Legacies of the Magdalen Laundries: Commemoration, Gender, and the Postcolonial Carceral State

(Hardback)

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This collection raises incisive questions about the links between the postcolonial carceral system, which thrived in Ireland after 1922, and larger questions of gender, sexuality, identity, class, race and religion. This kind of intersectional history is vital not only in looking back but, in looking forward, to identify the ways in which structural callousness still marks Irish society. Essays include historical analysis of the ways in which women and children were incarcerated in residential institutions, Irelands Direct Provision system, the policing of female bodily autonomy though legislation on prostitution and abortion, in addition to the legacies of the Magdalen laundries. This collection also considers how artistic practice and commemoration have acted as vital interventions in social attitudes and public knowledge, helping to create knowledge and re-shape social attitudes towards this history.

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..an absorbing and insightful examination of one of the most traumatic and shameful legacies of Ireland's past an invaluable resource for anyone interested in understanding how such institutions came into being
and the harm they wreaked on those women who spent time in them.
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Author Bio

Miriam Haughton is Director of Postgraduate Studies in Drama, Theatre and Performance at NUI Galway

Mary McAuliffe is Assistant Professor in Gender Studies at University College Dublin

Emilie Pine is Professor of Modern Drama at University College Dublin