The boat to England: An analysis of the official reactions to the emigration of single expectant Irishwomen to Britain, 1922-1972

Irish Economic and Social History

Volumn 30, Issue , 2003, Pages 52-70

  Earner Byrne, Lindsey ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN   (Ireland)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 61849167199     PISSN: 03324893     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1177/033248930303000103     Document Type: Review

References (50)

1. For contemporary accounts see Stanley Lyon, A Survey Covering the Employment, Social and Living Conditions of Irish Emigrants (first generation) in Great Britain (1948)
2. for retrospective accounts see Mike Milotte, Banished Babies: The Secret History of Ireland's Baby Export Business (Dublin, 1997)
3. Irish Times, 4 Sept. 1993
4. Pauric Travers, 'Emigration and Gender: The Case of Ireland, 1922-1960,' in Mary O'Dowd & Sabine Wichert, (eds.) Chattel, Servant or Citizen: Women's Status in Church, State and Society (Belfast, 1995), p. 188
5. Quoted in Enda Delaney, Demography, State and Society: Irish Migration to Britain, 1921-1971 (Liverpool, 2000), p. 184
6. Report of the Committee on the Criminal Law Amendment Acts, p. 8
7. E. W. McCabe, [Vice-Chairman, Adoption Society] 'The Need for a Law of Adoption,' in Journal of the Statistical and Social Inquiry Society of Ireland, CII, 1948-9 (8 April, 1949), p. 188
8. R. S. Devane, The Legal Protection of Girls' in Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 5th ser., XXXVII, 1931, pp. 20-40
9. Devane, 'The Dance Hall - The Moral and National Menace,' in Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 5th ser., XXXVII, 1931, pp. 170-94
10. Rev. R S Devane, S. J., 'The Unmarried Mother: Some Legal Aspects of the Problem,' in Irish Ecclesiastical Record, 5th ser., XXIII, 1924, p. 58
11. Devane, 'The Unmarried Mother', p. 56
12. Maria Luddy, 'Prostitution and rescue work in nineteenth-century Ireland,' in Maria Luddy & Cliona Murphy, (eds.), Women surviving: studies in Irish women's history in the 19th & 20th centuries (Dublin, 1990), p. 61
13. Saint Patrick's Guild, The object of St. Patrick's Guild, c.1925, p. 3 (D.D.A., Archbishop Byrne Papers, Lay Organisations 2)
14. Maria Luddy noted that the workhouse was the 'chief refuge' for many unmarried mortiers in the 1920s. See Maria Luddy, 'Moral Rescue and Unmarried Mothers in Ireland in the 1920s' in Women's Studies, XXX, (2001), p. 799
15. Paul Michael Garrett claimed that 70 per cent of unmarried mothers were accommodated in the county homes. See Paul Michael Garrett, 'The Abnormal Flight: The Migration and Repatriation of Irish Unmarried Mothers', in Social History, XXV, (2000), p. 332
16. Deputy Kennedy in Dáil Debates, XXXIII, 185
17. Joseph Robins noted that the Registration Act was introduced largely to control private nursing homes that became refuges for desperate unmarried mothers. Joseph Robins, 'Public policy and the maternity services,' in Alan Browne, (ed.), Masters, Midwives and Ladies-in-Waiting: The Rotunda Hospital, 1745-1995 (Dublin, 1995), pp. 289-91
18. (N.A.I., Department of Health A116/167). During the same period the average stay in the evangelical homes of America decreased from six months to two months. Regina G. Kunzel, Fallen women, problem, girls (Yale, 1993), p. 89
19. Department of Local Government and Public Health, Inspector of Boarded-out Children, Miss Fitzgerald-Kenney in Report of the Conference on Public Health and Social Services, 1930 (Dublin, 1931), p. 120
20. Report of the Department of Load Government and Public Health, 1932-3, p. 13 0
21. Florence Russell, honorary secretary of the Liverpool and County Catholic Aid Society to Archbishop Byrne, 30 June 1924 (D.D.A., Byrne Papers, Lay Organisations 2)
