The Evolution of Magdalan Asylums in Ireland and Common Routes of Entry, 1829-1960

For today’s post, I will examine the evolution of Magdalan asylums in Ireland and the most common routes of entry into Magdalan asylums including self-committals, committals by clergymen and through the judicial system.

According to Maria Luddy’s Women and Philanthropy in Nineteenth Century Ireland (p.99), Irish cities had high rates of prostitution which created a need for Magdalan refuges. The Moral Rescue Movement in Britain aimed to prevent unmarried mothers from turning to prostitution (Maria Luddy, Prostitution and Irish Society, 1800-1940, p.115). Protestant asylums were founded during the eighteenth century. In 1767, Lady Arabella Deeny established the first protestant refuge (Ibid, p.77). By the end of the eighteenth century, there was a significant number of lay refuges established. However, they were reluctant to accept women who had been involved in prostitution for a long period of time (Ibid, p.84).

Magdalan asylums were founded during the nineteenth century and they offered refuge and redemption for ‘fallen women’. In 1832, the first Magdalan refuge was founded by the Irish Sisters of Charity in Townsend Street, Dublin (James M. Smith, Ireland’s Magdalan Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment, p.28). The asylums were denominational. They were based on the religious icon of Mary Magdalene, a prostitute who repented for her sins and was forgiven by Jesus Christ. Magdalen asylums were often referred to as Magdalen laundries as they had a commercial business attached. They were not financially supported by the State and therefore, they were dependent on donations and bequests (Jacinta Prunty, Monasteries, Magdalan laundries and reformatory schools of Our Lady of Charity in Ireland, 1853-1973, p.147).

There were 10 Catholic Magdalen asylums manged by four religious congregations in Ireland including the Sisters of Mercy, the Religious Sisters of Charity, the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity and the Sisters of the Good Shephard. Most of these asylums were established by laywomen and/or a member of the Catholic clergy in the early nineteenth century such as the refuge Drumcondra, Dublin in 1829 (Ibid, p.93). The laywomen or a bishop often invited a religious order from France to assume the responsibility of the refuge. Frances Finnegan’s Perish or Penance: a study of Magdalen laundries in Ireland (p.35) argues that some of the refuges were reluctant to allow the women to re-enter society however, they were not required to stay for the rest of their lives. They hoped to inculcate religious values.

Most women who entered the refuge were in their twenties during the nineteenth century. In the Good Shepherd’s asylum in Cork, 51 percent were in their twenties on entry between 1872 and 1890 (Ibid, p.235). However, the McAleese Report (p.173) states that most girls entered the refuges at 17 or 18 years of age in the twentieth century. In 1922, the Irish Free State was established and the Catholic Church exerted a powerful influence over the Nation State, especially on issues related to morality and thus stigmatised those in society that did not adhere to social norms and values, especially unmarried mothers and their illegitimate children. Diarmaid Ferriter (Occasions of Sin: Sex and Society in Modern Ireland, p.17) maintains that there was a sexual double standard in Ireland as ‘little attention focused on the men who impregnated the unmarried women: there were no ‘fallen men’ in Ireland’. The majority of women left after less than one year in the asylum in the twentieth century (Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen laundries, p.168). However, during the nineteenth century, 62.7 percent of known cases remained in the refuges for more than ten years while others never left (Ibid, p.195).

In the nineteenth century, self-committal accounted for 10 percent of committals (Smith, Ireland’s Magdalan laundries, p.30). Women entered for a number of reasons including ‘alcohol addiction, misfortune, expulsion from home, seduction, violent abuse by a partner of relative, illness, mental or physical disability and entrapment into prostitution’ (Prunty, Our Lady of Charity, p.304). Importantly, many women re-entered asylums during the nineteenth century which indicates that Magdalan asylums may not have been regarded as a punitive institution but rather a sanctuary from danger and immorality. According to Luddy’s Prostitution and Society (p.97), 29 percent of women re-entered the Good Shepherd’s asylum in Belfast between 1851 and 1899. However, self-committals only accounted for 16.4 percent of entries in the twentieth century (Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen laundries, p.888).

