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Infanticide And The Twentieth Century Ireland Essay

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Trinity College Dublin Infanticide in Nineteenth and Twentieth Century Ireland Life In Modern Ireland Kelsey Imler Dr. Wallace 18 November 2016 Infanticide is just what the name implies—a homicide, or murder, of an infant. For the purposes of this essay, the broadest definition of infanticide will be used to include the murder of all babies under the age of one year. Infanticide was a very complex, multifaceted and unfortunately common issue in the Republic of Ireland in the ninetieth and twentieth centuries. In fact, “cases of attempted infant murder, infanticide or concealment of birth were detected on a weekly basis in the latter half of nineteenth-century Ireland” . This essay aims to examine key aspects of infanticide to give a comprehensive understanding of the problem and will do so by examining the work of different four historians. First, Carroll’s article, “Memorandum Re: Women and Girls Who Come before the Central Criminal Court on Serious Charges – And Other Relevant Matters”, will draw a detailed picture of what a typical infanticide case looked like from start to finish . Then, an examination of “Done to death by father or relatives’: Irish families and infanticide cases, 1922–1950” by Rattigan will show the major influence that the church and society had on women pregnant with illegitimate children and rates of infanticide . Next, “"The fellow said it was not harm and only tricks": The Role of the Father in Suspected Cases of Infanticide in

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