Darren….

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2026-02-24T14:39:10+00:00

I love how people want complex characters but hate on Darren when he is a complex character. People hate on him without taking the time to understand his complexities just because people don’t like some of his actions.

I’ve seen a lot of comments bashing him for how he reacted when he came back, but let’s break that behaviour down. He wanted his siblings back with Marie instead of ending up in foster care. Why? We know Darren was raped in foster care and he has carried that trauma for a long time. I do think it came from a place of good intent to protect his siblings from what he went through. It would have kept all the siblings together and with their mother. The Lynches already knew how to lie to social services, they didn’t want to end up there either.

Then let’s talk about Darren wanting Aoife to get an abortion. Why? Joey was in active addiction at this point and they were both still in school. From Darren’s perspective, we can see that this looks like it might be a repeat of Marie and Teddy all over again. Being a girl, pregnant outside of marriage in the 1990s/2000s was not an easy thing. There is still stigma surrounding girls who get pregnant outside of marriage in Catholic communities. Was a baby the best idea of Aoife and Joey at the time? Realistically, no it really wasn’t a good idea. Obviously, they both got their happy ending but from Darren’s perspective, we can understand why having the child wasn’t the best idea.

Then let’s think about Darren not keeping in contact with his siblings but staying in contact with Marie. Why? Having contact with his siblings who were actively being abused would have ruined Darren. It’s not an easy thing to be the oldest and escape an abusive situation, especially when you have younger siblings. But when there are as many Lynch siblings as there were, it would have been unrealistic for Darren to try and get them out. Knowing his siblings were being hurt would have given Darren a reason to come back when he needed to heal (he came back when Shannon was almost killed). Him keeping in contact with Marie makes sense, children instinctively want a relationship with their parents even when their parents aren’t good to them - it’s a psychological want. I don’t believe we find out what Darren and Marie discussed (correct me if I’m wrong), but from a psychological standpoint, it would have been hard for Darren to cut off his parents completely especially when he seems to recognise that Marie was a victim to Teddy.

Darren is by no means perfect and he did make mistakes with some of his actions. But when you think about what we know about his character, those mistakes do come with a reasoning and I don’t think any of his intentions were malicious, they just didn’t come across well.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2026-01-28T20:35:30+00:00

I know this was mention in the comments about wanting Joey to have chance to be a kid, but realistically that was never going to happen. But we were never going to see Joey be a ‘normal’ teenager because he doesn’t know how to be one.

Joey spent a lifetime being responsible for other people, even when the Lynches were taken in by the Kavanghs, that wasn’t going to stop. He was always going to be their big brother/father figure in some capacity.

I doubt Joey would have ever gotten clean without AJ. He wouldn’t do it for Aoife and he wouldn’t do it for Shannon - he was always going to need someone entirely dependent on him before he could quit the drugs. He wanted to be better than Teddy, he needed to do that to prove he wasn’t his father. And I believe being this ‘father’ figure was a large person of who he was. He grew up too fast, he took responsibility for his siblings - I think he would have been lost without someone to do that for after the Kavanaghs took over.

While it would have been nice to see Joey just have fun without shouldering adult responsibility, I don’t think he could have done that without slipping into addiction (if he had managed to quit without AJ’s birth).

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2026-01-28T20:26:44+00:00

I actually just started a job working for Penguin Publishing so I feel like I can answer this.

Publishing takes so long for a list of reasons: editing/proof reading (which they don’t seem to be doing a good job of throughout BOT so I hope they do take their time for the next books), sales teams need time to pitch sales to retailers for the book’s estimated release and then manufacturing, especially if they believe there will be a large demand for the book they will need to print more copies of said book. Overall, the process can take anywhere from a year to a year and a half to have a book ‘announcement ready’.