22. Report of the Department of Local Government and Public Health, 1931-32, p. 129-130
23. Alice Litster, Report ontheUnmarried Mother, in Great Britain and at Home,' 8 May 1948 (N.A.I., Clandillon Papers, Box 3)
24. The Catholic Protection and Rescue Society's repatriation programme reached a peak inthe1950s and early 1960s reflecting both a greater social awareness and larger numbers of Irish unmarried mothers in Britain. For example, in 1947 the society assisted only 28 repatriation cases, a decade later, in 1957 the society assisted 100 repatriation cases and this figure increased to 213 in 1967 falling again to 145 cases in 1969. However, by 1971 only 33 repatriation cases were dealt with and by 1972 repatriation had ceased. See Catholic Protection and Rescue Society Annual Report, 1947, p.l
25. Catholic Protection and Rescue Society Annual Report, 1957, p.l
26. Catholic Protection and Rescue Society Annual Report, 1967, p. 1
27. Catholic Protection and Rescue Society Annual Report, 1969, p. 1
28. See also, Garrett, 'The Abnormal Flight', in Social History, XXV (2000), p. 340
29. Dermot Keogh described Joseph Walshe as 'unquestionably one of the most influential ofthesenior civil servants in the area of church-State relations'. Dermot Keogh, The Vatican, the bishops and Irish politics 1919-1939 (Cambridge, 1986), p. 126
30. A. Newsholme, Fifty Years in Public Health: A Personal Narrative with Comments (London, 1935)
31. Litster, Unmarried modiers in Ireland (29 Nov. 1939)
32. The Regina Coeli hostel was not without its problems and shortcomings. Report on Regina Coeli, Dr James Demy, 12 November 1948 (N.A.I., Department of Health, M134/60)
33. Thomas Bodkin, Barber Institute of Fine Arts, Birmingham to McQuaid, 20 July 1942
34. Murtagh to McQuaid, c.July 1942
35. Maurice Foley, 'Some notes on the situation of Irish workers in Birmingham,' n.d. [July, 1951] (N.A.I., Taoiseach Files, S11582C)
36. Foley, 'Some notes onthesituation of Irish workers in Birmingham'
37. Stanley Lyon, A Survey Covering the Employment, Social and Living Conditions of Irish Emigrants (first generation) in Great Britain, (1948) (T.C.D., Marsh Papers)
38. Lyon, A Survey Covering the Employment, pp. 3, 14, and 22
39. Memorandum for the Government: Reports of the Commission on 'Emigration and other Population Problems,' (1954) p. 2 (N.A.I., Taoiseach Files, S14249B)
40. Litster. 'Unmarried mother, in Great Britain and at home, 8 May 1948' (N.A.I., Clandillon Papers, Box 3)
41. Pauline Jackson argued that the Irish 'abortion trail' to Britain began long before 1967 see Jackson, Pauline, 'Outside the jurisdiction: Irish women seeking abortion' in Barbara O'Connor, Chris Curtin, & Pauline Jackson (eds.), Gender in Irish Society (Gahvay, 1987), pp. 203-223
42. Report of meeting with the maternity medical social workers in London, 29 April 1969, p. 6-7 (D.D.A., McQuaid Papers, Lay organisations: Cadiolic Protection and Rescue Society)
43. 56th Annual Report of the Catholic Protection and Rescue Society, 1969, p. 1 (D.D.A., McQuaid Papers, Lay organisations: Cadiolic Protecdon and Rescue Society)
44. Kennedy, Cottage to Crèche, p. 219
45. Jenny Beale, Women in Ireland: Voices of Change (Dublin, 1986), p.60
46. K. Kiernan, H. Land, &J. Lewis, Lone Mothers in Twentieth-Century Britain (Oxford, 1998), p. 100
47. J.H.,Whyte, Church and State in Moder Ireland 1923-1979 (Dublin, 1980), pp. 184-195
48. Cherish, Proceedings of the Conference on the Unmarried Parent and Child in Irish Society 1974 (Kilkenny, 1975) p. 4
49. Cherish, Proceedings of the Conference, 1974, p. 32
50. In 1995 30 per cent of non marital conceptions were terminated, see Mahon, Conlon and Dillon, Women and Crisis Pregnancy, p. 22