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Academic Articles

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Surviving the "House of a Hundred Windows": Irish Industrial Schools in Recent Fiction and Memoirs

Michael Molino

2001

The story of industrial schools in Ireland is, then, a history of intersecting tendencies. On the one hand, initially well-intended educational and religious beliefs and practices gave way to a self-protecting system where abuse was tolerated and abusers protected. On the other hand, the stories of child abuse, often told by adults later in life, reflect a different trajectory—from a topic discussed, if at all, only in euphemistic and muted terms to an incendiary issue where guilt is often immediately assumed. This paradoxical history, with all its ambivalent attitudes, has been pointedly revealed in recent fiction and memoirs, where the stories of children sent to industrial schools are given voice and the horrors of institutional life exposed.

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Children and young people in social care, and those who have left, are often subject to stigmatisation and discrimination. Being stigmatised and discriminated against can impact negatively on mental health and wellbeing not only during the care experience but often for many years after too. The project aims to contribute towards changing community attitudes towards care experienced people as a group.

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