Role of Protestant churches in mother and baby institutions

Sir, – The article by Ella Sloane on mother and baby institutions and the 1926 census said it “underscores the intervention of the Catholic Church and the State” in 20th-century family life in the new Irish State (“What Census 1926 reveals about lives of children 100 years ago”, April 27th).

Why only the Roman Catholic Church? What about Protestant churches that were also involved in such institutions, as confirmed by the 2021 Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes?

Census researchers will have difficulty tracing the lives of residents in the Bethany home and in the Church of Ireland Magdalen Asylum, since their details were entered using initials only. This practice resembles that of mental institutions and is unsurprising, since Bethany residents, for one, were referred to as “inmates”. Bethany also housed women serving sentences imposed by the courts and that again is unsurprising, since the institution saw little distinction between unmarried and criminally convicted residents.

Anonymity in the entries mirrors the missing picture of oppression of women and children beyond Roman Catholic victimhood. Oppressive treatment crossed religious and social boundaries. Misogyny was not specific to one denomination and harsh state treatment was not conditional on most officials being Catholic. It was society-wide here, as elsewhere. Contemporary commentary appears to be unthinking in the way it views one religion as affecting southern Irish social attitudes.

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The article concludes by referring to Noël Browne’s 1951 Mother and Child Scheme being blocked by Catholic Church lobbying. As Ronan McGreevy pointed out recently, doctors played a significant role too, a lot of whom were Protestant. The Church of Ireland Gazette remarked in welcoming the demise of Browne’s free scheme that Protestant doctors may have been sorry about the manner of Browne’s going but were not sorry to see him go. A negative critical view of Browne’s proposals as “socialistic” was shared by, among others, The Irish Times. – Yours, etc,

NIALL MEEHAN,

Journalism & Media Faculty,

Griffith College, Dublin.