In this 24 April 2023 article “The Free State’s Forgotten Children” in The Rupture magazine, Jamie Canavan argues that although the Irish republic had ideals in 1916 of “cherishing all of the children equally” instead the “newly independent state let down its women and children to such an extent that its government is repeatedly apologising to its citizens for relatively recent events?”

Canavan reviews the long history of foster care in Ireland which, she says, can be “traced as far back as 650 AD” when children from wealthy families were fostered out with families who were also financially well off but lower in the social hierarchy.

Canavan goes on to talk about the boarding out system which, under the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1862, meant children up to age 5 & living in workhouses could be placed with families in the community.

She also says that the welfare system in place before independence “remained largely the same as it was before Irish independence”.

Canavan concludes that when a

“… state has an opportunity to start fresh, keeping the most vulnerable members of society at the forefront of policy-making should be priority one…Maintaining the power structure of the coloniser lessens the power of a Revolution and leaves people in the margins to continue to feel the ramifications.”