Hello, you're very welcome to Long Reads, Jacobin podcasts where we look in

depth at political topics and thinkers. My name is Daniel Finn and the

features editor here at Jacobin and I'll be presenting the show. Over the last

30 years the Irish state and the Catholic Church have been rocked by scandals

involving the oppression of women and the abuse of children. During the last

century, church and state in Ireland built up a system with incarceration for

women who didn't follow a repressive sexual code. They also locked up

countless children whose parents didn't have a conventional relationship or

simply didn't have the money to look after them. Violent abuse was

pervasive throughout the system of industrial schools, Magdalene

laundries, and mother and baby homes. After a long conspiracy of silence, Irish

public life finally began coming to terms with this dark history from the

1990s. It's still a major political issue in Ireland today. Our guest today is

a leading authority in Ireland's carceral state. Sarah Ambockley teaches

history at the National University of Ireland. Go away. I began by

asking her about the nature of this repressive system. So Ireland holds at

present, probably the title of having institutionalized more of its

population than any other country in the world in the 20th century. And the key

institutions that I'm going to talk about, one is the industrial and

reformatory schools and the commission to inquire into child abuse found

that abuse in these schools was systemic. It was pervasive. It was sexual

abuse, physical abuse, emotional abuse. And throughout the operation of those

...