Compelling tale of a family at the mercy of official Ireland

FICTION: The Cruelty Men, By Emer Martin , Lilliput, €17.25

Brown-shirted and black-hearted, the Cruelty Men are those employed to round up children as fodder for the industrial schools that pepper the towns and cities of mid-20th century Ireland. The Church, after all, gets paid by the head for the young boys and girls who provide slave labour in its industrial schools, its Magdalene laundries and institutions, most of them incarcerated for the ...