Description: A clear-eyed examination of Ireland and Northern Ireland's efforts to provide justice for victims of institutional abuse.
REDRESS explores how Ireland and Northern Ireland have dealt with the past century's legacy of institutional abuse, focusing on those who suffered in Magdalene Laundries, industrial and reformatory schools, homes for unwed mothers, and in the two countries' closed and secretive adoption system. The authors of the essays collected here interrogate the structures that perpetuated widespread and systematic abuses in the past, and consider how political arrangements continue to exert power over survivors and their relatives, as well as controlling the remains and memorialization of the dead. The collection forensically examines both Ireland and Northern Ireland's so-called "redress" schemes and investigations, and the statements of apology that accompanied them. With diverse and interdisciplinary perspectives, this collection considers how a survivor-centered approach to transitional justice might assist not only those personally affected by institutional abuses, but also policymakers, scholars, and the public at large. The editors of REDRESS are donating all royalties in the name of survivors and all those affected by Ireland's carceral institutions and family separation to the charity Empowering People in Care (EPIC).Brief description: Katherine O'Donnell is associate professor of the history of ideas at the University College Dublin School of Philosophy.
Review Quotes: "A powerful account of abuse in Irish institutions. . . . Questions of how archives are accessed and who gets to access them should be at the forefront of historical scholarship, and this volume provides a compelling and powerful discussion about how academics, the state, and the wider public engage with concepts of narrative authority, control over knowledge, and the varying value placed on different types of evidence."-- "Women's History Review"