By Sean Lucey

The recent controversy regarding the Tuam Mother and Baby Home has brought into sharp focus twentieth century Irish social history, and the need for social historians to inform current social affairs debates. Mother and Baby Homes were established during the foundation of the Free State as a means of removing ‘unmarried mothers’ and their children from the former workhouses. This was part of attempts to reform the workhouse and poor law system during revolutionary and early independent Ireland. It was believed that the removal of unmarried mothers and illegitimate children would help to erode the stigma associated with workhouses, and help to make the newly renamed county homes and county and district hospitals more appealing to what were considered the ‘deserving’ classes: for these reforms from a medical perspective see my recent Medical History article (here)

Mother and baby homes were established at the behest of central and local government authorities, and many women and their children were financially maintained in these institutions by the local authorities and ratepayers. In turn, there remains much information deposited in local and central archives relating to the nexus of central government, local government and religious authorities which were involved in the institutionalisation of these women. I’ve highlighted the potential of this material in a number of recent articles in national Irish newspapers. My piece in the Irish Times (here) provided a case study of the committal of a nineteen year old woman in 1933 into the Bessborough Home – a mother and baby home established in 1922 – which revealed that along with the influence of religious authorities, deeply entrenched social, gender and moral prejudices prevailed among officials and many within society, particularly those considered respectable, helped to create the wider societal and cultural environment in which these institutions existed. A further article published in the Irish Examiner (here) outlines the fact that there remains some difficulty regarding this material and much local and central authority archives remain un-archived and inaccessible.  In these pieces I’ve also argued that any potential inquiry which is held has to be as comprehensive as possible and include a wider institutional scope than just mother and baby homes: it should also include, for example, county homes which housed seventy percent of institutionalized unmarried mothers maintained by the state.

While some of the research material remains inaccessible, a certain amount is available to historians and forms the basis for my forthcoming book with Manchester University Press. There are gaps in our knowledge of many aspects of Irish social history, and this current public debate demonstrates the importance of substantial historical analysis and understanding of this key aspect of twentieth-century Irish social history. To hear more about the research and its relevance to the current debate listen to BBC Radio Ulster’s ‘Good Morning Ulster’ (item starts at 02.18) and NewsTalk’s ‘The Right Hook’ with Shane Coleman (item starts at 17.30).