Search Results for 'Unbroken'

For a century and a half, policymakers and preachers have tried to break Ireland’s matriarchal spine. First came colonial statutes that stripped women of ancient Brehon era property rights; then, after Independence, a clerical regime insisted a woman’s duty began and ended inside four walls and that maxim even made its way into the Constitution. Both forces notched victories on paper. Yet the lived chain of female authority, mother to daughter, sister to sister never snapped. I know, because that chain carried me out of Bessborough Mother-and-Baby Home and set me, my child, and several generations of my family back on our feet.

In 1831 Patrick Broderick, from Loughrea, was charged with insurrectionary crimes at the Galway Assizes, and cruelly sentenced to spend the rest of his life in a criminal colony ‘beyond the seas’ in New South Wales, Australia. He was barred from ever returning to his native land. His wife Mary, son John and daughters Ann and Catherine, were left destitute on the infamous Clanricarde estate, one with more than 2,000 tenants.