Author Caelainn to perform reading at River Roe Books
Author Caelainn Hogan, who has recently been shortlisted for the 2019 An Post Irish Book Awards for her book ‘Republic of Shame’, will be reading in Roe River Books on Thursday night at 7pm.
The debut book from the young Irish journalist is a harrowing account of how the Irish State and Catholic church treated women in the not too distant past.
In her examination of the infamous Magdalene laundries, she looks at how ‘fallen women’ were punished and abandoned by the church, the state and their families.
The network of institutions including Magadelene laundries and mother and baby homes ensued that women who women who had become pregnant out of wedlock were hidden from view, and in most cases their babies were adopted - sometimes illegally.
Mortality rates in these institutions were shockingly high, and the discovery of a mass infant grave at the mother-and-baby home in Tuam made news all over the world. The Irish state has commissioned investigations. But the workings of the institutions and of the culture that underpinned it - a shame-industrial complex - have long been cloaked in secrecy and silence.
While researching ‘Republic of Shame’, Hogan interviewed the survivors of the institutions, as well as members of the religious orders that ran them, and to priests and bishops.
She visited the sites of the institutions, and studied Church and state documents that have much to reveal about how they operated. Reporting and writing with great curiosity, tenacity and insight, she has produced a startling and often moving account of how an entire society colluded in this repressive system, and of the damage done to survivors and their families.
Hogan’s visit to Dundalk is part of Roe River Books’ authors series. As well as reading from her book, she will take part in an Question and Answer session with the audience. 2
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