and contraception was limited for married couples. The Catholic Church deemed contraceptive methods as immoral leaving sexually active singles or couples with little to no options to plan or prevent conception.
