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.