This collection raises incisive questions about the links between the postcolonial carceral system, which thrived in Ireland after 1922, and larger questions of gender, sexuality, identity, class, race and religion. This kind of intersectional history is vital not only in looking back but, in looking forward, to identify the ways in which structural callousness still marks Irish society. Essays include historical analysis of the ways in which women and children were incarcerated in residential institutions, Ireland's Direct Provision system, the policing of female bodily autonomy though legislation on prostitution and abortion, in addition to the legacies of the Magdalen laundries. This collection also considers how artistic practice and commemoration have acted as vital interventions in social attitudes and public knowledge, helping to create knowledge and re-shape social attitudes towards this history.

Foreword: Memory, violence, and the body - Marianne HirschAcknowledgementsList of abbreviationsIntroduction: Commemoration, gender, and the postcolonial carceral state - Miriam Haughton, Mary McAuliffe, and Emilie PinePart I Witnessing and remembering: Magdalen Laundries1 Public performance and reclaiming space: Waterford's Magdalen Laundry - Jennifer O'Mahoney, Kate McCarthy, and Jonathan Culleton2 'A document of truth?' Ireland's Magdalen Laundries and the McAleese Report - Lucy Simpson-Kilbane3 Unremembered in life and death: funeral and burial practices in Ireland's Magdalen Laundries - Nathalie Sebbane4 Witnessing: testimonial knowledge as ongoing memory transmission - Audrey Rousseau5 Patricia Burke Brogan's Eclipsed in Brazil: resonances and reflections - Alinne FernandesPart II Parallel histories: then and now6 From Tuam to Birmingham: a case study of children's homes in Ireland and the UK - Sarah-Anne Buckley and Lorraine Grimes7 Reflections on Ireland's 'home(s)': shame, stigma, and grievability - Clara Fischer8 'He'd never have gotten a job like that if he ' d stayed with me' - the uneasy comedy of Philomena - Mary McGill9 'That stuff is FOI-able ... and it could be used against us if someone takes a case': unlawful adoption in the past and the present - how much has changed? - Conall Ó Fátharta10 Contract, the state, and the Magdalene Laundries - Máiréad Enright11 Who is protecting who and what? The Irish state and the death of women who sell sex: a historical and contemporary analysis - Eilís Ward12 Homing in on the states we are in - Speaking of IMELDA13 Ireland's Direct Provision Centres: our past and our present - Vukasín Nedeljkovic Index