IRELAND
Irish Times
Dr Sean Lucey
Wed, Jun 18, 2014
In 1925, the medical officer of the Kerry County Home recommended 22 of the institution’s “unmarried mothers” receive two extra eggs daily because they were “required to perform work of an objectionable nature”.
When the department of local government and public health inquired further, the religious matron of the home, Sr Gerard, described the women’s harsh work regimes.
She informed the department there were no paid ward maids and the women were “engaged from 12 to 14 hours” in labour every day. The institution housed up to 400 patients: the majority were elderly and those suffering from long-term chronic sickness, mental illness and intellectual disabilities, and in need of frequent care.
In turn, the “unmarried mothers” carried out much of the manual labour in the home including cleaning, washing and laundry. The matron highlighted that much of this work was “so filthy and unhealthy” it was “almost inhuman” – particularly as the institution had no laundry machine and many of the patients were incontinent – and that some of the women were “almost physical wrecks”.
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