Sarah-Anne Buckley is a lecturer in history at the National University of Ireland, Galway, author of The Cruelty Man About Child Welfare in Ireland, and editor of Soathar: the Journal of the Irish Labour History Society.
During the last century, the Irish state imprisoned a greater share of its population than any other country on Earth: not just for crimes against people or property, but for falling foul of a repressive moral code. The victims are still counting the cost.
Through the twentieth century, Irish elites treated poverty as a moral failing — and built a brutal carceral state to correct it.