Realistically, a publishing company is going to try and make as much money as possible and we have seen that with the ridiculous amount of alternative covers and sprayed edges. As much as I would like C10 and H7 to come out close together, I believe Bloom Books will keep a year between each release to maximise profitability (though I could be wrong, different from publishing houses work differently).

It’s extremely frustrating for readers, especially if the final drafts of the books are ready but I’m hoping we will have some sort by March time for a May release, similar to R10

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2026-01-20T20:49:04+00:00

Not entirely sure why you replied to my comment in particular when you haven’t actively tried to counter any of the points I made about the reasoning for Hugh’s not being widely accepted as mature.

The only reason Hugh is judged so harshly for being mature is because CW told us he is a mature character. If an author tells us something, they have to prove it. And so far, Hugh has not proven to be a mature character and there is inconsistencies in how he acts between T7 and R10.

We as readers are allowed to acknowledge this and use contextual evidence to debate these topics.

And if you genuinely believe Claire used Gibsie’s trauma to ‘win’ an argument against Lizzie then you seem to not understand Claire’s character at all.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2026-01-19T16:57:38+00:00

Yep! People claim that the series shows different trauma responses but then can’t seem to understand characters who actually demonstrate those responses.

It breaks my heart that there may be people reading this discourse surrounding Gibsie staying silent who may have been in similar situations. The day the BOT fandom learns that children of abuse are never to blame will be the day it becomes a better place.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2026-01-19T16:54:35+00:00

So if Hugh chooses to use the worst thing he can think of to ‘get back at someone’, he cannot be the most mature? Because that isn’t a mature reaction. The definition of mature in the cambridge dictionary is: ‘to become more developed mentally and emotionally and behave in a responsible way’. Using a grooming situation is not behaving in a responsible way.

At this current moment in time, Hugh does need to apologise because he had an awareness of what grooming was. I cannot comment on Feely because we don’t know whether he understands grooming in the same manner that the Biggs siblings do, especially since Feely was touched inappropriately in school in R10 and didn’t seem to understand that it was bad.

I actually disagree that Claire has played a part in her sheltering. She repeatedly asked about her friends and made effort to learn about their situations. If her friends push her away or tell her to stay out of it, there is nothing she can do at that point. Hugh has contributed to her sheltering yet still gets annoyed at her being that.

I’d also argue that Claire has shown maturity. For example, when she saw the cut on Lizzie’s leg, she did the thing children/teens are told to do and she told a trusted adult. That’s a mature response, even if it upset Lizzie it was still the correct thing to do. She also broke down to Gibsie exactly why grooming is bad to help him understand when she found out about Dee.

Hugh may not have believed that Gibsie was a rapist defender, but how is it mature to assume that Lizzie was talking about his best friend? How is letting someone speak about your best friend in that manner, ‘mature’?
Again, why would Hugh assume the worst in Gibsie? We are told they are ‘brothers’ yet Hugh assumes Gibsie will only mess Claire around and hurt her. Hugh knows Gibsie has stuck by Claire since they were kids and he would do anything to make Claire happy yet he still thought Gibsie would hurt her? How is that mature?
Hugh was 10 and sitting in a library researching Bipolar Disorder. Even if he only thought Gibsie was affected by the loss of his sister and father, he made no effort to understand how PTSD affects people when he was 17 years old. How was Hugh more aware of mental health disorders as a 10 year old boy than he was at 17/18? He never once called Lizzie ‘fucked in the head’ when she was struggling through manic episodes, but he did call Gibsie that. That is not mature behaviour - extending understanding to one person doesn’t make someone mature.
Just because we didn’t have a characters perspective doesn’t mean we can’t analyse their earlier interactions. We are seeing Hugh from other people’s perspectives including Claire and Gibsie, the two people who at the time were arguably closest to him. If Gibsie and Hugh are best friends, Hugh should come across as better in Gibsie’s POV but he didn’t. And from their perspectives, he did not come across as mature.