Many women were referred to Magdalan asylums through a priest during the nineteenth century as 37.49 per cent of entries into the Sisters of Charity’s asylum in Donnybrook was through the priest (Luddy, Philanthropy, p.128). It was the third most common route of entry during the twentieth century at 8.8 per cent (Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen laundries, p.854). Moreover, nuns also had the authority to transfer women from Magdalan asylums from another which accounted for a significantly higher percentage of admissions after 1922 at 14.8 percent (Ibid, p.162).

During the nineteenth century, prostitutes entered the Magdalan asylums from Lock Hospitals. During the 1860s, the Contagious Diseases Acts permitted police officers to arrest women suspected of being a prostitute at army and naval bases in Britain. However, many were committed to Magdalan asylums after they were medically treated, for example, 18 prostitutes entered the Good Shepherd’s asylum in Waterford between 1842 and 1900 (Finnegan, Perish or Penance, p.107). The Legion of Mary also committed prostitutes into the asylums after 1919 (Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen laundries, p.232).

After 1922, Mother and Baby Homes were established in Ireland for first time unmarried mothers as Magdalan asylums did not accept pregnant women. After 1922, 3.9 percent of entries were from mother and baby homes (Ibid, p.437). Illegitimate birth rates were extremely high during the 1920s in Ireland and the church strongly disapproved of unmarried mothers and their illegitimate children. Moreover, there were 107 from ‘psychiatric hospitals and institutions for the intellectually disabled’ after 1922. The NSPCC and County Councils also referred women to Magdalan asylums in Ireland (Ibid, p.163, 479).

Significantly, society was complicit in the incarceration of ‘fallen women’ as more than 10 percent of admissions were through a family member or relative during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries (Ibid, p.194, 858). These women were placed in a Magdalan asylum due to promiscuity, poor health or a disability (Ibid, p.860). Importantly, the McAleese Report (xiv) highlights that after 1922, an increased percentage of girls (7.8 percent of admissions) were committed to the Magdalan refuges from reformatory and industrial schools. Reformatory schools were established during the second half of the nineteenth century and detained children convicted of minor offences while industrial schools were set up to organise provision for abandoned and neglected children. Some girls were refused entry into industrial and reformatory schools and they were placed in a Magdalen asylum including victims of sexual abuse as the nuns feared that they would exert a bad influence over the other children (Smith, Ireland’s Magdalan laundries, p.20).

Another route of entry into the Magdalen asylum was upon release prison or the criminal court. Prunty (Our Lady of Charity, p.146) argues that 46 women were transferred from Grangegorman Jail to High Park between 1859 and 1895. Women continued to be committed through the courts into the asylums after 1922 as 24.8 percent of state admissions into Magdalen asylums were from the court system (Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen laundries, p.165). Some received a suspended sentence and in other cases it was used as an alternative to jail (women convicted of infanticide were sent to Magdalan asylums) (Ibid, p.229). During the twentieth century, women were committed to Magdalan asylums on probation by their probation officer for a period between 6 months and 3 years and these committals accounted for 31.4 percent of state admissions (Ibid, p.165, 228). Additionally, girls on remand were sent to Magdalan refuges as the State did not want to place them with hardened adult criminals in jail (Smith, Ireland’s Magdalan Laundries, p.67). Under the 1960 Criminal Justice Act, the Lower Sean McDermott Street asylum accommodated girls on remand (Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen laundries, p.221). However, some Magdalen refuges accepted girls on remand before the 1960s including the Good Shepherd’s in Limerick (Ibid, p.226). Prunty (Our Lady of Charity, p.491) maintains that girls awaiting sentencing in the Magdalen refuge were there ‘from an overnight stay to seven days’.

