Laundry apologists live among us

It’s easy to blame Church and State for all the ills that have blighted Irish society. Warehousing the poor in workhouses; separating children from their parents in industrial schools for the crime of poverty; enslaving women in Magdalene laundries for the crime of pregnancy. But those whose ancestors incarcerated women with the temerity to bear children [...]

Having our Catholic cake and eating it

Image from Geograph Ireland copyright John Salter When news broke over the weekend about a Catholic school manager scuppering promotions of one teacher for being Protestant and another for being an unmarried mother, nothing was less surprising than the outrage online. Who do these nuns think they are, cried social media commentators, outraged that [...]