NORTHERN IRELAND
News Letter
From 1859 to 1969, 105,000 children were taken into industrial homes in Ireland.
They were often large and uninviting, designed to make economies of scale, with staff morale poor and workers displaying aloofness from charges who may have been orphaned or separated from their mothers because they were born out of wedlock.
Christine Smith QC said institutions were run during the Victorian era of the 1800s by religious orders for spiritual purposes. Rehabilitation entailed turning the child into a productive member of society.
“By placing children in institutions, as they saw it, souls were being saved from corruption,” the senior lawyer to the Historical Institutional Abuse inquiry added.
Catholics held to the 19th century ideal of redemption and rehabilitation long after that period had ended. Only those discounted as unredeemable were left to the state’s care.
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