Magdalan asylums were originally established to rehabilitate ‘fallen women’ including the unmarried mother and prostitute. However, after the establishment of the Irish Free State, The Church used these institutions to punish women that did not obey the Catholic Church’s moral doctrine such as promiscuous women and women deemed vulnerable to seduction. The number of self-committals remained high from the nineteenth to the twentieth century and the incarcerations by clergymen, nuns from reformatory and industrial schools and mother and baby homes reflected low levels of social tolerance towards those that society considered deviant. Moreover, the State increasingly relied upon these asylums to place young women on remand and women convicted of infanticide.

Bibliography

Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen laundries. Available at http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/Pages/MagdalenRpt2013 (accessed 10May 2018).

Ferriter, Dairmaid, Occasions of Sin: Sex and Society in Modern Ireland, Profile Books, London, 2009.

Finnegan, Frances, Do Penance or Perish: a study of Magdalen Asylums in Ireland, Cosgrave Press, Kilkenny, 2001.

Luddy, Maria, Women ad Philanthropy in Nineteenth-Century Ireland, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1995.

Luddy, Maria, Prostitution and Irish Society, 1800-1940, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge 2007.

Prunty, Jacinta, The monasteries, magdalen asylums and reformatory schools of Our Lady of Charity in Ireland, 1853-1973, The Columba Press, Dublin, 2017.

Smith, James M., Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment, University of Notre Dame Press, Indiana, 2007.

The Growth of Maternal and Infant Welfare Services during the ‘Emergency’ in Ireland, 1932-1945

For today’s post, I will examine the expansion of maternity and child welfare services during the 1930s and how the ‘Emergency’ impacted maternity and infant welfare servcies in Ireland.

During the 1930s, maternal and infant health services and preventative health services significantly expanded in Ireland. Diphtheria immunisation schemes were introduced into county Boroughs with high death rates and in 1933, the Free Milk Scheme was introduced and powder milk became available to poor children under five years of age from the maternity and child welfare centres. In Dublin, milk supply was also available from the Infant Aid Association in Dublin (Lindsey Earner-Byrne, Mother and Child: Maternity and Child Welfare Services in Dublin, 1922-60). According to Earner-Byrne, milk supply became one of the key campaigns to improve maternal health and to enable mothers to breastfeed their children making them less vulnerable to disease. Low breastfeeding rates were viewed as one of the main factors in the high infant mortality rates. By 1936, 17,656 children in county boroughs, 10,353 children in urban districts except one and 29,771 children in other areas participated in the free milk scheme (Annual Report of the Department of Local Government and Public Health, 1930-31). Campaigns were also set up to improve the mother’s nutrition, for example, The Dublin Maternity and Child Welfare Clinics and St John Ambulance Brigade provided free meals to poor mothers and ran dental clinics for ‘expectant and nursing mothers’ (Annual Report of the Department of Local Government and Public Health, 1932-33).

During the 1930s, there were increased visits to the Maternity and Child Welfare Clinics, in Cork, Limerick and Waterford. Moreover, health visits in Waterford from 4,926 in 1933 to 6,656 in 1934 (Annual Report of the Department of Local Government and Public Health, 1934-35). Ante-natal services were available in the maternity hospitals in urban areas including Limerick, Dublin and Cork but not in rural areas. Moreover, the out-patient attendances were almost doubled from 1933 to 1938 with 60,375 mothers attending these clinics (Hospitals Commission Fourth General Report 1938). However, the new housing schemes introduced in 1936 meant that in Dublin the health visitor travel longer distance and had less time with expectant and nursing mother (Ibid).

Although the maternal mortality rate remained high in Ireland during the 1930s, sulphonamide drugs aimed to reduce the maternal mortality rates from 1937 (Earner-Byrne, Mother and Child). By 1939, 148 maternity and child welfare schemes were in operation throughout the country (The child health services: report of the study group appointed for the Minister for Health to inquire into the child welfare service and school examination service). 44,566 mothers and 86,308 children were visited by the health visitor employed by local authorities and 15,464 mothers and 32,285 children by district nursing organisations including Lady Dudley nurses (Ibid). Moreover, 56,129 mothers and 70,112 children attended the local authority clinics and 3,955 mothers and 4,893 children attended the district nurse clinics (Ibid).

