Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

To understand why so many Irish women were forced by society into mother and baby homes in the 20th century, we have to try to understand the role afforded by the new Irish State to women when we got our independence 100 years ago. I regret to say that although everyone in this House praises Irish independence, it is unfortunately the case that the role afforded to Irish women by the new State was very limited and very sexist. This is particularly surprising when one thinks of the revolutionary era. Everyone in this House is aware that during the revolutionary period Cumann na mBan played an extremely important part in the struggle for Irish independence.

I think of all those valiant brave revolutionary women who subsequently became Members of this House and who fought not just for Irish independence but who were also fighting for the rights of women. I am thinking in particular of people like Kathleen Clarke, Kathleen O'Callaghan, Mary MacSwiney and Ada English. We are all aware of Constance Markievicz. It is surprising that a revolution that took place in this country and which produced so many fine revolutionary women as them ended up becoming a Free State which degraded the image of women in society. We need to ask ourselves why is it that a revolution that promised such equality for women in Irish society ended up resulting in a State which discriminated against them and did not treat them in a way that could be described as anything other than sexist and perhaps misogynistic.

In order to understand why there has been that change, we have to look back to Irish history. One historian has noted that those revolutionary women seem to have disappeared from Irish public life by 1926. The only time that they are referred to or are identified publicly after that is when they are commemorating a deceased male relative. Why is it that a revolutionary movement in this country translates into a Free State that is discriminatory and sexist against women, when such an important part had been played in that revolution by women, who not only espoused the cause of an Irish Republic but also espoused the cause of equality and rights for women?

We have to look to what happened after the Civil War. It was clearly the case then that the bishops of the Catholic Church in Ireland stated publicly that they were concerned about the moral fibre of society, about what was happening in dance halls and about the immodest attitudes of women. There was clearly an attempt then to try to present a new image of Irish women in the new Irish State. Regrettably, that was not to be the image of Constance Markievicz, Kathleen Clarke or, indeed, Ada English, but was instead to be an image of Irish women which was to be exclusively concentrated upon motherhood, virginity and purity. There is nothing wrong with those three characteristics but when a State turns around and imposes those characteristics on one section of society, it is very suffocating. When a State says that this is the ideal image of what an Irish woman should be it can only have a very negative impact on those very many Irish women who did not want to fit within that stereotype.

When we look to see what happened with the Free State, we note that W.T. Cosgrave decided to adopt Catholic social mores into the laws of the State. We know of the very deferential attitude that the first independent Irish Government adopted towards the Catholic Church. We see legislation that this House enacted that we can now look back upon with a sense of embarrassment. I looked earlier today at the Civil Service Regulation (Amendment) Act 1926. At that stage women had the right to work in jobs in the Civil Service but that legislation, which was enacted by these Houses of the Oireachtas back in 1926, removed the opportunity for women to work in those jobs. It specified that the jobs would only apply to one sex, namely, men.

We also saw legislation enacted in 1929, the Censorship of Publications Act, which prevented anyone from accessing information in respect of contraception. Those legislative manoeuvres and the actions of the new Irish Government indicated that the image of Irish women that this State endorsed was the one as presented by the Catholic Church. Motherhood was at the centre of it. Virginity, purity and compliance, however, were also an essential aspect of that representation of Irish women. We see that subsequent to the 1920s, when Fianna Fáil came to power in 1932, and in the Constitution of 1937, it is the case that there were significant objections from some revolutionary women about the inclusion of the woman’s place being in the home. Dorothy Macardle was a woman who sought to prevent that from happening but it continued and the representation of Irish women was always that of being motherhood. Any image of sexuality was regarded as being negative and as something that was not appropriate in an Irish woman. Unfortunately, all of that led to feelings of guilt and shame being imposed upon the large majority of Irish women in society. It was fear, guilt and shame which made Irish people believe that an Irish woman who had a child outside of wedlock was in some respect evil. We have to apologise for that. This report goes some way towards apologising for that but it is important that we recognise and own up to the fact that the reason women were forced into mother and baby homes was because of the image of women that was put forward by this State.

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