Catholic Action and the Development of the Irish Welfare State in the 1930s and 1940s

‘Straightening Crooked Souls’: Psychology and Children in Custody in 1950s and 1960s Ireland*

“…Mediated through a 'socio-spiritual' (Skehill, 2003(Skehill, , 2007 lens, this discourse was imbued with the ideological precepts of Catholic social teaching. Catholic social teaching of the period, and in particular the tenets of 'Catholic Action' -which promoted the 'participation of the Catholic laity in the Hierarchical Apostolate' with the aim of restoring 'Catholic life to the family and to society' -derived its substantive philosophy from papal encyclicals, such as Rerum Novarum (1891) and Quadragesimo Anno (1931) (Campbell, 1935, p. 284;Kelly, 1999). The latter encyclical, 'on the reconstruction of the social order' articulated, in its own terms, 'a new social philosophy' that would navigate a path through the moral perils of modernity and the welfare state, between the 'idols of liberalism' and the 'alluring poison' of socialism (Pius XI, 1931, paras.…”

“…'All and Sundry of the Modern Methods': Psychiatry and Psychology for the Institutionalised Irish Child By the latter half of the 1950s, however, a greater interest in empirical research, statistical methods, and psychological approaches was evident in the discussions of delinquency and the institutional care of children in Irish Catholic sociological journals. An important forum for this emergent discussion was the priestly sociological journal, Christus Rex, the imprint of a Catholic Action society of the same name, established by newly ordained priests in 1941 at St. Patrick's College (Kelly, 1999). In 1955 Mona Macauley, a campaigner for children's rights and a social worker with several voluntary and statutory agencies including the Infant Aid Society, the Adoption Board, and the Joint Committee of Women's Societies and Social Workers (Irish Times, 1984), published an article in Christus Rex on the role of voluntary societies in the care of deprived and dependent children (Macauley, 1955).…”

Religion, partisanship and preferences for redistribution

“…Successive governments from 1923 were influenced by the austere economic principles of the founder of Sinn Féin, Arthur Griffith (Powell, 2017). Limiting expansion of the state became a guiding principle under both Cumann na nGaedheal and Fianna Fáil governments (Kelly, 1999;Powell, 2017). Moreover, given the predominantly agricultural Irish economy, and the influence of rural interests in setting the political agenda, the state prioritized land redistribution, leading to what Norris (2016) terms a 'property-based welfare state'.…”

Catholic Sociology in Ireland in Comparative Perspective

“…In the Irish case, Catholic action took the form of a rich variety of inter-connected organisations and societies such as An Rioghacht, the Knights of Columbanus, Saint Vincent de Paul, Muintir na Tíre, the Legion of Mary, the Christus Rex Society, and the Catholic Young Men's Societies as well as entities such as the Dublin Institute of Catholic Sociology, all of which were engaged in promoting lay participation in the church though with varying degrees of success 1 (Hartigan 1992;O'Driscoll 1994;O'Leary 2000;Kelly 1999). As in other Catholic countries, these organisations tended to cut across class lines-some catering to the interests of farmers-such as Muintir na Tíre, for example-while others-such as the Dublin Institute of Catholic Sociology-responded to the needs of the working-classes particularly in the area of adult education.…”