It was also the same year the the workhouse system was introduced to Ireland. ( Poor Relief). Most of these charitable and religious institutions were set up by philantropic middle class lay women like Margaret Cusack. They reflected societies abhorrence at women who stepped outside the acceptable notion of womanhood, ie, mother , nun , or maiden. Outside of these categories you were considered a trollop and a danger to male morality.

Really. Lets open a few more laundries so will we tonnewnewman

christopher, thanks for this comment, i would build a fort for people like you, we dont need your type of man, yes, and the moat would be deep and wide, food would be minimal, and you would go all magottie.

Brian,Irish society was the Church, anything outside it was considered evil.

Not in 1838 it wasn’t.

Irish society still looks at this issue the wrong way round. The Church back then said it reclaimed these girls from “vice” i.e. having sex with males. Why not imprison the males then? This attitude still prevales today insofar that the male i.e. the father is never shunned. Society in general begrudges these mothers the vast subsistance allowance of €30 per day that they recieve to provide for themselves and their child. Yet society in general still lets the male walk away free from his responsibilty to provide for his offspring.

In fact the Catholic church was in a relatively weak position in Irish society at this time. The Church of Ireland was the ‘established church’ at the time. Catholic emancipation was in its infancy. So it would hard to blame to church for the attitudes of all at this time.

Exactly, it was a terrible time there were 8 million people in Ireland then, with no birth control whatsoever, millions of those people were children of very large families with only potatoes mixed with some buttermilk to survive on. No place for a single mother, the work house or laundry would be a welcome place to be as opposed to the street then look what happened when that crop failed,

It was not a famine. It was a genocide.

We had plenty of food, which if you check the real his story was taken at gunpoint to feed the industrial cities in UK

Its mortifying that more yanks speak Irish than we do. At least they understand the value of heritage and culture.

You could still learn Irish!

All you need is a lack of hatred for it!

As for English, it is ‘residence’ not ‘residance.’

Or ‘Áit chónaithe’ in Irish.

Hope that’s not too expensive or bullying.

Today they aren’t shunned by society at large, disowned by their own families and imprisoned, abused and enslaved by the Roman Church.

While by no means having an easy life, single mothers today are far better off then these poor women were.

And I believe all mothers are female.

And some live in council houses with two cars parked outside while their ex husband/boyfriend conveniently moved back in with them.

They also have access to support and education. Social problems won’t go away but ways out are available.
You could also consider many were mentally ill, rape victims etc. Some wouldn’t be single mothers at all now.

Sum well if your aware of any you should report them. Not all are like that

Darwinian interpretations of social change are a subject to be avoided.

Some single mothers like myself, hold down a full time job, pay a mortgage n raise beautiful well adjusted children. Thankfully, things have change significantly in the last 100 years.

@ David Jordan – You say “Today they aren’t shunned by society at large” really? Look at Sum Yung Guy’s comments below getting hundreds of likes and think again.

@kevin – sum yung guy comment is 100% true, there are “single” mothers living with their husbands/partners. just because this obvious truth was pointed out does not mean single mothers are shunned by society

Keyword in Sum’s comment “some”, everyone knows that some people will exploit the system, but it is wrong to say that because of that that they shun single mothers, look at the broadly positive suport for Sue Sue’s comment.
I’ve heard of the poverty trap, I understand the idea of the poverty trap, but I believe that many people who tout the idea of cutting social protections to fight it are simply trying to justify removing protection from of the most vulnerable.

When ever someone mentions the poverty trap, I hear a lot about cutting welfare but very little about helping these people.

What you may be observing is a social engineering experiment by western countries to maintain population numbers, The problem is that un-deserted mothers don’t have a €22 Billion wealthy Daddy and can’t afford to have children so the population growth is the same.

@ Johnny – Sum Yun Guys comment – It was the first issue on the agenda i.e. single mother = scrounger = 200 plus likes. Societal attitudes have a long way to go to improve in this area. No mention of how so many of these mothers are making huge efforts to escape poverty via education or how good they are as parents or how can society help them more. No mention of holding the fathers to account for dumping their responsibilities onto the mother and the State.

We cant debate a womans right to choose if men arent allowed the same convenience.
If a woman wants an abortion, we say its her choice regardless of what the man feels so what if the roles are reversed and she wants the pregnancy to go to term but he doesnt? Why should he have a say in 1 and not in the other? Im pro choice by the way.

Rot ??? They have a great time they do nothing live in a nice property for free of charge and receive a nice few quid on top of that I’d hardly call that “rotting on welfare”

Just drunk!