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'She said she was in the family way' examines the subject of pregnancy and infancy in Ireland from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. It draws on exciting and innovative research by early-career and established academics, and consider topics that have been largely ignored by historians in Ireland. The book will make an important contribution to Irish women’s history, family history, childhood history, social history, crime history and medical history, and will provide a reference point for academics interested in themes of sexuality, childbirth, infanthood and parenthood.
What this collection does brilliantly is to challenge the commonplace
assumption in Irish history of the chasteness and therefore moral
superiority of the population of Ireland. This is particularly true of
the second half of the 19th century and the first half of the 20th
century, especially with establishment of the Irish Free State. The
mantra of politicians in the Free State period was that one of the
unique characteristics of Ireland was that it was pure and chaste. This
was important because it was one of the justifications for independence
and what distinguished Ireland from other countries, especially the
United Kingdom and to a lesser extent the United States. What this
collection demonstrates in a very convincing manner is that there was a
great deal of sexual activity in modern Ireland. Outlawing
contraception, banning abortions and censoring certain lewd newspapers
did not seem to help at all. Infanticide – when all else failed – was
the answer to sexual activity outside of marriage.
Dr Maryann Valiulis, review of ‘She said she was in the family way’: Pregnancy and infancy in modern Ireland, (review no. 1499)
Contents
Foreword
Mary O’Dowd
Introduction
Elaine Farrell
I. ‘I would take anything to prevent me having a child’: contraception
1 ‘Veiled obscenity’: contraception and the Dublin Medical Press, 1850–1900 15
Ann Daly
2 ‘Its effect on public morality is vicious in the extreme’: defining birth control as obscene and unethical, 1926–32
Sandra McAvoy
II. ‘Inexpressible rendings of heart at the prospect of my child’s death’:pregnancy, childbirth and mortality
3 Some sources for the study of infant and maternal mortality in later seventeenth-century Ireland
Clodagh Tait
4 ‘A time of trial being near at hand’: pregnancy, childbirth and parenting in the spiritual journal of Elizabeth Bennis, 1749–79
Rosemary Raughter
5 Birth and death in nineteenth-century Dublin’s lying-in hospitals
Julia Anne Bergin
III. ‘The natural and proper guardian of the child’: material culture and the care of babies
6 Medicinal care in the eighteenth- and early nineteenthcentury Irish home
Emma O’Toole
7 The chrysalis in the cradle
Elaine Murray
IV. ‘The world acted unjustly to women in this fallen position’: unmarried mothers and ‘illegitimate’ children
8 ‘Found in a “dying” condition’: nurse-children in Ireland, 1872–1952
Sarah-Anne Buckley
9 In the family way and away from the family: examining the evidence for Irish unmarried mothers in Britain, 1920s–40s
Jennifer Redmond
V. ‘I know she never intended to rear it’: infanticide
10 Responding to infanticide in Ireland, 1680–1820
James Kelly
11 ‘A very immoral establishment’: the crime of infanticide and class status in Ireland, 1850–1900
Elaine Farrell
12 Beyond cradle and grave: Irish folklore about the spirits of unbaptized infants and the spirits of women who murdered babies
Anne O’Connor