For today’s post I will review a public talk organised by CIT School of Humanities and CIT Arts Office on ‘Mother & Baby Homes and Adoption Practices in Ireland’.
I was drawn to this event as I have a personal interest in the history of children’s and women’s institution in Ireland. I was greatly impressed and familiar with some of the guest speakers that were on the panel discussion, namely, Professor Eoin O’Sullivan, author of Suffer the Little Children: The inside Story of Ireland’s Industrial Schools and Coercive Confinement in Ireland: Patients, prisoners and penitents and Mike Milotte, author of Banished Babies: the secret history of Ireland’s baby export business which highlighted the illegal adoption system during the twentieth century in Ireland. Other members of the discussion panel consisted of Conail O’ Fatharta, a Senior News Reporter from the Irish Examiner and Liam O’ Mahony, a Psychotherapist and Addiction Counsellor whom was born in Bessborough Mother And Baby Home, Mary Slattery whom ‘lost her first born to a forces, secretive and closed adoption system through St Anne’s Adoption Society Cork’ in 1973 and Terri Harrison whom was abducted by the Catholic Aid and Rescue Society from Britain and brought to Bessborough Mother and Baby Home and later St Patrick’s Mother and Baby Home on the Navan Road, Dublin as she was a single expectant mother.
Prof. O’Sullivan, Professor of Social Policy at Trinity College Dublin, argued that by the 1950s, 1% of the Irish population were institutionalised such as psychiatric hospitals and county homes and although these institutions existed across Europe, they lasted longer in Ireland due to a tendency to care for the ‘dispossessed’ and ‘unwanted’ by society. Moreover, he maintained that some of these institutions were inherited from the pre-independence period while others such as the Mother and Baby Homes emerged during the 1920s to suit the needs of Irish society. Mother and Baby Homes and the Magdalan laundries were designed to separate first-time unmarried expectant mothers and women who had ‘fallen’ more than once and O’Sullivan argues that the cost of caring for ‘recidivist’ women and their children led to the development of adoption in Ireland. However, children from county homes or industrial schools were fostered while babies born in the Mother and Baby Homes were illegally adopted as they were perceive to possess a lesser ‘recidivist gene’ than those born with mothers with a number of ‘illegitimate ‘children in these other institutions. O’Sullivan states that the State paid a capitation fee for each child attending industrial schools which encouraged these intuitions to extend the stay of children for a long period of time.
Mike Milotte states that about 2,000 children were officially adopted from Ireland in 1950 and that it was organised by a religious infrastructure including nuns, the Archbishop of Dublin, Charles McQuaid, and the Department of External Affairs (whom were responsible for allocating passports). He argues that an illegal adoption system existed in Ireland and it is possible that thousands of children were exported to America during the twentieth century. According to Milotte. American business travelled to Ireland to adopt and left Ireland two weeks later with the children. He noted that this practise emerged during the Second World War as American airmen brought children back from Europe to their wives however, in 1948, the illegal exportation of children was prohibited in Europe except in Ireland. Milotte highlighted that there was no inspection of the family before the child was placed in their care as the Catholic Charities. The Catholic Charities, an adoption organisation based in America would investigate the family however, these inspections often did not take place. The only prerequisite required for the family’s approval by the religious order was that they were a Catholic family. The media collaborated with the Catholic Church’s hierarchy to conceal the scandal and therefore, stories of illegal adoptions went unreported. Therefore, unregulated adoption system in Ireland and children possibly sent to unsuitable homes. The children were referred to as ‘orphans’ but many had one parent alive in Ireland.
O’Fatharta spoke about Mother and Baby Homes in relation to the media and he stated that when the Tuam Mother and Baby Home Scandal emerged in 2014, the Minister for Children, was aware of the story since 2012. Moreover, he noted that the death rates in the Mother and Baby homes were underreported by the nuns and the homes were not inspected by the government. O’Fatharta maintained that the public need to view Mother and Baby Homes and other related institutions as a network operated by the Catholic Church in Ireland. Mary Slattery ‘lost’ her daughter to St. Anne’s Adoption Society in 1979 and explained how the Catholic ethos from her social environment influenced her decision to have her daughter adopted. Importantly, her family were supportive of her pregnancy but the Catholic Church and government acts such as the 1931 Illegitimacy Act stigmatised unmarried pregnant women and their vulnerable children. St’ Anne’s Adoption society organised through an organisation known as Ally for Mary to travel to Dublin to give birth. However, she later discovered that some of the information provided to her before the adoption was deliberately misleading in an attempt to encourage her to choose adoption. Mary Slattery states that she was told that her daughter was going to family in their thirties however, she later discovered they were in their forties.
Terri Harrison explained that she was accepted as a single expect mother in England.. However, the Catholic Aid and Rescue Society ‘abducted’ her and forced her onto an airplane back to Ireland. When she arrived at Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in 1973 she was assigned a house name and a house number. She escaped from Bessborough but was found in Dublin and sent to St. Patrick’s Home on the Navan Road. She highlighted the sexual double standard that existed for men and women in Ireland as she maintained there were no special homes for unmarried fathers. Terri described how she felt ‘de-humanised’ by the lack of medical attention and counselling after she gave birth to her son, Niall. She states that ‘[her] first encounter with motherhood was destroyed’. Due to a genetic medical condition she and her son urgently needed to go to hospital following the birth however, the nuns’ ambulance passed ‘seven hospitals’ on their way to St. Kevin’s Hospital. Liam O’Mahony, member of the Irish Association for Counselling and Psychotherapy and Addiction Counsellors of Ireland described how early development trauma impacted his life after he was born on Bessborough Mother and Baby Home. He cited his inability to form meaningful relationships with other people, his negative self-image as he felt ‘unwanted’ and his perception of others as potentially ‘threatening’.
Significantly, the majority of the guest speakers cited the economic benefit for the religious orders as the reason for the long-term retention of women and children in mother and baby homes and industrial schools in Ireland. The Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation report was granted an extension of one year in February 2019. The adoption system was illegal and unregulated in Ireland until the introduction of the Adoption Act in 1952. The Catholic Church’s hierarchy and the Department of External Affairs facilitated a large number of adoptions in Ireland, many which are unaccounted for. Single and expectant mothers and their babies were stigmatised by Irish society, the State and the Catholic Church and institutionalised in a Mother and Baby Home exempt from State inspections.
Bibliography
Mother & Baby Homes and Adoption Practices in Ireland: A Panel Discussion and Q & A with Conail O’ Fatharta, Prof. Eoin O’ Sullivan, Mike Milotte, Liam O’ Mahony, Mary Slattery, and Terri Harrison, Cork Institute of Technology, 13 February 2019.
HealthHistoryIreland 