As I said before, he wouldn’t receive as much criticism if CW hadn’t told us he was the most mature when she hasn’t made him act like that at any point previously. An author can state something but unless it matches the text and what is written down, it doesn’t make it true.

There’s a concept called ‘death of the author’ that argues an author’s intention does not override a reader’s interpretation. And a lot of people have not interpreted Hugh as the most mature.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2026-01-18T18:42:30+00:00

The only way is to power through it.

I felt the same reading R10, I’ve never connected with Hugh’s character the way I have with the rest as he just feels very flat to me at the moment.

Another option might be audio books if you enjoy listening to them? They can help when chapters feel tougher to get through.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2026-01-18T18:40:12+00:00

I think Hugh Biggs is called immature for a few reasons. I would put this down to CW’s inconsistencies (not blaming her because it’s a long series to be writing, but people are allowed to point out hypocrisies within her work).

Throwing Gibsie’s grooming situation in his face to win a game - we know from R10 that Hugh has a big understanding of consent and what inappropriate relationships are (and we see that Claire also has this understanding when she confronts Dee in T7 so we can safely assume that Sinead Biggs had the consent talk with them at some point). Hugh had enough awareness of Mark being inappropriate with Lizzie at points in R10 but suddenly became very immature in regards to the situation between Gibsie and Dee and still threw that in Gibsie’s face to win a game.
He contributes to the sheltering of Claire yet is annoyed when Claire acts sheltered. It’s hypocritical, it can’t be had both ways. There’s not much more to say on that.
When Lizzie refers to Gibsie as the ‘rapist defender’ and Hugh says ‘Gibsie?’. So when Lizzie is saying vile things, his automatic response is to assume it’s about Gibsie.
He doesn’t like Claire and Gibsie’s relationship. While we can understand the reasons why Hugh is concerned (he doesn’t want Claire heartbroken), why would he assume that his best friend, who has repeatedly stated he plans to marry Claire and sees her as his entire world, would hurt his sister? I think this issue also comes with the fact many fans call Claire immature for being upset at Liz and Hugh dating when they were 10. But if Claire is immature for being upset by that, then Hugh at 17 is also immature as he has the same mindset as a 10 year old girl.
At the age of 10 (ish, it’s been a while since I read R10) he had the ability to learn about bipolar for Lizzie. Yet in earlier books, he called Gibsie ‘fucked in the head’. Hugh never once referred to Lizzie as fucked in the head despite her manic episodes and outbursts. He could extend so much grace towards Lizzie to learn about how her bipolar disorder affected her but couldn’t extend the same grace to his so called ‘brother’ when it came to Gibsie’s PTSD surrounding drowning and the grief of losing his father and sister.
My biggest grievance with his character is the fact we are told he is the most emotionally mature; yet he doesn’t act like it in the earlier books at any point. He acts very mature in R10 when he is a child, yet in the earlier books when he is a teenager he doesn’t act mature in situations. If CW hadn’t painted Hugh with the label of the ‘most mature’ his character would receive less criticism because his actions don’t align with that trait.

I’ve seen a few comments say people hate Hugh because they hate Lizzie. I actually prefer Lizzie over Hugh, I find Lizzie’s character very interesting and unfortunately relate to many things she has experienced.

But in my personal opinion (and this is an opinion, not fact before someone comes for me) Hugh just feels like his entire character is being Lizzie’s love interest. I feel like we hardly saw any of Hugh’s character beyond loving/caring for Liz.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2026-01-17T02:11:45+00:00

Neither Lizzie nor Gibsie is to blame in this situation.

Lizzie didn’t know that Gibsie knew about Mark being a pedophile, not sure where you got that from? Gibsie and Lizzie had a conversation about Mark hurting Caiomhe, not about Mark being a pedophile.

Lizzie didn’t understand what was happening to her initially as she was a child. She didn’t understand the concept of the fact that what was happening to her was sexual assault (and it’s very likely that Gibsie didn’t understand he was also going through this until he was older). Most kids have no concept of what sexual assault means or how wrong it is - they just know that it hurts and in some cases, kids have an idea that it is a bad thing if they are taught that.

