Single-mother taboo caused by Famine?

Little was written about the Irish Famine until recently, perhaps because of its impact on the Irish psyche

There is a similarity with the Holocaust of the 1940s: a generation passed before Jewish artists and scholars dealt with it. The sheer horror of the experience had made the task of confrontation impossible in the immediate aftermath.

So it must have been with the Irish famine. It is hard to conceive, but is nonetheless true, that in many parts of the country people of all ages witnessed the dead bodies of families on roadsides or in abandoned hovels.

This may be connected to the taboo surrounding children born out of wedlock, which emerged with a vengeance in post-Famine Ireland and caused such pain and distress to so many young women and their children.

In investigating the origins of this taboo (to be found in other societies, but rarely with such vehemence) many lines of inquiry need to be followed. I would hope that, among these lines, the role of the Famine is not ignored.

To what extent did the taboo of having a child out of wedlock, without clear provision for its future, derive from the image rooted in the Irish psyche of the dead Famine children?

Edmund M Hogan

Blackrock Road

Cork