IRELAND
Irish Independent
David Quinn
When the inquiry into the Magdalene homes was announced a couple of years ago I wrote a column challenging three myths about them. The first is that they were an Irish phenomenon only. They were not.
The second is that they were Catholic only. They were not. The third is that they were chiefly for unmarried mothers. They were not. The subsequent McAleese report backed all of this up.
With respect to our mother and baby homes similar myths are taking hold, chiefly that they were a particularly Irish and particularly Catholic phenomenon. They were not.
In particular what has taken root is the notion that Ireland, once the most Catholic country in Western Europe, was also a living nightmare, chiefly because of the church’s teachings on human sexuality – not a utopia, but its opposite, a dystopia.
It is true that Irish Catholicism was once in the grip of a spirituality that laid for too much emphasis on sin and punishment but it is not true to say that what we did to single mothers was uniquely Irish or uniquely Catholic.
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