Mother-and-baby homes: It’s time for the State to realise de Valera’s ideals

Will Ireland do right by all those it has failed? asks Claire McGettrick.

ON St Patrick’s Day in 1943, then taoiseach Éamon de Valera made an address in which he shared his dream of an ideal Ireland.

His vision for women and children described “happy maidens” and “the romping of sturdy children”.