During the first fifty years of Irish independence, tens of thousands of men, women and children were incarcerated in institutions. Psychiatric hospitals, mother and baby homes, Magdalen homes, Reformatory and Industrial schools, prisons and Borstal formed a network of institutions of coercive confinement that was integral to the emerging state. This unique volume provides a wealth of contemporaneous accounts of what life was like within these austere and forbidding places as well as offering a compelling explanation for the longevity of the system and the reasons for its ultimate decline.
While many accounts exist of individual institutions and the factors associated with their operation, this is the first attempt to provide a holistic account of the interlocking range of institutions that dominated the physical landscape and, in many ways, underpinned the rural economy. Highlighting the overlapping roles of church, state and family in the maintenance of these forms of social control, this book will appeal to those interested in understanding twentieth-century Ireland: in particular, historians, legal scholars, criminologists, sociologists and other social scientists. These arguments take on special importance as Irish society continues to grapple with the legacy of its extensive use of institutionalisation.

Eoin O'Sullivan is Head of the School of Social Work and Social Policy and Fellow of Trinity College, Dublin|Ian O'Donnell is Professor of Criminology at University College Dublin and Adjunct Fellow of Linacre College, Oxford

Introduction
 
1. Setting the Scene
Ian O'Donnell and Eoin O¿Sullivan
 

Part I. Patients, Paupers and Unmarried Mothers
 

2. How to Deal with the Unmarried Mother
¿Sagart¿, 1922.
 
3. The Unmarried Mother: Some Legal Aspects of the Problem
Richard Devane, 1924.
 
4. A Plea for Social Service
Humbert MacInerny, 1925.
 
5. Report
Commission on the Relief of the Sick and Destitute Poor, Including the Insane Poor, 1927.
 
6. Report
Inter-Departmental Committee Appointed to Examine the Question of the Reconstruction and Replacement of County Homes, 1949.
 
 
7. Irish Journey
Halliday Sutherland, 1956.
 
8. Report
Commission of Inquiry on Mental Illness, 1966.
 
9. No Birthright: A Study of the Irish Unmarried Mother and Her Child
Michael Viney, 1966.
 
10. Bird¿s Nest Soup
Hanna Greally, 1971.
 
11. Mental Illness: An Inquiry
Michael Viney, 1971.
 
Further Reading
 

Part II. Prisoners
 
12. The Prisons
Edward Fahy, 1940.
 
13. I Did Penal Servitude
D83222, 1945.
 
14. Prisons and Prisoners in Ireland: Report on Certain Aspects of Prison Conditions in Portlaoighise Convict Prison
The Labour Party, 1946.
 
15. The Spyhole
Shea Murphy, 1947.
 
16. Dungeons Deep: A Monograph on Prisons, Borstals, Reformatories and Industrial Schools in the Republic of Ireland, and Some Reflections on Crime and Punishment and Matters Relating Thereto
Peadar Cowan, 1960.
 
Further Reading
 
Part III. Troubled and Troublesome Children
 
17. Report
Commission of Inquiry into the Reformatory and Industrial School System, 1936.
 
18. Memorandum on Children in Institutions, Boarded out and Nurse Children
Joint Committee of Women¿s Societies and Social Workers, 1943.
 
19. Founded on Fear: Letterfrack Industrial School, War and Exile
Peter Tyrrell, 1959.
 
20. Some of our Children: A Report on the Residential Care of the Deprived Child in Ireland
Tuairim, 1966.
 
21. The Dismal World of Daingean
Michael Viney, 1966.
 

22. Report
Committee and Reformatory and Industrial Schools Systems
 
23. The Road to God Knows Where
Sean Maher, 1972.
 
Further Reading