The Marginalisation of ‘Unmarried Mothers’ in Ireland Between 1918 and 1939

This chapter focuses on the context and legacy of the 1927 Report of the Commission on the Relief of the Sick and Destitute Poor including the Insane Poor which laid the foundation for the mixed economy of service provision for unmarried mothers and their children and singled them out as a state-sanctioned new marginality in Irish society in the interwar years. Exploring how social marginalisation intersected gender and morality, this chapter illuminates the synergy between the state and voluntary sectors, in this case, Catholic religious organisations. It explores their discourses concerning marginalised unmarried mothers, the political use of social assistance and institutions to create an ideology of gender which mirrored the values of those shaping the emerging ‘Free State’ (Saorstát Eireann) in Catholic Ireland. This chapter considers the development of particular polices and subsequent service delivery, and its implications in terms of moral normalisation and social discipline. It demonstrates how the Irish state chose to deal with marginalities, and in particular unmarried mothers. It highlights the social, moral, and religious underpinnings of the treatment of a particular cohort of marginalised women, how their needs were unmet, and their rights denied as they were rendered invisible in institutions.