Ground Zero: Ireland and the Church Abuse Crisis: References & Edit History

Scholarship on Ireland’s devotional revolution begins with Emmet Larkin’s seminal paper, “The Devotional Revolution in Ireland, 1850–75” in The American Historical Review, Vol. 77, No. 3 (June 1972), pp. 625–652. Mary Raftery’s RTÉ documentary series States of Fear (1999) remains a seminal exposé of abuse in Ireland’s industrial schools. Along with the Irish government’s reports on its commissions to investigate institutional abuse, other helpful information is available in Ireland’s Magdalen Laundries and the Nation’s Architecture of Containment (2007) by James M. Smith; Republic of Shame: Stories from Ireland’s Institutions for “Fallen Women” (2019) by Caelainn Hogan; Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice (2021) by Claire McGettrick, Katherine O’Donnell, Maeve O’Rourke, James M. Smith, and Mari Steed; Redress: Ireland’s Institutions and Transitional Justice (2022), edited by Katherine O’Donnell, Maeve O’Rourke, and James M. Smith; and A Dublin Magdalene Laundry: Donnybrook and Church-State Power in Ireland (2023) edited by Maeve O’Rourke, Katherine O’Donnell, and Mark Coen. In The Best Catholics in the World: The Irish, the Church and the End of a Special Relationship (2021), Derek Scally of The Irish Times focuses on the history of Catholicism in modern Ireland and the country’s increasing secularism since the abuse crisis.

Notable memoirs by survivors of Ireland’s religious-run institutions and those who experienced abuse include The God Squad (1988) by Paddy Doyle; Angela’s Ashes (1996) by Frank McCourt; and Rememberings (2021) by Sinéad O’Connor. Some contemporary novels offer powerful, well-researched stories of 20th-century Irish abuse survivors. Recommended are The Butcher Boy (1992) by Pat McCabe; The Cruelty Men (2018) and Thirsty Ghosts (2023) by Emer Martin; and Small Things Like These (2020) by Claire Keegan.