Class and the Convent - The Essay

What this episode covers

Great empty buildings, which only a few decades ago were bustling convents, tower over most towns and villages in Ireland, but they represent a world which is disappearing along with the once all-powerful Irish Roman Catholic Church. In this series of The Essay, Olivia O'Leary, convent-educated and a lapsed Catholic, asks where all the Irish nuns have gone.In her third essay, about class in the Irish Catholic Church, she describes how girls from poor backgrounds, particularly young pregnant girls, suffered harsh mistreatment in the institutions the nuns ran and felt the sharp end of their obsession with purity. How could the nuns who had been so good to Olivia belong to the same orders who punished girls whose only ‘sin’ was that they were poor or illegitimate, or that they got in trouble?Presenter Olivia O'Leary Producer Claire Cunningham A Rockfinch production for BBC Radio 3

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Frequently Asked Questions

How long is this episode of The Essay?

This episode is 13 minutes long.

When was this The Essay episode published?

This episode was published on January 4, 2023.

What is this episode about?

Great empty buildings, which only a few decades ago were bustling convents, tower over most towns and villages in Ireland, but they represent a world which is disappearing along with the once all-powerful Irish Roman Catholic Church. In this series...

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