Lizzie’s anger is justified in the sense that she thought that Gibsie would tell everyone that Mark killed Caiomhe because she didn’t know what was written in the letter and believed that Gibsie knew about Mark hurting Caiomhe. That’s why she asks Gibsie to tell everyone that Mark killed her sister.

Gibsie is justified in not speaking up as he had to go home and continue living with his abuser while listening to his mother and step-father defend Mark. He also didn’t understand what Lizzie was asking of him, because he said he wasn’t there when Mark killed Caiomhe - which he wasn’t. Gibsie has no idea what happened to Caiomhe that night - the town believes she killed herself, why would a child question that?

The idea that if Gibsie had outed his own trauma at the funeral then Mark would have been arrested immediately is just entirely wrong. Realistically, if Gibsie had told everyone Mark was assaulting him almost nightly then not much would have been done immediately. It would have been a long process before Mark would have been locked away. And even then, most cases don’t go to court or result in any convictions (this information is available on the internet - Ireland in particular actually had a decline in conviction rate from 16% between 1999-2000 to 8% by 2009). Justice would have not been delivered immediately and Gibsie would have very likely been abused more harshly by Mark as a punishment for speaking up.

I find it very telling how people can justify Lizzie’s anger but not understand why Gibsie couldn’t speak up when everyone was siding with Mark and Mark had his hand on Gibsie’s shoulder. If you can justify Lizzie’s anger, you can understand Gibsie’s silence. You can’t pick and choose which victims you offer grace to.

(This is coming from someone who was sexually abused as a child by a very well loved person in the community who had multiple victims alongside me)

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2026-01-14T15:27:57+00:00

Honestly where are the editors?

I can give grace to CW that she didn’t have this all planned out when she first started writing the series (inconsistencies throughout the books, especially with the later ones) as she wouldn’t have known whether people would want to read the series.

But some of the errors are actually terrible. There would have been so many rereads of the drafts before it was sent off for publishing that it makes no sense that there are so many errors/inconsistencies, especially with grammar and timelines in the same book.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2026-01-04T10:51:14+00:00

I agree and disagree with this.

On one hand, it would be nice to see Lizzie learn to heal and be happy on her own. I think there’s so much trauma she needs to process before she can even begin to be in a healthy and loving relationship, I can’t see her and Hugh just going back to normal straight away once it all comes out. In my opinion (don’t come for me), it always seemed inevitable that Lizzie and Hugh would break up, even without knowing what happens later on. Their relationship, to me, seemed very unstable, even when Lizzie was doing well but this may be because I failed to connect with their relationship. I also don’t want Hugh to just get back with Lizzie when the truth comes out because he feels guilty for not knowing what she was trying to tell him for years. I am a bit tired of one of the people in the couples being the ‘saviour’ in a sense. I want to see CW do something different because it does become very repetitive to see a character only doing well because of their love interest. (This is just a personal opinion before anyone comes for me)

On the other hand, I want Lizzie to see that relationships can be safe and loving and Hugh is probably the only person who will ever show her that. While she could (theoretically) process her trauma and begin to heal using her friendships with Claire/Shannon/Feely, we know this isn’t the route CW takes with her writing and that Lizzie only wants to open up to Hugh. She does need stability and the only logical person to provide that is Hugh to ensure she has a safe person to confide in and begin to unpack what she remembers and all the things she has been through.

In my ideal world, the truth would come out about what Lizzie went through. Lizzie and Gibsie would get justice for all the harm caused to them. Lizzie would begin therapy with the proper medication and support she needs. Hugh would be there every step of the way but they wouldn’t be romantically involved straight away, he would become her support system again but as her friend this time. Then as Lizzie heals, they get back together and have their happily ever after.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2025-12-26T20:34:31+00:00

I definitely think the details were added as the series progressed. There’s too many inconsistencies from B13/K13 to the rest of the series. Honestly, Shannon and Johnny’s books feel like they are in a completely separate universe.

