Mother and Baby Homes: Kildare official warned of turning unmarried mothers into "social outcasts" more than 80 years ago
A senior Kildare health official sounded a warning about how unmarried mothers were being treated over 80 years ago.
The information is contained in the 3,000 page report of the Commission on Mother and Baby Homes published last week.
In a paper presented to Muintir na Tíre Rural Week in 1939, the assistant county medical officer of health for Kildare, who was a woman, argued that it is “highly desirable that unmarried mothers, some of whom are often of weak mentality, should not become the outcasts of society and add further to the difficulties of the situation.”
The official, who is not named, said she disapproved of unmarried mothers in county homes, and believed that special homes marked “a decided advance in the solution to the problem”.
She suggested that the best outcome for the children was to be reared by their grandparents, “because many children were being fostered in unsuitable homes where the foster parents were only interested in the money”.
There were no Mother and Baby Homes in Kildare but the County Home in Athy housed unmarried mothers and their children.
The report references a 1953 inspection of the County Home in Athy, which is the present-day St Vincent’s Hospital.
The inspection noted that the County Home generally has a “fleeting population of
families admitted because of eviction, unemployment, illness of one or both
parents or some other cause of break in family life.”
Meanwhile, in his response to the Commission’s report, former Newbridge parish priest and now Bishop of Achonry, Paul Dempsey, said that the loneliness, shame, fear, angst and sheer terror that unmarried mothers felt at the time of the Mother and Baby Homes was beyond his comprehension.
Bishop Dempsey also drew parallels between the Mother and Baby Homes and the conditions of Direct Provision centres he encountered as a priest.
He said: “Over the past few years when I worked in parish, I was in regular contact with people in a Direct Provision Centre.
“I saw how women and children and others, were cramped into tight living spaces, lacking basic human dignity. I have been thinking about them these days. As we have been told, we cannot change the past, but we can change the present.
“I urge those in power, in the light of the Mother and Baby Homes Report, to focus on improving the living conditions of those in our Direct Provision Centres.
The Bishop added: “I would imagine this real action to improve the lives of mothers and children today, would be a fitting tribute to those who suffered in Mother and Baby Homes in the past.”