The outbreak of the ‘Emergency’ in September 1939 interrupted maternal and infant health services in Ireland. Laws were passed to control the spread of infectious diseases and ensure that the maternal mortality rates continued to decline. In 1941, the notification of puerperal sepsis cases became compulsory under the Public Health (Infectious Diseases) regulations. The infant mortality rate also rose, increasing from 3,759 in 1940 to 4,175 in 1941(Annual Report of the Department of Local Government and Public Health, 1943-44). Dublin County Borough, Waterford County Borough and Cork County Borough had some of the highest infant mortality rates (Ibid). In 1941, the Public Health (Infectious Diseases) Regulations made the notification of infectious diseases including polio, measles, enteric fever, whooping cough, scarlet fever compulsory. TB and gastro-enteritis were rampant during the Emergency and in 1943, Public Health (Diseases) Regulations made cases of gastro-enteritis in children under two notifiable in certain areas including County Boroughs (DLGPH 1943-44). Significantly, the neonatal death rate was extremely high and in 1943, the neonatal mortality rate was 322 per 1,000 infant deaths and the causes included congenital debility and gastro-enteritis (Ibid).

During the Emergency, food shortages contributed to the lack of nourishment of infants and children (Ruth Barrington Health, Medicine & Politics in Ireland 1900-1970). According to Bryce Evans’s ‘Food, the Emergency, and the lower-class Irish body, c.1939-45’ in D. Durnin and I. Miller (eds.) Medicine, Health and Irish Experiences of Conflict, 1914-45, p.49, ‘the transport of….medicines was seriously compromised by Britain cutting off coal and petrol supplies’. Therefore, maternal and infant mortality rates increased during the ‘Emergency’ due to the spread of disease and lack of nutrition and medicine and vaccinations. The war made it difficult to import the BCG vaccine which led to a peak in TB deaths during this period (Margaret O’hOgartaigh, ‘Dr Dorothy Price and the elimination of childhood tuberculosis’ in J. Augustin (ed.) Ireland in the 1930s). According to Dr James Deeny, the Chief Medical Advisor to the government, memoir To Cure & to Care: Memoirs of a Chief Medical Officer, ‘between 1942 and 1945, 16,186 people died of the disease’.

Maternal and infant health services were under additional strain. In 1940, the Archbishop of Dublin, Charles McQuaid established the Catholic Social Service Conference which offered food, milk and clothing to mothers at the ante-natal clinics (Earner-Byrne, Mother and Child). However during the 1940s, breastfeeding was regarded as the best method to prevent infant deaths. Dr Collis, the head of sick infant department in the Rotunda, recommended that infants should be breastfed until they were three or four months old (Irish Nurse’s Magazine November 1940). However, many mothers did not breastfeed their children as they were malnourished and many suffered from anaemia (Earner-Byrne, Mother and Child). Due to the food shortages, mothers and children receiving milk under the Free Milk Scheme from the clinics increased. Importantly, the government provided a grant of £90,000 towards the scheme (DLGPH 1943-44). In 1943, 839, 291 gallons of milk was distributed (First Report of the Department of Health 1945-1949).

The Emergency interrupted the health visitation service and the school medical service. Barrington’s Health, Medicine & Politics maintains that fuel shortages ensured that public health nurses could not travel in a motor car to visit mothers and infants and carry out medical inspections in schools. Importantly, there was a significant increase in health visits undertaken by the district nurses. In 1941, 1,354,095 health visits were carried out to mothers and children (Annual Report of the Department of Local Government and Public Health, 1941-42). In 1943, a higher number of mothers and children were visited by nurses employed by local authorities and attended their Maternity and Child Welfare clinics (DLGPH 1943-1944,). Dublin county borough had highest number of attendance to clinics by 467,840 mothers and 51,375 children while in Limerick 3,072 mothers and 3,552 children visited the health clinics (Ibid). New clinics and specialist services also emerged, for example, children received orthopaedic treatment in various institutions such as the Sunshine Home and in general hospitals (Ibid).

