Sources for children in institutional care in Ireland, 1840s–1990s
Published in Features, Issue 5 (September/October), Volume 22Records of the Poor Law Unions, 1840s–1924
The tea room of the Sean Ross Abbey mother-and-baby home, Roscrea, Co. Tipperary, c. 1960s. (Brian Lockier/Adoption Rights Alliance)
Children orphaned or otherwise separated from their parents were ‘fostered’ out to private homes. Between the 1840s and 1899 all decisions to foster workhouse children were made at board level and are recorded in the minute books of the relevant Poor Law Union’s board of guardians. There’s a surprisingly good survival rate for the minute books, usually held in the local collections of the relevant county library.
Between 1899 and 1924 responsibility for the care of fostered children passed to the county council of the child’s county of birth. As a general rule of thumb, these records can also be found in the relevant county library or archive.
Records of reformatories and industrial schools
In nineteenth-century Ireland the number of destitute children was so great that the workhouse system by itself was inadequate. In 1858 reformatories were brought in, and industrial schools in 1868. Existing schools or institutions could apply for a capitation grant paid for by the government, and after 1899 by the local authority of the child’s place of origin. Many of the religious orders already involved in education adapted to the new framework and became involved in the development of industrial schools.
The majority were run by Catholic orders, and registers of the individual schools usually remain with the orders. The Directory of Irish archives contains further details on specific institutions, including registers and time-frames covered.
The Ryan Report indicates that there were nine Protestant industrial schools in Ireland, of which five were in the 26 counties. They were independently run by private organisations and their records are not centralised. PACT, the adoption tracing service, can help with enquiries.
1924–52
In 1924 W.T. Cosgrave’s government established the Department of Local Government and Public Health. It was the first step towards dismantling the hated Poor Law Union system in the Irish Free State, except in Dublin city and county. In 1925 responsibility for the care of fostered children was transferred to the County Boards of Health and Public Assistance. The County Assistance Boards kept annual registers of all children in care, and most of these records have been transferred to the relevant county library or archives, where they are held under restricted access.
1930s–1990s
Unusually for any research, there are short cuts. The AIRR (Access to Institutional and Related Records) project is a central index to records of children raised in care in Ireland between the 1930s and the 1990s. These records are accessible in the Department of Health and Children.
The Health Service Executive operates a tracing service that has greater coverage of the records of infant hospitals, mother-and-baby homes, adoption societies, and a large number of registers of private nursing homes.
Access to the records
Knowledge of personal identity should be a human right, yet access to personal records is often still restricted under the Data Protection Act, sometimes interpreted as a blanket ‘100-year rule’. This rule is the interpretation of the legislation (Data Protection Act 1988, Amendment 2003) by the Data Protection Commissioner. In 2011 a supreme court ruling set limits to how the Freedom of Information Act could be applied in tracing cases. The ruling was very subjective: it allowed all institutions that hold records to make the judgement call on access, and extended the time-limit indefinitely. Clearly this ruling goes against the spirit of the Freedom of Information Act and the right of access to personal information.
Fiona Fitzsimons is a director of Eneclann, a Trinity College campus company, and of findmypast Ireland.
Further ENQUIRIES
AIRR: +353 (0)1 6354190/6353030.
HSE tracing service: +353 (0)1 8976858.
PACT: +353 (0)1 2962200.
S. Helferty & R. Refaussé, Directory of Irish archives (Dublin, 2011).
Personal Histories
On this Day
April 24
- 1951 Enda Kenny, TD for Mayo West (1975–97) and Mayo (1997–2020), leader of Fine Gael (2002–17) and taoiseach (2011–17), born in Derrycoosh, Islandeady, near Castlebar, Co. Mayo.
- 1945
Above: The steamship Monmouth Coast—torpedoed by a German U-boat near Tory Island on 24 April 1945. (Paul Johnson Collection)
During the last week of the Second World War, the Monmouth Coast, an unescorted steamship en route from Sligo to Liverpool with a cargo of barytes ore from the mines of Ben Bulben, was torpedoed by a German U-boat some seven miles north-east of Tory Island. The captain and fifteen crewmen (including two Irishmen) lost their lives, but one managed to survive, thanks to two locals from Arranmore. Two days later, whilst beachcombing on the north-eastern coast of the island, they spotted a life-raft floating in a remote sandy inlet; they rowed out to it and lifted the tarpaulin, to discover a wide-eyed teenager, Derek Cragg (17) from Liverpool, the mess-room boy from the Monmouth Coast. He explained that the ship had gone down very quickly and that those of the crew who managed to leap clear were sucked down after it. He, too, was dragged down but somehow managed to make it back to the surface, where he spotted the life-raft and clambered on board. He was given every assistance by the islanders and safely repatriated, but had the north-easterly wind that drove him 25 miles blown him into the adjoining inlet, his raft would have been smashed to pieces. Over 30,000 Allied merchant seamen, of every nationality, lost their lives during the war. Despite our neutrality, Irish Shipping lost two ships. The Irish Pine was torpedoed off Greenland in November 1942 with the loss of all 33 on board, and the Irish Oak was sunk in the North Atlantic in May 1943, though her entire crew was rescued by a sister-ship, the Irish Plane.
- 1912 Justin McCarthy (82), Home Rule politician, leader of the anti-Parnellite faction (1891–6), historian and novelist, died.
- 1916 The Easter Rising began.Sir Ernest Shackleton and five of his crew set out on their epic 720-nautical-mile rescue mission in the James Caird, from Elephant Island to South Georgia.
- 1974 The Electricity Supply Board (ESB) announced that Carnsore Point, Co. Wexford, would be the site of its planned nuclear power station.
May 19
- 1935
Above: ‘Lawrence of Arabia’—his father was in fact Sir Thomas Chapman of South Hill, Delvin, Co. Westmeath.
T.E.—Thomas Edward—Lawrence (46), the legendary ‘Lawrence of Arabia’, died as a result of a motorcycle accident in Dorset. For much of his adult life Lawrence was a troubled man. Though his key role in the British-inspired Arab revolt (1916) against Ottoman Turkish rule earned him international celebrity, he was torn by guilt over Britain’s post-war betrayal of the Arabs with the implementation at Versailles of the notorious Sykes–Picot Agreement. Then there was the issue of identity. At the tender age of ten he discovered that his parents were not married, meaning that he and his four brothers were illegitimate. Later he was to learn that ‘Mr Lawrence’, his father, was, in fact, Sir Thomas Chapman of South Hill, Delvin, Co. Westmeath, who, though married with four daughters, had fled with their governess, Sarah Lawrence, first to Wales—where ‘Ned’ was born—and finally to London. He was eventually to find himself increasingly drawn to his father’s homeland. A close friend of George Bernard Shaw and his wife Charlotte—GBS had helped him to edit his major work, Seven pillars of wisdom (1926)—he mentioned his desire in his surviving letters to visit Ireland and often referred to the works of Seán O’Casey, James Joyce and J.M. Synge. Indeed, he hoped to write a biography of Sir Roger Casement. It seems that he never did try to make contact with his half-sisters. In 1954, almost twenty years after his death, some of his old friends visited the two surviving ones, who were living at 39 Northumberland Road, Dublin. They told them that they had followed their half-brother’s career with great interest but likewise had made no attempt to contact him.
- 1870 The Home Government Association of Ireland was founded by Isaac Butt with the aim of establishing a federal system for the United Kingdom, which would grant Ireland a parliament responsible for national affairs. Succeeded by the Home Rule League (1873).
- 1868 Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, son of Arthur Guinness (1725–1803), brewer and writer who restored St Patrick’s Cathedral (1860), died.