A not so Free State for all

Stanhope Street Magdalene laundry, in a still from No Country for Women on RTÉ One

‘All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” – Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy

Ireland was full of unhappy families in the apparently terrible society that existed from the foundation of the Free State through to our more enlightened times. This is one inescapable conclusion to be drawn from the roiling wave of media analysis of Irish society which focuses almost entirely on the barbarity of the country’s ...