The Free Milk Scheme, the expansion of maternity and child welfare centres and the introduction of TB and diphtheria immunisation schemes helped to improve infant health and aimed to reduce the infant mortality rate in Ireland. Moreover, the introduction of sulphonamide drugs and ante-natal services in maternity hospitals heralded a decrease in maternal mortality rates in Ireland. The ‘Emergency’ disrupted the importation of drugs, fuel and food into Ireland which contributed to an increase in maternal and infant death rates. However, the government made cases of infectious diseases notifiable and public health nurses carried out more health visits and there were increased attendances to their centres.

Bibliography

Annual Report of the Department of Local Government and Public Health, 1930-31, (Stationary Office, Dublin, 1931).

Annual Report of the Department of Local Government and Public Health, 1932-33, (Stationary Office, Dublin, 1933).

Annual Report of the Department of Local Government and Public Health, 1934-35, (Stationary Office, Dublin, 1935).

Annual Report of the Department of Local Government and Public Health, 1941-42, (Stationary Office, Dublin, 1942).

Annual Report of the Department of Local Government and Public Health, 1943-44, (Stationary Office, Dublin, 1944).

Barrington, Ruth, Health, Medicine & Politics in Ireland, 1900-1970, Institute of Public Administration, Dublin, 1987.

Deeny, James, To Cure & to Care: Memoirs of a Chief Medical Officer, The Glendale Press, Dublin, 1989.

Earner-Byrne, Lindsey, Mother and Child: Maternity and Child Welfare in Dublin, 1922-60, Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2007.

Evans, Bryce, ‘Food, the Emergency, and the lower-class Irish body, c.1939-45’ in D. Durnin and I. Miller (eds.) Medicine, Health and Irish Experiences of Conflict, 1914-45 (Manchester University Press, Manchester, 2017), pp.45-60.

First Report of the Department of Health 1945-1949 (Stationary Office, 1949).

Hospitals Commission Fourth General Report 1938 (Stationary Office, 1940).

Margaret O’hOgartaigh, ‘Dr Dorothy Price and the elimination of childhood tuberculosis’ in J. Augustin (ed.) Ireland in the 1930s (Four Courts Press, Dublin, 1999), p.76-7.

The child health services: report of the study group appointed for the Minister for Health to inquire into the child welfare service and school examination service (Stationary Office, 1967).

The Irish Nurse’s Magazine, Vol. 11, No. 7 (November 1940). i

The School Medical Service in Ireland, 1904-1925

For today’s post, I will analyse the factors that contributed to the introduction of the Irish School Medical Service in 1919.

High rates of childhood mortality plagued early twentieth century Ireland and diseases such as TB, bronchitis, diphtheria, diarrhoeal diseases and heart disease were rampant (Forty-Second Detailed Annual Report of the Registrar General for Ireland containing A General Abstract Of The Numbers of Marriages, Births and Deaths Registered in Ireland During the Year 1905). Treatment was limited for contagious diseases which spread easily amongst children in schools and at home due to unsanitary conditions. According to the Report of the Registrar-General in 1905, 84% of deaths from measles were children under five while about 42% of scarlet fever deaths were of children. Children were vulnerable to diseases due to a lack of proper nourishment. Clarkson and Crawford’s Feast and Famine: A History of Food and Nutrition in Ireland 1500-1920 argues that the national diet in Ireland mainly consisted of food with little nutritional value such as Indian meal and tea. Additionally, independent imitative such as the Ladies School Dinner Committee, founded in 1910, aimed to improve children’s health and nutrition (Earner-Byrne, Mother and Child: Maternity and Child Welfare in Dublin, 1922-60).

In 1906, the Education (Provision of meals) act empowered local education authorities to provide meals for children in national schools that ‘are unable by reason of lack of food to take full advantage of the education provided for them’. However, it was not a compulsory provision. According to Earner-Byrne, in 1914, urban district councils became in charge of the distribution of children’s food in Irish national schools. Under the 1906 Act, the school medical officer or ‘a medical official’ would determine whether the schools meals scheme should be introduced into a national school. However, the scheme only applied to large urban areas. Fionnuala Walsh in Durnin and Miller’s Medicine, Health and Irish Experiences of Conflict, 1914-45 argues that ‘the outbreak…renewed attention to the topic

[of infant welfare]

in both Britain and Ireland’ as a high number of infants died in childbirth although, there was a slow decline in infant mortality rates during the war years.

