Report lifts lid on harsh and unforgiving attitudes towards unmarried mothers

The commission doesn’t shy away from laying blame at the foot of families as well as Church and State, writes Chai Brady

The responsibility for the “harsh treatment” of unmarried mothers “rests mainly with the fathers of their children and their own immediate families”, according to the commission investigating the institutions.

The report – which runs to over 3,000 pages – was published on Tuesday afternoon. It investigated the treatment of unmarried mothers and their children in 18 institutions from 1922-1998.

It found that “Ireland was a cold harsh environment for many, probably the majority, of its residents during the earlier half of the period under remit”. The commission found Ireland was “especially cold and harsh for women”.

The report led by Judge Yvonne Murphy stated that the mistreatment of unmarried mothers “was supported by, contributed to, and condoned by, the institutions of the State and the Churches”. At the same time, the commission found that “it must be acknowledged that the institutions under investigation provided a refuge – a harsh refuge in some cases – when the families provided no refuge at all”.

There were about 56,000 unmarried mothers and about 57,000 children in the mother and baby homes and county homes investigated by the Commission. The greatest number of admissions was in the 1960s and early 1970s. It is likely that there were a further 25,000 unmarried mothers and a larger number of children in the county homes which were not investigated; admissions to county homes were largely pre-1960. While mother and baby homes were not a peculiarly Irish phenomenon, the proportion of Irish unmarried mothers who were admitted to mother and baby homes or county homes in the twentieth century was probably the highest in the world.

However, 80% were aged between 18 and 29 years and this was remarkably consistent across the larger mother and baby homes”

The women who were admitted to mother and baby homes ranged in age from 12 years old to women in their forties. However, 80% were aged between 18 and 29 years and this was remarkably consistent across the larger mother and baby homes. 5,616 women, 11.4% of the total for whom information about their age is available, were under 18 years of age. The Commission has not seen evidence that the Gardaí were routinely notified about pregnancies in under-age women.

It also revealed that some pregnancies were the result of rape; some women had mental health problems, some had an intellectual disability. However, the majority were indistinguishable from most Irish women of their time.

The commission said “the only difference between the women in mother and baby homes and their sisters, classmates and work companions was that they became pregnant while unmarried”. It continued: “Their lives were blighted by pregnancy outside marriage, and the responses of the father of their child, their immediate families and the wider community.”

On the issue of infant mortality, the commission says while the first report of the registrar general of the Irish Free State highlighted the appalling excess mortality of children born to unmarried mothers and subsequent Department of Local Government and Public Health reports noted the fact, that there was little evidence that politicians or the public were concerned about these children.

“No publicity was given to the fact that in some years during the 1930s and 1940s, over 40% of ‘illegitimate’ children were dying before their first birthday in mother and baby homes.

Denominational rivalry it says was not unique to Ireland but it appears to have persisted for a longer time than elsewhere and impacted on Irish mother and baby homes until the 1940s.

“The main motivation behind the British and Irish Catholic charities who were involved in repatriating Irish women from Britain, either pregnant or with their new-born infant, was to prevent these children being ‘lost’ to Catholicism through adoption into Protestant families.

Concerns, however far-fetched, that state-regulated adoption would result in Catholic children being adopted by parents of a different religion were a factor in delaying the introduction of legal adoption in Ireland until 1952.

The commission also found children in Mother and Baby Homes were subjected to vaccine trials”

It notes that Ireland was the second-last country in western Europe to legislate for adoption.

Judge Murphy found there were a small number of complaints of physical abuse. Many women suffered emotional abuse and were often subjected to denigration and derogatory remarks. Little kindness was shown to them and this was particularly the case in childbirth.

Between 1922 and 1998, 1,638 children, who were resident in mother and baby Homes and the four county homes under investigation, were placed for foreign adoption. The vast majority, 1,427, were placed for adoption to the US. There was no regulation of foreign adoptions. Allegations of large sums of money being given to institutions and agencies in Ireland that arranged foreign adoptions are impossible to prove or disprove, the Commission finds.

The commission also found children in mother and baby Homes were subjected to vaccine trials without the consent of their parents or guardians. It identified seven such trials between 1934 and 1973 and found they were not compliant with regulatory and ethical standards of the time due to lack of consent and the failure to have necessary licences in place.

However, it found no evidence of injury to the children involved as a result of the vaccines. The trials all involved either the Wellcome Foundation or Glaxo Laboratores, both of which are now part of GlaxoSmithKline. They included trials for a measles and a “Quadravax” for polio, diphtheria, pertussis and tetanus.

The Commission recommends that there be a right for adopted people to access their birth information, including their birth cert and other records even though it is ”acutely conscious of the concerns expressed by some birth mothers about this”.

It says redress is a matter for the Government and recognises that it may not be possible to provide financial redress for all the wrongs in the past. Its report states that it is arguable that unmarried mothers not in the homes and who reared their children without State assistance have as good a case for redress as those in the homes paid for by the State.

A redress scheme, if it is being considered, could be modelled on the two comparable schemes, the Residential Institutions Redress Scheme, which would be for the children, and the Magdalene Laundries scheme which could be used for mothers. Redress for children in certain named homes does not arise, the Commission finds, however those children resident in county homes without their mothers should all be eligible for redress, it states.