ABSTRACT
In recent years, scholarship on institutions in Ireland has increased significantly, due in part to a growth in public interest and State inquiries internationally into historical child abuse. This chapter will provide an overview of the variety of institutions that emerged in the nineteenth century in Ireland, examining their purpose, their evolution, and their often-gendered nature. In the majority of institutions, women/girls were overrepresented, due to Church, State and societal fears surrounding their sexuality or their potential for motherhood. Social class was also a key factor, with many women entering institutions due to poverty. This chapter examines overarching features of the development of what became a quasi-carceral system and shows how proselytism, or conversion to another faith, prompted its initial growth. Beginning with the foundling hospital in Dublin, it will address the history of the Industrial and Reformatory Schools, the Inebriate Reformatories and the foundation that was laid for Ireland’s ‘Mother and Baby Homes’. Looking specifically at the experience of children in the workhouses, it complements chapters by Breathnach, Walsh, McCormick and Farrell who address the history of prisons, lunatic asylums and other ‘punitive’ institutions such as the Magdalene Laundries.
