Review Article: ‘It is with deep regret that I find it necessary to tell my story’: Child abuse in industrial schools in Ireland

Abstract

Two recent books, published in the Republic of Ireland, highlight the abuse perpetrated against economically and socially marginalized children, in industrial schools, in the period following partial independence from Britain in the early 1920s. Peter Tyrrell’s autobiographical account, published in 2006, is freshly relevant following the publication of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (2009). A book by the journalist Bruce Arnold, although flawed, also contains important messages for critical social policy analysis in the Republic and beyond.