Children of the Poor Clares

Book excerpt: The original 1985 edition of Children of the Poor Clares was the first book to expose the reality of the treatment of children placed in church care in Ireland's post-independence horrendous industrial school system. Giving an intimate picture, covering over four decades, of life in one of these institutions, it documented the gross physical and emotional abuse, neglect, malnourishment, exploitation, lack of proper education, deprivation, and humiliation that scarred the children for life. It further identified the collusion of the state and its own lawbreaking that enabled the abuse in its vast apparatus of incarceration of impoverished children. This revised updated edition gives chilling details of revelations that have since become public and of the state's ultimate responsibility for what took place.