In 1918, the first Dail established two commissions to inquire into the conditions of primary and secondary schools in Ireland. In 1919, the Killanin report and the Molony report found that the general conditions in Irish schools to be a very poor standard and Killanin recommended that local school committees be responsible for organising school medical services, the maintenance of school building and school equipment in primary schools (Brian Titley, Church, State and the Control of Schooling in Ireland, 1900-1944). Under the 1919 McPherson Bill, local education committees would manage the school medical service and deliver the school meals scheme ‘in each county and county borough’ (John Coolahan, Irish Education: Its History and Structure). However, the school meals scheme was not compulsory as it only applied to state-recognised national schools.

The 1919 the Public Health (Medical Treatment of Children) (Ireland) Act, introduced medical examinations on entry to school or ‘as soon as possible on their admission’. However, like the school meals scheme, it was not compulsory for all children to be examined in national schools. The act made county boroughs and councils responsible for organising school medical inspections. A school medical officer and assistant, dentist and district nurse carried out the service and they could refer children to hospital or dispensary for treatment (First Report of Department of Health 1945-1949). Health authorities relied on district nurses to carry out the school medical inspections in many areas. This service and the school meals scheme was financed by local rates and were only established in urban areas.

Significantly, it was not until the second half of the 1920s that many county boroughs and county councils began to introduce the school medical service. The Annual Report of the Department of Local Government and Public Health 1925-28 complained they were not implemented as ‘the main administrative defects have arisen from apathy on the part of Local Authorities and consequent laxity on the part of their inspecting officers’. It was not compulsory for county councils and county boroughs to establish a school medical service unless they deemed it fit for the area. However, during the 1920s, the concept of preventive healthcare was promoted and the Department of Local Government and Public Heath sought to prevent children from developing health conditions and illnesses through vaccination programmes, education of the mother by the health visitor and Maternity and Child Welfare Centres. Therefore, public health nurses played an essential role in providing health services to the community. Only a small number of counties and county boroughs had established a school medical service in the first half of the 1920s including Cork, Dublin and Clonmel county boroughs. In 1924, Cork and Clonmel County Boroughs established a school medical service (The child health services: report of the study group appointed for the Minister for Health to inquire into the child welfare service and school examination service).

Importantly, the school medical officers and the district nurses found that many children were malnourished and suffered from tonsil and adenoid, eye and nose defects. Schoolchildren had poor dental hygiene as approximately 70% of the children examined had dental defects and 22.5% had defective eyesight (DLGPH 1925—28). Moreover, 11.8% were unclean and 8% were classified as malnourished. This was due to the schools meals scheme inadequate funding by local rates. In Cork County Borough, the school medical officer and the nurse referred children with defective conditions to special treatment facilities (DLGPH 1925—28). As a result of the high number of dental defects, school medical services often included a dental-surgeon. The Annual Report of the DLGPH 1925-28 stated that the Clonmel Corporation provided a school medical service which included a part time nurse and medical officer, dentist and eye specialist.

At the school medical inspections, the nurse educated the parents on nutrition, cleanliness and illnesses and identified children’s medical conditions such as dental defects. The School Medical Service provided preventive health services including vaccination schemes, particularly diphtheria immunisations during the late 1920s and 1930s. Schoolchildren were also referred for specialist services free of charge.

Health Visitation and Maternity and Child Welfare Centres: the Expansion of Maternal and Infant Provision, 1915-1930

In 1900, maternal mortality rates were high in Ireland due to numerous factors. The only provision available to mothers was through the dispensary midwife from the local dispensary and voluntary nursing associations such as Lady Dudley’s nurses. Moreover, most women did not give birth in hospital and relied on a handywoman, an untrained midwife, to assist with childbirth. This practise often resulted in the spread of infection to the new mother. According to the 37th Annual Report of the Registrar General, 6.4 per 1,000 women died in birth from puerperal fever or other diseases linked to parturition in 1900.

