Caelainn Hogan's Republic of Shame tells us what we all knew. Everyone knew. Everybody knew and either denied that knowledge or explained away their actions as they took part in it. Everybody knew but determined that it was a inescapable act of nature, like the rain. And when we say everyone knew, not only did everyone know women where being unlawfully imprisoned in mother and baby homes and Magdalen Laundries, everyone knew (including the state) that the rates of death in these mother and baby homes far exceeded that of babies and children in any other place in Irish society at the time. Church, State and public knew they were dying of neglect. But when circumstances changes and when children could be sold, they stopped dying, then they had a value and could be sold to 'good' families. As one survivor ruefully observes, 'When we illegitimate Irish Bastards were suddenly worth more than the cows on the farms, we stopped dying by the thousa...
mediocrity articulated. Deathly dull book reviews