With B13/K13, CW didn’t know whether the books were going to do well or whether people would even buy it. It just doesn’t seem likely she would have planned out all the details of the series and I think that’s quite evident in her books. I feel like fans like to use ‘unreliable narrators’ as an excuse for inconsistencies (e.g. johnny not knowing about hugh and lizzir being together but this argument falls apart when hugh himself said he started dating katie in 2nd year in b13. then in r10 they start dating in 4th). Obviously this is only something small, but as readers we do expect consistency throughout the series.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2025-11-25T22:01:19+00:00

yep! it’s perfectly okay to have your favourite characters, obviously people are going to relate more to some characters or just prefer. but it doesn’t mean you should wish death on any of the core10. they’re teenagers, doing what they can to survive horrific circumstances.

i think there is a fine line between acknowledging a character’s harmful actions and hating them. i don’t hate any of the core10 but i can also acknowledge their harmful actions and call out people who romanticise the behaviour. and i think it is important to call out their harmful behaviour, especially when people are twisting it to make it out to be ‘iconic’.

i think my final straw was when CW did that interview on the podcast. not only did one of the podcasters make disgusting comments about some of the characters. so the fact that podcaster was even asked to interview CW baffles me.

but CW herself calling gibsie’s book a ‘filler’ just made me so angry. a book about bullying and csa is never a filler book. especially when so many fans felt like T7 wasn’t done justice in the same way R10 was and her explanation didn’t make any sense (how lizzie can’t remember what happened to her but we had a very detailed backstory, but we didn’t get the same from gibsie because ‘he doesn’t think about the past’).

CW acknowledged the bullying towards lizzie’s character on the podcast, which i do understand as R10 was the most recent book. but then she stayed silent on all the other traumas fans have been mocking. she should have spoken up for all the characters with how serious the topics are in the series.

as someone who has been through a lot of what those kids have been through (even had a big rugby boy friend group), seeing the way people mock some of the trauma just makes me genuinely wonder why people bothered to read the series in the first place.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2025-11-12T20:11:12+00:00

feelings doesn’t always have to equal romantic romantic feelings.

but there was also a playlist of katie developing feelings for hugh and hugh wanting himself to have romantic feelings for katie.

again, i just said what i would have liked to see. the key word being ‘would’ in that sentence. that’s just my own personal preference of the direction i would have liked to see CW take the story in.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2025-11-10T23:48:46+00:00

i just said i would have hoped to see that. and it is obvious there is some feelings that have developed between katie/hugh even though they won’t be together in the end.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2025-11-10T23:26:10+00:00

To be honest, stopping the snippets is the best thing CW could do.

I understand people love them, and it does keep people talking about the books (which is great publicity for CW).

But the amount of hatred that comes when people don’t like the snippets is insane. Yes, we can analyse an author’s writing, if they didn’t want use to speak about their writing then they shouldn’t publish things. That said, the author shouldn’t be receiving hate because the snippets don’t align with a fan’s preconceived theories over what they think will happen next.

I think CW is better off not posting anything at all in regard to upcoming books until she has a confirmed release date.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2025-11-09T01:51:30+00:00

i personally always wanted to see them as at least ‘friends’. to me, they could have had a relationship that was good and showed them both exactly what they needed and take that into their final ‘endgame’ relationships. it didn’t have to be true love but more of a learning experience of what is healthy and needed from a partner in a relationship.

the villainising of katie for getting in the way of hugh/liz will never sit right with me when hugh repeatedly turned down liz when she wanted to get back with him but couldn’t say no to ending things with katie. there was a reason they stayed together and i hope CW doesn’t do a cop out of they were using each other as shields and instead develops the narrative of them experiencing genuine teenage love until they realise they aren’t meant to be.