At the start of the twentieth century infant mortality rates were extremely high due to the spread of infectious diseases such as diphtheria, pneumonia, gastro-enteritis and tuberculosis. In 1900, the Registrar General’s report stated that 38 per 1,000 children under five years of age died. According to Joe Robin’s Nursing and Midwifery in Ireland in the twentieth century: fifty years of an Bord Altranais (the Nursing Board) 1950-2000, the high infant mortality rate was influenced by various socio-economic factors including a lack of nutrition and an unclean living environment. Poor mothers were not educated on sanitation, nutrition, breastfeeding and infant illnesses. However, independent initiatives were established by middle class women such as the Women’s National Health Association in 1907 to reduce the high infant and maternal mortality rates in Ireland and to educate mothers on breastfeeding and cleanliness.

In 1907, the Notification of Births Act was passed, however, it did not make the notification of births compulsory. Under the 1915 Notification of Births (Extension) Act, health visitation was introduced for new and nursing mothers and children under the age of five. The Local Government Board was made responsible for the establishment of Maternity and child welfare centres and for the distribution of food to mothers and young children. However, the act only applied to urban areas.

In 1918, the Maternity and Child Welfare Act was passed, requiring local authorities to ensure provision for nursing and expectant mothers and children under five including health visitation, maternity and child welfare centres and free food and milk to poor mothers and young children. Nurses from voluntary nursing associations were mainly employed by local health authorities to undertake the health visitation service. It sought to educate mothers on nutrition and breastfeeding, thus helping to eradicate the ignorance of mothers about childbirth and babies. Significantly, in 1918, the Central Midwives Board was set up and a register of trained midwives was introduced to ensure that the practise of handywoman was discontinued. A register for general nurses was also introduced under the 1919 Nurses Registration Act.

During the 1920s, health services such as hospitals were co-ordinated. In 1923, a County Medical Officer was appointed to manage county health schemes including maternal and infant health services. Health visitors were appointed to work in the maternity and child welfare centres in county boroughs with high infant mortality rates including Dublin and Cork. They educated the expectant or nursing mother on childbirth and dangers of handywomen. The DLGPH’s Report 1922-1925 stated that ‘the ultimately the remedy lies in the gradual enlightenment of expectant mothers with regard to risks involved’. The Irish Nurse’s Union Gazette advised that the public health nurse to teach mothers through physical instruction rather than an explanation, for example, ‘by boiling the water we are going to use we can demonstrate the principle of sterilisation’. However, health visitation continued to be the only provision available to women in rural areas.

The high infant mortality rates encouraged the growth of the schemes in other counties and county boroughs. According to Report of the Commission on the Relief of the Sick and Destitute Poor Including the Insane Poor appointed 19^th March 1925, by 1925, there were 93 Maternity and Child Welfare schemes in operation throughout the country. The maternity and child welfare centres were funded by the Irish government. They funded half the costs of the voluntary nurses working under the Maternity and Child welfare schemes while the remainder was paid by local rates. It was mainly voluntary nurses that operated the maternity and child welfare schemes. Ruth Barrington’s Health, Medicine & Politics in Ireland, 1900-1970 maintained that in 1927, the first child welfare centre was set up in Lord Edward Street, Dublin, providing health education to mothers and public health nurses could refer patients for specialist treatment. Specialist treatment included treatment for medical conditions including rickets.

By 1930, the notification of births began in urban districts in countiessuch as Donegal. The voluntary nurses managed more maternity and child welfarecentres than district nurses employed by local authorities. According to the DLGPH’s Report 1930-31, health visits were carried out to 18,379 mothers and 33,930 children and 37,914 mothers in their homes. The Maternity and Child Welfare Schemes also provided free milk to poor mothers and infants. The DLGPH’s report 1930-1931stated that a Maternity and Child Welfare Centre opened at Tukey Street, Cork in 1931. Lindsey Earner-Byrne’s Mother and Child: Maternity and Child Welfare in Dublin, 1922-60 argues that Maternity and Child Welfare Schemes in urban areas including Dublin, Limerick and Cork were co-ordinated with the maternity hospitals, facilitating the development of ante-natal services.

