Registration of Maternity Homes Act, 1934: Institutional inadequacy and indifference in Irish maternity homes

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A breaking headline from 2014 reads: “Ireland Investigates Alleged Discovery of 800 Babies in Sewer Tank.”^[1] Historian Catherine Corless, who had spent years amassing any documentation of the occupants of mother and baby homes in Ireland, excavated what appeared to be a massive grave of 800 infants behind an old home in Tuam, County Galway. During the early twentieth century, the government of Ireland sought to preserve the image of its Catholic morality by confining unwed mothers in response to rising rates of prostitution and an increasing demographic of children conceived outside of wedlock. Institutions such as mother and baby homes concealed women’s perceived sins; often, the religious women who ran the homes took the resulting infants and put them up for adoption.^[2] Despite the recorded closure of all mother and baby homes entering the twenty-first century, it wasn’t until Corless’ discovery in 2014 that the mistreatment of the women and children confined within these religious institutions was finally exposed to the public, launching a government investigation and creating a pathway to reparations for the women victimized by these systems.

Scholarship on mother and baby homes reflects the secrecy that shrouded these institutions throughout the twentieth century. Exposé-sounding titles characterized historians’ work, like Finola Kennedy’s “The Suppression of the Carrigan Report” and Emma Quinn’s “The Sovereignty of Silence,” both of which reveal government policies that inspired mother and baby homes and the abuse of their occupants.”^[3] But Ireland’s history of confining and mistreating vulnerable populations, including women and children, extends far beyond the mother and baby homes. Six different kinds of Irish institutions made up this network of injustice.^[4] All but one have had their secrets divulged to the public in the twenty-first century.^[5]

The earliest were residential children’s homes and industrial schools, where orphaned and destitute children were put to work with no pay, little food, and housed in unsanitary conditions. Both institutions are investigated and documented in Ireland’s Ryan Report, published in 2009, and including testimonies from 1,090 survivors across over 200 institutions. This report informs Ireland’s Residential Institutions Redress Scheme, working to compensate children abused within this system.^[6] Magdalen Laundries functioned as religious penitentiaries for young women who had committed moral crimes, such as those who were perceived to be promiscuous, unmarried mothers, or women who were simply burdens on their families or the State. They were then contained within institutions and forced to do laundry for little to no income. Their abuse was investigated within the McAleese Report of 2013, published by a government sanctioned committee to establish the details of State involvement in the laundries.^[7] The misguided focus on government involvement over the stories of the victims, however, resulted in a public push for Ireland’s Redress for Women Resident in Certain Institutions. By 2018, this program compensated over 800 women confined within fourteen different recorded laundries.^[8]

Finally, in 2021, the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes included thorough research into the religious penitentiaries that confined unwed mothers, often placing surviving children up for adoption. County homes were also included in this report. While they catered to a wide array of inhabitants, including the elderly and disabled, they were allocated a chapter within the investigation due to “conclusive evidence” that women and children within these homes “experienced much worse physical conditions than the women who were in mother and baby homes,” and a majority of “illegitimate” births took place in these homes.^[9]

The sixth, and final, institutions were the maternity homes. Similar to mother and baby homes, the treatment and confinement of their inhabitants reflected Ireland’s anxieties towards unwed mothers and their children. In a proposal for regulations of maternity homes, government officials presented the problem of “every three illegitimate children born alive in 1924 died within a year of their birth,” referring specifically to institutions “often made or contrived at by those who carry on the poorer class of maternity homes.”^[10] This proposal explicitly connected maternity homes and the nation’s anxiety around legitimacy. However, in the 2021 investigation into mother and baby homes, the inclusion of maternity homes is limited to a bulleted list of all known and previously operating homes. They are excluded from other official investigations.^[11]

Their exclusion ignores the aforementioned connections between mother and baby homes and maternity homes, and is instead based on logistical differences between the two institutions. For example, unlike mother and baby homes, maternity homes were privately owned, catered to both wed and unwed mothers, and had a shortened time of occupancy.^[12] Additionally, maternity homes were under government regulation through the Registration of Maternity Homes Act in 1934, which established regulatory processes for inspecting the conditions of maternity homes. Per the 1934 Maternity Homes Act, all homes were required to register in order to operate, and to do so they had to comply with inspections and provide documentation of their occupants.

