In this 31 January 2021 article from the Irish news outlet, The Journal, Jamie Canavan reports on her findings into “stories of children who were forced into ‘boarding out’” during the early 20th century.

For her PhD, Canavan has explored this early practice of ‘boarding out’, now know as foster care, for the period 1922-1991 in Ireland. As well as archival material, she conducted oral history interviews.

What she found was that even though foster care was preferred to keeping children in workhouses & religious run homes, there were problems, including “maltreatment and neglect” of children.