Precarious childhood in post-independence Ireland

Precarious childhood in post-independence Ireland
Author: Moira Maguire
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 389
Release: 2013-07-19
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1847797598

This fascinating study reveals the desperate plight of the poor, illegitimate, and abused children in an Irish society that claimed to cherish and hold them sacred, but in fact marginalized and ignored them. It examines closely the history of childhood in post-independence Ireland, and breaks new ground in examining the role of the state in caring for its most vulnerable citizens. Maguire gives voice to those children who formed a significant proportion of the Irish population, but have been ignored in the historical record. More importantly, she uses their experiences as lenses through which to re-evaluate Catholic influence in post-independence Irish society. An essential and timely work, this book offers a different interpretation of the relationships between the Catholic Church, the political establishment, and Irish people; important for those interested in the history of family and childhood as well as twentieth-century Irish social history.

Marital violence in post-independence Ireland, 1922–96

Marital violence in post-independence Ireland, 1922–96
Author: Cara Diver
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 265
Release: 2019-05-21
Genre: History
ISBN: 1526120135

Marital violence in post-independence Ireland, 1922–96 represents the first comprehensive history of marital violence in modern Ireland, from the founding of the Irish Free State in 1922 to the passage of the Domestic Violence Act and the legalisation of divorce in 1996. Based upon extensive research of under-used court records, this groundbreaking study sheds light on the attitudes, practices, and laws surrounding marital violence in twentieth-century Ireland. While many men beat their wives with impunity throughout this period, victims of marital violence had little refuge for at least fifty years after independence. During a time when most abused wives remained locked in violent marriages, this book explores the ways in which men, women, and children responded to marital violence. It raises important questions about women’s status within marriage and society, the nature of family life, and the changing ideals and lived realities of the modern marital experience in Ireland.

Precarious Childhood in Post-independence Ireland

Precarious Childhood in Post-independence Ireland
Author: Moira J. Maguire
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 272
Release: 2010-03-15
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 9780719080814

This fascinating study reveals the desperate plight of the poor, illegitimate, and abused children in an Irish society that claimed to "cherish" and hold them sacred, but in fact marginalized and ignored them. It closely examines the history of childhood in post-independence Ireland, and it breaks new ground in examining the role of the state in caring for its most vulnerable citizens. Maguire gives voice to those children who formed a significant proportion of the Irish population, but have been ignored in the historical record. More importantly, it uses their experiences as lenses through which to re-evaluate Catholic influence in post-independence Irish society. An essential and timely work, this book offers a different interpretation of the relationships between the Catholic Church, the political establishment, and Irish people; important for academics and non-academics interested in the history of family and childhood as well as twentieth-century Irish social history.

Disability and Life Writing in Post-Independence Ireland

Disability and Life Writing in Post-Independence Ireland
Author: Elizabeth Grubgeld
Publisher: Springer Nature
Total Pages: 179
Release: 2020-06-04
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 3030372464

This book is the first to examine life writing and disability in the context of Irish culture. It will be valuable to readers interested in Disability Studies, Irish Studies, autobiography and life writing, working-class literature, popular culture, and new media. Ranging from Sean O’Casey’s 1939 childhood memoir to contemporary blogging practices, Disability and Life Writing in Post-Independence Ireland analyzes a century of autobiographical writing about the social, psychological, economic, and physical dimensions of living with disabilities. The book examines memoirs of sight loss with reference to class and labor conditions, the harrowing stories of residential institutions and the advent of the independent living movement, and the autobiographical fiction of such acknowledged literary figures as Christy Brown and playwright Stewart Parker. Extending the discussion to the contemporary moment, popular genres such as the sports and celebrity autobiography are explored, as well as such newer phenomena as blogging and self-referential performance art.

The Development of Child Protection Law and Policy

The Development of Child Protection Law and Policy
Author: Kieran Walsh
Publisher: Routledge
Total Pages: 177
Release: 2020-04-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1000044645

This book examines how child protection law has been shaped by the transition to late modernity and how it copes with the ever-changing concept of risk. The book traces the evolution of the contemporary child protection system through historical changes, assessing the factors that have influenced the development of legal responses to abuse over a 130-year period. It does so by focussing on the Republic of Ireland where child protection has become emblematic of wider social change. The work draws on a wide range of primary and secondary sources including legislation, case law and official and media reports of child protection inquiries. It also utilises insights developed through an extensive examination of parliamentary debates on child protection matters. These materials are assessed through the lens of critical discourse analysis to explore the relationship between law, social policy and social theory as they effect child protection. While the book utilises primarily Irish sources, this multidisciplinary approach ensures the argument has international applicability. The book will be a valuable resource for all those with an interest in the development of child protection law.