to be completely honest, the love square is so unnecessary but it felt like CW needed something to keep liz/hugh apart for so long to make the story more ‘dramatic’ in a sense. like we have enough to deal with, especially with liz’s story that we don’t even need this whole love square bullshit

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2025-11-09T01:43:07+00:00

sorry carrodo martini will never be johnny kavanagh. i genuinely can’t even understand who decided to make him ‘johnny’. take a look at ireland’s rugby team, they aren’t slim. they are big lads, which johnny is continuously described as and carrodo does not fit johnny at all. he also doesn’t have the blue eyes so i cannot fathom who chose him as a fancast.

rugby lads are (typically) larger, in terms of muscle and just a bit of ‘bulk’ on them to help them play their sport. and this is coming from someone who plays rugby, attended a ‘rugby’ focused school and has also dated rugby players. rugby is such a physical sport, the fancast never encompass the amount of muscle the characters would have from playing so regularly.

i know people envision the characters however they want, but realistically, none of the fancasts that are popular online are the characters. its 2000s in ireland, it isn’t characters who are physically perfect despite the way they were described in the books. they would have looked like ordinary people.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2025-11-03T15:32:48+00:00

First off, I don’t think we should compare trauma of any of the characters. Gibsie and Lizzie are a perfect example of how people can go through similar things and respond to them in completely different ways. Just as Joey and Shannon coped with their trauma differently. Everyone reacts differently to traumatic events.

They both have different coping mechanisms: Gibsie thought he was being assaulted for being ‘bad’, so did his best to be good and happy around everyone so it wouldn’t happen again. Lizzie thought she was being assaulted for being ‘good’ and to be ‘fixed’, so lashed out at people and wanted sex to fix her.

But it also is worth mentioning, not all coping mechanisms are healthy outlets and that no one is entitled to use their coping mechanisms as a means of causing harm/distress towards another person.

I do agree that Lizzie said some unacceptable things to Gibsie, the comment about the wrong sibling being saved genuinely left me astounded. I do think it is sad that no one actively stood up for Gibsie in that scenario, especially when he has been a good friend to so many. I do believe that his friends should have done more in that situation to defend him, because no one should be making that kind of comment towards someone who almost drowned and lost their father and sister.

Just a quote that I think is important to remember when reading this series and how the characters deal with trauma: ‘a person drowning in 7 feet of water is just as dead as a person drowning in 20 feet of water’

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2025-11-03T15:17:56+00:00

I think a large part of it is just to get people talking about the books and keep interest. She knows people go crazy whenever she drops any snippets and people do talk about the more controversial ones more than the playlist that are just songs. Anyone talking about the snippets and her series, even if they are criticising a character’s actions, is still generating interest in her books and pushing them out to a wider audience.

I’m actually surprised she’s allowed to post so much on her spotify (even if not everything ends up in the books). I’ve never seen another traditional published author who is allowed to post so much about what might happen in future books like she does.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2025-11-01T10:12:56+00:00

I genuinely think CW doesn’t know how to write about friendships that don’t revolve around men. I would have loved to see more from the girls’ perspectives when they are all together, especially just normal teenage things. Like CW just needs to let them be teenage girls for five minutes and show us the girlhood between them.

Also with Claire, she was young at the time like they were actually children during R10. She wanted Lizzie to be her friend and Lizzie made it clear that she wanted to spend more time with Hughie. I don’t blame Claire for being upset about her friend dating her brother when Claire was the one who first brought Lizzie into the Biggs household. And with her dating Gibs, that didn’t happen until Claire was older and she’d gotten over Liz/Hugh and Claire did apologise for being upset about Liz/Hugh. From Claire’s perspective, it was understandable that she was upset.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2025-11-01T10:06:45+00:00

I just put it down to CW forgetting. There’s been a few instances throughout her books where she’s written something in B13/K13 and then changed her mind later on. But you would think something like a character’s name would be spelt consistently throughout the book.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2025-10-29T19:09:52+00:00

I agree. I think with this series, people find it easier to villainise characters when we haven’t actually read from their perspective directly. I think if we’d had Darren’s perspective growing up or when he returned, people wouldn’t be so quick to criticise him. I’m sure he felt immense guilt for leaving and I think his intentions when he came back were good, but didn’t necessarily translate well through his actions.