Significantly, the 1915 Notification of Births (Extension) Act was the first attempt by the British government to establish provision for mothers and infants in Ireland. Importantly, the Nurses Registration Act 1919 and the Midwives (Ireland) Act 1918 marked the beginning of the decline of untrained handywomen and nurses. Maternal and infant provision was reinforced by the County Medical Officer whom oversaw their gradual introduction into county boroughs. By 1930,numerous maternity and child welfare centres were established and the number of health visits undertaken by nurses increased. They offered an ante-natal service to expectant mothers and the provision of food and milk for poor mothers and children under 5 helped to reduce medical conditions linked to malnourishment.

Tips for Writing a History Dissertation

For today’s post, I am keen to offer my top ten tips for writing and researching a history dissertation. In September 2018, completed my Masters in History at University College Cork. My masters programme was spread over the course of one year in which I was required to write a 20,000 word dissertation. Since I studied history as part of my Bachelor’s Degree in Arts, I became fascinated with the history of healthcare in modern Ireland, in particular in relation to provision for women and children during the twentieth century. Despite various topic changes, I settled on examining the role of the public health nurse in maternal and infant provision and the School Medical Service, 1919-1979. Fortunately, I received a First Class Honours in my dissertation and for my overall grade at the end of the year and consequently, I would like to share some useful advice and tips that I learned throughout my experience of writing a history dissertation.

Firstly, it’s important to allow for your topic to change or alter while you are researching your topic. This naturally happens as you may come across an idea which may appeal more to your taste or you may find that your original idea may have been previously researched. You start researching by reading academic secondary sources that are related to your topic and taking note of these books and journal articles as you sift through new material.

Next, you can expand to examining primary material such as governmental reports and documents and you will become aware that you may need to visit some archives to view certain reports of material. for my research, I needed to view archives by An Bord Altranais held in UCD Archives for which I was required to provide ethical approval as I had access to sensitive personal information, for example nurses registers. Therefore, you need to ensure you have booked an appointment to view archives in the library before you make the trip.

It’s also important to point out that you should not worry about what stage of researching or writing other students in your class are at as everyone has a pace that is right for them. Talk to your dissertation supervisor or the Masters co-ordinator about how much research you should aim to complete within a given time and set deadlines to hand up your draft chapters to your supervisor. I promise that this will help you to avoid deviating from doing your research and help to ensure that you are consistently writing and editing your work.

The easiest method of approaching your dissertation is to focus on one chapter or section of your dissertation at a time. You should also negotiate deadlines for these chapters and sections of your dissertation with your supervisor which will ensure you maintain focus and progress with your work as it is easy to become immersed in one chapter and neglect the following sections. I would also recommend starting your chapters before writing the introduction as you cannot be certain of each chapter’s outline until you have researched each chapter which will inevitably alter.

Please ensure that you have edited your work at least four times before you submit any drafts to your supervisor as the more time and effort you put into your work the higher the grade you will receive at the end of the year. Fundamentally, do not be afraid to ask for clarification on any corrections you supervisor provides you with. They are appointed to advise and support you.

Take a break between writing chapters as you will have a clear head and feel refreshed when you begin a new chapter (I usually took a week or two as I had the summer months to write my dissertation).

Proof-reading is an essential part of editing so when you have read over your completed chapters and sections hundreds of times ask a friend or family member to read your work. They will be more likely to notice any spelling or grammar mistakes with a fresh pair of eyes.

It may also be helpful to get your dissertation copies bound a few days before the submission date to allow for unforeseen delays. You should read the History Department’s submission instructions to double-check that you have the correct font size and number of copies etc.

Lastly, enjoy your experience of undertaking a masters as you will meet new friends with similar interests to yourself and become more confident with researching.