County home (Ireland)

After the abolition of the existing system of workhouses, administration was centralised under the county councils, with the following model:[6] These reforms were retrospectively legalised by the Local Government (Temporary Provisions) Act, 1923.

[8] Girls and women pregnant outside of marriage were sometimes sent to Magdalene asylums and Mother and Baby Homes, where they were required to perform heavy labour and often received substandard care; they were often forced to place their children for adoption.

Women who kept their children were often not wanted by their families and struggled to find employment or housing, so a large number of unmarried mothers were forced to live in county homes.

As a symbol of the failure of the newly independent state to provide for the needs of its people, the county home has occasionally featured in fiction.

Sebastian Barry's 1995 play The Steward of Christendom takes place in a county home, depicting the fractured memories of a mentally-ill former policeman.