Boston College Associate Professor of English and Irish Studies James Smith,听 one of the book's editors and contributors. (Caitlin Cunningham)
The Center for Irish Programs will co-host the American launch of REDRESS: Ireland鈥檚 Institutions and Transitional Justice, a book of essays based on a 2018 Boston College conference examining the controversy over the Magdalene Laundries and other institutional abuses in Ireland (both North and South), on September 6 at 4:30 p.m. in the John J. Burns Library.
The event, which also is sponsored by the 51茶馆 Center for Human Rights and International Justice, is free and open to the public, and will feature remarks by the book's editors: Boston College Associate Professor of English and Irish Studies James Smith, director of the Unviersity's Lowell Humanities Series; Katherine O鈥橠onnell, a professor of philosophy at University College Dublin; and Maeve O鈥橰ourke, a faculty member at the Irish Center for Human Rights. The three have researched and written extensively on the notorious Magdalene Laundries鈥攊n which women were confined under dubious circumstances and suffered physical and emotional abuse鈥攁nd in 2021 were among the co-authors of Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice (Bloomsbury/I.B. Tauris).
“REDRESS invites us to imagine what true justice might look like if the experiences and expertise of survivors and family members were allowed to lead us to more democratic outcomes. ”
Revelations about the Magdalene Laundries led to wider disclosures of institutional abuses by the government: mother and baby homes, county homes and workhouses, industrial and reformatory schools, and a closed, secretive adoption system. While government officials and representatives have issued apologies, initiated investigations, and discussed or agreed to compensation for survivors or their families, Smith and his co-editors鈥攚ho wrote the introduction and each contributed an essay to REDRESS, which was published earlier this year in Ireland鈥攕ay the matter is far from settled: How will Ireland redress this legacy of abuse? What constitutes justice?
鈥�REDRESS invites us to imagine what true justice might look like if the experiences and expertise of survivors and family members were allowed to lead us to more democratic outcomes,鈥� said Smith. 鈥淒rawing upon the principles of transitional justice鈥攖he full range of processes and mechanism associated with a society鈥檚 attempts to come to terms with a legacy of large-scale past abuses鈥攖he book asks how we might assist survivors and the public to evaluate the state鈥檚 responses to our histories of institutional abuse and forced family separation.鈥�
These and related issues were the subject of a November 2018 conference with multiple sponsors, including the Institute for the Liberal Arts, Irish Studies Program, Morrissey College of Arts and Sciences, and the Center for Human Rights and International Justice. Among the highlights was a keynote address by then-Irish Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Katherine Zappone, Ph.D. 鈥�86, who oversaw an investigation of institutional care of unmarried mothers and their babies from 1922-1998, prompted by the discovery of a mass grave of child and infant remains on the site of a former mother and baby home.
Building on the themes of the conference, Smith, O鈥橠onnell, O鈥橰ourke, and other contributors to REDRESS examine the structures which perpetuated widespread and systematic abuses in the past and consider how political arrangements continue to exert power over survivors, adopted people, and generations of relatives, as well as controlling the remains and memorialization of the dead.
鈥淭here is a body of opinion that suggests it鈥檚 time to move on鈥攖hat with the investigations, reports, compensation agreements, etc., the subject has been covered.听 In fact, there are many reasons to be dissatisfied with the results: For example, the investigations have largely been conducted in private, without using human rights law as a framework of analysis or as a guide to ensure procedural fairness鈥攁nd their archives are inaccessible to survivors, family members, even the police. 听
鈥淲e hope that the essays will initiate a critical conversation, and ensure survivors鈥� voices are heard.鈥�
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Sean Smith | University Communications | September 2022