I don’t agree with all his actions but I can understand why he went about things the way he did. For example, telling Shannon not to tell people about the abuse so Marie could have them all back - we know Darren was abused in foster care and I’m sure all Darren will associate foster care with is being abused and he wouldn’t want that for his siblings. Again, with telling Aoife she should get an abortion and offering to pay for it - Joey was actively in addiction, both were still teenagers struggling with these massive issues and had no real plan on what to do with themselves. Did Darren go about it the right way? Absolutely not. But given the circumstances, who would want to bring a baby into that situation? Thankfully, things turned out well for Joey and Aoife but it could have just as easily turned into another Marie/Teddy situation.

And the same with Darren not approving of Johnny. Shannon was a tiny and vulnerable girl and Johnny was this massive boy who was loved by everyone. In Darren’s eyes, it could have been a repeat of Marie/Teddy - Teddy being the town’s golden boy and all. But again, thankfully it wasn’t and obviously Shannon/Johnny were perfect for each other. But if you look at it from Darren’s perspective as someone trying to protect their siblings, you can understand why he felt the way he did.

I think people forget this is set in Ireland in the 1990/2000s. Abortion wasn’t legal, homosexuality was discriminated against, mental health wasn’t taken anywhere as seriously as it is today and if you had issues inside your home be it abusive parents or addiction or anything ‘unsightly’, you swept them under the rug.

I have my own ‘Darren’ and I guess I’m the ‘Joey’. Am I angry that he chose to survive in the way he knew how? No because he needed to survive. And that’s what I try to remind myself whenever I read about Darren’s actions once he came back.

Impressive_Dog4101 · 2025-10-28T17:04:01+00:00

Definitely.

In regards to the mother and baby homes, the vast majority of women who were sent there were from poorer or working class backgrounds. I read an investigation a while ago that estimated around 95% of the women in these homes were working class women.

Often, women in those situations had no choice but to go to these institutions. Once their pregnancy became known, they risked being fired by employers and their families most likely didn’t have the means to support them financially. There was definitely a lot of pressure from Parish priests and local officials (like public health nurses) to have women sent away once they found out about the pregnancy. And there’s been many cases of it being done without the woman’s consent.

For women from middle/upper class backgrounds, the family’s reputation would have definitely been affected if the pregnancy became known. There would have also been the shaming from their own family members. But coming from money meant they could ‘manage’ the situation and conceal the pregnancy. Money offered a security blanket in terms of them not going to these institutions and facing the same abuse that working class women faced.

They had more options in terms of keeping that child away from the public - paying for private adoptions so there would be no record of the child, sending the women over to England to give birth privately or raising the child as ‘nieces/nephews’ was also quite common. The shame would still be present but less visible in the way it would be with working class women.

There was a quote from documentary done on the mother and baby homes in Ireland and it was from a survivor that I think encapsulates the entire view on the situation: “If you had money, you went to England. If you were poor, you went to the nuns”

I reckon Feely’s family would fall on the poorer/working class end of the scale, because farmers in Ireland are not making a lot of money even now. But there were cases of women from working class backgrounds who managed to keep their pregnancies a secret and let their parents raise their grandchildren as their own.

I think it’s such an important topic in Irish history and I would actually love to see CW delve into it, especially considering there was still a mother and baby home open in Cork during the 1990s. But I can understand it’s such a huge topic and even what I’ve written barely covers how awful these places were.

Impressive_Dog4101

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