Summer Lecture Series: Unmarried Mothers in De Valera's Ireland

In this Lecture Rachel Fehily will examine the question….  

How did ‘unmarried mothers’ and their ‘illegitimate mixed-race children’ fare in “De Valera’s Ireland”?

Even though there has been substantive historical research, reports and literature that investigate the historical sociological, economic, legal, political, cultural, and proximate implications for women in relation to how they fared during the specific period from 1922 to 1973, De Valera’s Ireland, by academics, judges, journalists, writers, and documentarians, there is scope for examining history and historiography through the lens of intersectionality, feminism and critical race theory, focusing on the negative and positive experiences of a specific group: ‘unmarried women’ and ‘their illegitimate mixed-race children’ and assessing how and why they fared as they did. 

Rachel Fehily, who is mixed race Irish was adopted from Temple Hill, Blackrock, an adoption home for babies that the Religious Sisters of Charity of St Patrick's Guild called an 'Infant Hospital' in 1968. She is currently devoting all her time to writing a memoir to investigate and try to answer questions around her own identity, adoption, legality and multiracialism in Ireland. 

Using her own professional, personal and family's history and experiences, she will shine a light on differing adoption narratives within her family. She will explore the complications and tell some surprisingly inspirational stories about having a multi-racial, adoptive identity during a time when Ireland changed from being a repressive conservative theocracy to the multi-cultural place it is today. She will also give her professional perspective on ways that issues around Mother and Baby Homes and adoption in Ireland might be resolved through her own understanding of conflict resolution practice and from her practice as a barrister.