Despite occupants’ shortened stay and the supposed regulation of maternity homes, documentation submitted in response to the Registration of Maternity Homes Act reveals substandard conditions and mistreatment. Similarly condemning is the evidence of connections between mother and baby homes and maternity homes, both of which regarded their occupants as a societal problem if their children were “illegitimate.” A case study of the Dunscombe Maternity Home in County Cork shows the relevance of maternity homes within the context of Ireland’s institutionalized abuse towards women and children in the twentieth century. Correspondence from the maternity home states that there were “enquiries as to babies discharged at different dates to Dunscombe Maternity Home from the Sacred Heart Home, Bessboro,” a mother and baby home included in the 2021 commission of investigation.^[13] This direct connection between a maternity home and mother and baby home should not come as a surprise given the systemic nature of abuse and confinement across various institutions in Ireland. Similar connections across other maternity homes must be explored.

While a pertinent connection, the tie to a mother and baby home is not the main story of the abuse at Dunscombe Maternity Home. Correspondence regarding the conditions of newborns at the home tells a story of infant neglect happening within a “regulated” maternity home and the Act’s inability to respond to the conditions they set out to alleviate.^[14]

In 1952, a registered nurse, Miss Reidy, filled out a report following her visit to the Dunscombe Maternity Home, stating that “the four infants were in one room which lacked both light and air, and smelled noticeably of urine. In order to ascertain whether the infants were cared for in a proper manner, I asked for the napkins to be removed. In every case, the buttocks were very inflamed and indeed ulcerated in varying degrees.”^[15] Miss Reidy reported her findings to the Chief Medical Officer that day. However, as a nurse, she lacked the authority of a registered inspector. The official inspector was Miss Dunn, who also visited the Dunnscombe Maternity Home that same day and was, at that time, under consideration for a salary raise. On conveying the disturbing conditions to the officials, Miss Reidy discovered that Miss Dunn had not filed a report. She consequently started corresponding with the Minister for Local Government and Public Health regarding the adequacy of Miss Dunn’s inspections.

What followed was a striking demonstration of inadequacy and indifference at an institutional level, well beyond an individual inspector’s shortcomings. While Miss Dunn had not initially reported on the state of the home, she eventually submitted a record of concern following Miss Reidy’s report. However, the local health departments they were reporting to considered that “matters other than the unauthorised maintenance of children in Dunscombe Maternity Home were of a minor character,”^[16] and took no action. This rationale suggests that, at a federal level, infant welfare in maternity homes was not a priority. Furthermore, following Miss Reidy’s complaints, the local government not only granted Miss Dunn her requested salary increase but also deflected scrutiny from her conduct as an inspector by questioning whether inspectors were permitted to examine the infants at all. One letter asked a legal advisor whether Section 12 of the Registration of Maternity Homes Act, which grants the right of authorised personnel to enter and inspect maternity homes, can “be interpreted as entitling an inspector or an authorised officer to examine the babies in the home, e.g., by removing clothing and examining the condition of a baby’s skin.”^[17] By the end of 1952, after a series of correspondence between different health officers and county representatives, no actions were taken against Dunscombe Maternity Home or the inspector, Miss Dunn, beyond “warning the proprietress as to her future conduct of the Home.”^[18]

Despite its intended purpose in 1933, the Registration of Maternity Homes Act did not regulate the maternity homes – it simply documented them. While the Act gave the appearance of government regulation, this case study of Dunscombe Maternity Home suggests the limited effect of these policies and the lack of concern they placed on the inhabitants of the homes. If conditions for infants within the Dunscombe Maternity Home are comparable to those within the mother and baby homes included in the 2021 government report, the exclusion of maternity homes from official investigations is indefensible. Given the systemic nature of the confinement of women and children, official investigations and programs of reparations must include all institutions that housed this demographic. As a form of reparation, public investigations by the Irish government have a responsibility to tell every story of institutional abuse, including those of private maternity homes in twentieth-century Ireland.

