‘DOCUMENTS OF TRUTH’?: THE 2009 RYAN REPORT AND 2013 MCALEESE REPORT Thesis submitted in accordance with the requirements of the University of Liverpool for the degree of Doctor in Philosophy by Lucy Simpson-Kilbane Institute of Irish Studies University of Liverpool December 2020 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS I wish to express my deepest gratitude to my supervisor, Professor Diane Urquhart, for her incredible support. Professor Urquhart’s expert knowledge has been invaluable and her unwavering enthusiasm for the topic encouraged me to persevere through the many highs and lows of the project. I cannot thank her enough for her patience and the time and energy she invested in my research and personal development. I would like to thank Professor Lauren Arrington, Dr Maria Power, and Dr Eleanor Lybeck who joined my supervisory team at various stages and encouraged me to view the material from different perspectives. I would also like to thank Professor Peter Shirlow and the Institute of Irish Studies for funding this project and providing opportunities for me to share ideas and gain vital feedback. I particularly wish to thank Dr Kevin Bean who prompted me to think critically about the aims of my research. I also wish to thank Patricia Sweeney of RTÉ Libraries and Archives who was extremely accommodating and located additional resources that greatly enhanced my understanding of the public response to historical institutional abuse. Finally, I would like to thank my parents and my family for their continued love and support. I particularly wish to thank my husband for the sacrifices he has made and the support he has offered throughout. I will never be able to thank him enough. i ABSTRACT ‘Documents of truth’?: The 2009 Ryan Report and 2013 McAleese Report Lucy Simpson-Kilbane Published in 2009, the Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (Ryan Report) offered an extensive and detailed examination of twentieth-century institutional abuse, shedding light on the treatment of vulnerable and impoverished children in industrial schools, reformatories, and other predominantly church-operated institutions. Four years later, the Report of the Interdepartmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries (McAleese Report) examined Ireland’s church-run Magdalen laundries for unmarried mothers and other women who it was deemed had broken moral boundaries. The Ryan and McAleese Reports were contributory to and, indeed, symptomatic of a late-twentieth- century inquiry culture and sought to facilitate a process of recognition, reconciliation, and redress. This thesis presents a collective and comparative analysis of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA) and the McAleese Committee, evaluating their mandate and aims, composition and powers, as well as their outcomes. Based on a close-reading of the Ryan and McAleese Reports and an examination of the response of survivors, the Catholic Church, academics, and journalists, this study identifies inaccuracies, omissions, and potential bias in the reports and questions whether the CICA and McAleese Committee consulted all available evidence and presented their findings effectively. Through a comparison of the survivor-driven CICA and the more time and cost-efficient administrative inquiry into state involvement with the Magdalen laundries, it is possible to identify a hierarchy of victimhood, reflecting the difficulty the Magdalen laundry survivors faced in gaining legitimate victim status. Beyond the report’s limited and, indeed, questionable statistical analysis, the McAleese Committee’s greatest failing was its inability to prioritise the statements presented by women who lived and worked in the Magdalen laundries. Consequently, while the CICA’s findings have been widely accepted, the McAleese Report’s narrative minimises the extent to which women were exploited and abused in the Magdalen laundries. Questions therefore arise regarding the accuracy of the McAleese Report and how far its publication contributed to wider efforts to come to terms with and learn from Ireland’s institutional history. ii TABLE OF CONTENTS Acknowledgements ..................................................................................................................... i Abstract ...................................................................................................................................... ii List of Illustrations .................................................................................................................... iv Abbreviations ............................................................................................................................. v Introduction .............................................................................................................................. 1 Chapter I Institutionalising Ireland, 1800-1996: gender, youth, and Ireland’s systems of relief ............ 25 Chapter II ‘Tearing down the walls of silence’: the Republic of Ireland’s inquiry culture, 1990-2011 ... 75 Chapter III A cathartic exercise or a fact-finding mission?: the aims and approaches of the CICA and McAleese Committee ........................................................................................................... 117 Chapter IV ‘Manufactured narratives’?: the CICA and McAleese Committee’s findings ...................... 175 Conclusion ............................................................................................................................ 222 Bibliography .......................................................................................................................... 235 iii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Illustration 1 Advertisement for the Residential Institutions Redress Board ........................ 98 Illustration 2 Advertisement for the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse .................. 130 Illustration 3 Marlborough House, Dublin, 1971 ................................................................ 218 Illustration 4 Poster: Students Against Direct Provision ..................................................... 232 iv ABBREVIATIONS AMRI Association of Mixed Race Irish CERD UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination CICA Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse ECHR European Convention on Human Rights EEC Economic European Community IHRC Irish Human Rights Commission IMA Irish Medical Association ISPCC Irish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children JFM Justice for Magdalenes MASI Movement of Asylum Seekers in Ireland MMC Magdalene Memorial Committee NSPCC National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children RIRB Residential Institutions Redress Board RTÉ Raidió Teilifís Éireann SOCA Survivors of Child Abuse TRC South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission UDHR Universal Declaration of Human Rights UNCAT United Nations Committee Against Torture UNCRC United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child McAleese Report Report of the Inter-departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries Ryan Report Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse 2nd RSCSDCLPI Second report of the select committee on state of disease and condition of labouring poor, in Ireland, H.C. 1819 (409) VIII, 457. v 9th RIRISI Ninth report of the inspector appointed to visit the reformatory and industrial schools of Ireland, certified under the 21st and 22nd Vic., cap. 103; 31st and 32nd Vic., cap. 59; and 31st Vic., cap. 25, [C.461], H.C. 1871, XXVIII, 927. 38th RIRISI Thirty-eighth report of the inspector appointed to visit the reformatory and industrial schools of Ireland [Cd.345], H.C. 1900, XLIII, 729. vi INTRODUCTION Shortly after the foundation of the Irish Free State in 1922, the president of the Executive Council, William T. Cosgrave, poignantly remarked that ‘kindly care for the poor is the best sign of true civilisation […] and the condition of a nation’s poor indicate[s] the character of the national mind’.1 Almost one hundred years later, Cosgrave’s sentiments were echoed by the American civil rights lawyer, Bryan Stevenson, who opined that the true measure of national character was not how society treated ‘the rich, the powerful, the privileged, and the respected’ but rather how it responded to ‘the poor, the disfavored, the accused, the incarcerated, and the condemned’.2 It is a lesson that must be considered when addressing Ireland’s institutional history and one that can also be applied within academia; a traditional ‘top-down’ understanding of the lives of the powerful remains important, but equally, if not more so, is an appreciation of the experiences of the poor and marginalised. Although historians must not discount the agency of individuals within such communities, it is through their shared experience that the impact of dominant social forces, political priorities, and prevailing social attitudes can be most clearly identified. An assessment of the treatment of individuals who were manifestly subordinate to the main power structures, and therefore most vulnerable to the vagaries of an evolving socio-political landscape, offers a means of understanding the broader character of state and society. Thus, beyond an ethical interest in uncovering their histories, it is critical that those who have been both socially and historically marginalised ‘reclaim a place in the narrative’.3 The 2009 Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse - popularly known as the Ryan Report after the commission’s