Migrating for solace, migrating for escape: Irish women's crisis pregnancies in Britain

This talk will examine the topic of Irish women migrants and their use of cities in Britain as places to escape or shelter to deal with what would now be termed a crisis pregnancy, but was for most of the twentieth century, labelled with the stigmatizing term of unmarried mother, or in Earner Byrne's analysis, an ‘illegitimate mother’. Focusing in particular on the cities of Liverpool and London, this talk examines the extant evidence on the women and those voluntary organisations who helped them. Such an examination therefore includes an analysis of power and class dynamics which were to the fore for much of the twentieth century, both in Ireland and in Britain. The alternative prospect of staying in Ireland and entering a state or religious controlled institution meant that Britain continued to be a popular destination for Irish women to give birth. The shelter, secrecy and privacy offered by large cities was attractive when compared to the shame, judgement and potential incarceration in the land of the ‘squinting windows’ or the rural enclaves many came from. As the track descriptor states, ‘Movements of people searching for better lives and for greater opportunities, fleeing persecution and violence, or just escaping the confines of their previous lives, often end up in cities’. The city as a psychic and physical space offered Irish women experiencing unplanned pregnancies a chance to access help away from the gaze of their family or community.