Notes

1. “Ireland Investigates Alleged Discovery of 800 Babies in Sewer Tank,” NBC News, June 5, 2014.https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/ireland-investigates-alleged-discovery-800-babies-sewer-tank-n123236 ↑
2. James Smith, “The Politics of Sexual Knowledge: The Origins of Ireland’s Containment Culture and the Carrigan Report (1931),” Journal of the History of Sexuality, vol. 13, no 2, 2004, pg. 208-233. ↑
3. Finola Kennedy, “The Suppression of the Carrigan Report: A Historical Persepctive on Child Abuse,” Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, vol. 89, no.356, 354-363, (2000); Emma Quinn, “The Sovereignty of Silence – The Carrigan Report and the Rise and Fall of Professional Womanhood in Ireland, History Ireland, vol. 32, no. 5, 36-39, (2024); Paul Michael Garrett, “Excavating the Past: Mother and Baby Homes in the Republic of Ireland,” The British Journal of Social Work, vol. 47, no. 2, 358-374, (2017). ↑
4. Sarah-Anne Buckley, “Institutionalisation and Gender: From the Foundling Hospitals to the Mother and Baby Homes,” Gender and History (2022) 130-140. ↑
5. Buckley, “Institutionalisation and Gender: From the Foundling Hospitals to the Mother and Baby Homes,” Gender and History (2022) 130-140. ↑
6. Mr. Justice Sean Ryan, Report of the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse, vol 1-4, 2009. Residential Institutions Redress Scheme, Irish Statute Book, 2002. ↑
7. Irish Council for Civil Liberties, “NGO Submission to the United Nations Committee against Torture: Follow-up to the 2017 Concluding Observations of the Committee against Torture,” November 23, 2018,1-62, criticizes the McAleese report for its tone deaf investigation into Magdalen laundries, even arguing that “of the 118 survivors who spoke to the McAleese Committee, 58 were at the time still institutionalised in the care of the religious congregations responsible for operating the Magdalene Laundries” (15). ↑
8. Senator Martin McAleese, Report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to Establish the Facts of State Involvement with the Magdalen Laundries, 2013, also known as the McAleese Report. Redress for Women Resident in Certain Institutions Act, 2015. ↑
9. “Chapter 10: County Homes,” (1-38), in Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, Government of Ireland, 2021. ↑
10. “Proposed Bill to Provide of Registration of Maternity Homes,” 1933, within Registration of Maternity Homes Act, 1934, National Archives of Ireland ↑
11. “Chapter 2: Institutions,” page 5. ↑
12. “Chapter 1: State structures, supports and legislation,” (28-30) and “Chapter 2: Institutions,” (5-12) in Final Report of the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, Government of Ireland, (2021). Mothers and their children would stay in these homes for only the purpose of labor. ↑
13. “Cork County Borough: examination of infants in maternity homes,” March 27, 1952, Department of Health, National Archives of Ireland, 1990/124/413. For more on the Sacred Heart Mother and Baby home mentioned in the letter turn to the findings in “Chapter 17: The Sacred Heart Mother and Baby Homes” in the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, Government of Ireland, 2021. Strangely this quote states that children were being sent from the mother and baby home to a maternity home, contrary to assumption that infants would be sent to mother and baby homes for longer residence. However, in a packet of over 20 pages of correspondence, this was the only reference to the Sacred Heart Mother and Baby Home, making it possible that this was a typo. However, the reason for the inclusion of this reference in the paper is to exemplify the connection between the maternity home and the mother and baby home, no matter the direction of the transfer of infants. ↑
14. “Cork County Borough: examination of infants in maternity homes,” Department of Health, National Archives of Ireland, 1952, 1990/124/413. ↑
15. “Cork County Borough,” November 13, 1952. ↑
16. “Cork County Borough,” March 27, 1952. ↑
17. “Cork County Borough,” October 6, 1952, and Section 12 of the Registration of Maternity Homes Act, National Archives of Ireland, Department of Taoiseach, TSCH/3/S6430, reads “(1) An authorised officer of a local authority shall be entitled at all reasonable times to enter any maternity home within the functional area of such local authority and inspect such maternity home.” ↑
18. “Cork County Borough: examination of infants in maternity homes,” Department of Health, National Archives of Ireland, 1990/124/413. ↑

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Featured image caption: The Dáil Chamber of the Irish national parliament, c. 1924. (Courtesy National Library of Ireland)