The Child Sex Scandal and Modern Irish Literature

The Child Sex Scandal and Modern Irish Literature
Author: Joseph Valente
Publisher: Indiana University Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2020
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0253053218

Even though the Irish child sex abuse scandals in the Catholic Church have appeared steadily in the media, many children remain in peril. In The Child Sex Scandal and Modern Irish Literature, Joseph Valente and Margot Gayle Backus examine modern cultural responses to child sex abuse in Ireland. Using descriptions of these scandals found in newspapers, historiographical analysis, and 20th- and 21st-century literature, Valente and Backus expose a public sphere ardently committed to Irish children's souls and piously oblivious to their physical welfare. They offer historically contextualized and psychoanalytically informed readings of scandal narratives by nine notable modern Irish authors who actively, pointedly, and persistently question Ireland's responsibilities regarding its children. Through close, critical readings, a more nuanced and troubling account emerges of how Ireland's postcolonial heritage has served to enable such abuse. The Child Sex Scandal and Modern Irish Literature refines the debates on why so many Irish children were lost by offering insight into the lived experience of both the children and those who failed them.

Growing Up in Nineteenth-Century Ireland

Growing Up in Nineteenth-Century Ireland
Author: Mary Hatfield
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 296
Release: 2019-10-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0192581457

Why do we send children to school? Who should take responsibility for children's health and education? Should girls and boys be educated separately or together? These questions provoke much contemporary debate, but also have a longer, often-overlooked history. Mary Hatfield explores these questions and more in this comprehensive cultural history of childhood in nineteenth-century Ireland. Many modern ideas about Irish childhood have their roots in the first three-quarters of the nineteenth century, when an emerging middle-class took a disproportionate role in shaping the definition of a 'good' childhood. This study deconstructs several key changes in medical care, educational provision, and ideals of parental care. It takes an innovative holistic approach to the middle-class child's social world, by synthesising a broad base of documentary, visual, and material sources, including clothes, books, medical treatises, religious tracts, photographs, illustrations, and autobiographies. It offers invaluable new insights into Irish boarding schools, the material culture of childhood, and the experience of boys and girls in education.

Parenting and the State in Britain and Europe, c. 1870-1950

Parenting and the State in Britain and Europe, c. 1870-1950
Author: Hester Barron
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 293
Release: 2016-12-29
Genre: History
ISBN: 3319340840

This innovative collection draws on original research to explore the dynamic interactions between parents, governments and their representatives across a range of European contexts; from democratic Britain and Finland, to Stalinist Russia and Fascist Italy. The authors pay close attention to the various relationships and dynamics between parents and the state, showing that the different parties were defined not solely by coercion or manipulation, but also by collaboration and negotiation. Parents were not passive recipients of government direction: rituals and cultures of parenting could both affirm and undermine state politics. Readers will find this collection crucial to understanding family life and the role of the state during a period when both underwent significant change.

Capital Punishment in Independent Ireland

Capital Punishment in Independent Ireland
Author: David M. Doyle
Publisher:
Total Pages: 306
Release: 2019
Genre: History
ISBN: 1789620279

This is a comprehensive and nuanced historical survey of the death penalty in Ireland from the immediate post-civil war period through to its complete abolition. Using original archival material, this book sheds light on the various social, legal and political contexts in which the death penalty operated and was discussed. In Ireland the death penalty served a dual function: as an instrument of punishment in the civilian criminal justice system, and as a weapon to combat periodic threats to the security of the state posed by the Irish Republican Army (IRA). Through close examination of cases dealt with in the ordinary criminal courts, this study elucidates ideas of class, gender, community and sanity and explores their impact on the administration of justice. The application of the death penalty also had a strong political dimension, most evident in the enactment of emergency legislation and the setting up of military courts specifically aimed at the IRA. As the book demonstrates, the civilian and the political strands converged in the story of the abolition of the death penalty in Ireland. Long after decision-makers accepted that the death penalty was no longer an acceptable punishment for 'ordinary' cases of murder, lingering anxieties about the threat of subversives dictated the pace of abolition and the scope of the relevant legislation.

The end of the Irish Poor Law?

The end of the Irish Poor Law?
Author: Donnacha Sean Lucey
Publisher: Manchester University Press
Total Pages: 263
Release: 2016-03-02
Genre: History
ISBN: 1784996114

Analyses the attempted reform of the Poor Law system in Ireland between 1910 and 1932. This period represented one of the most formative and crucial eras in Irish politics and society with the ideas of culture, nation, state and identity widely contested.