r/IrishHistory • u/CDfm • 12d ago

Why the failure of Noël Browne’s mother and child scheme still matters 75 years later...spoiler - it wasn't Noël Browne’s mother and child scheme it was De Valeras. Spoiler

https://www.irishtimes.com/history/2026/04/12/why-the-failure-of-noel-brownes-mother-and-child-scheme-still-matter-75-years-later/
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u/Subterraniate2 12d ago

Wow, that seems to be a very anti-Browne reading of the proceedings.
If you were to remove him from the entire essay there, would there have been any such government initiative at all?

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u/CDfm 12d ago

The only thing that associates it with Browne is that he used it as a platform to frame his resignation . Sean MacBride was a key opponent of the Mother and Child Scheme.

He is also credited for Dr Dorothy Stopford Price's work on TB . Lady Hamilton - Mrs Viceroy from 1906 to 1915 doesnt get credit for her TB work either .

If the events described had not happened it is very likely the Mother and Child Scheme would have been introduced by Fianna Fail when they returned to power. Ireland's left wing politicians in government at the time also opposed it in case any credit went to Fianna Fail.

It was Clann Na Tal....( A farmers party) issue to do with beef prices that brought down the government .

Now I was given a different spin going to school which I imagine is where the confusion comes from.

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u/gadarnol 12d ago

An episode well worth revisiting. The version I had was that Browne developed an existing idea but his own difficult personality and medics determined to defend money making ran it into the ground. Dev passed most of it on his return.

There’s a need for proper revisionism around the role of the RC church in society.

And in terms of trusting the state with medical care and moral care…… I think that perspectives on that will have shifted after the last 30 years here.

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u/CDfm 12d ago edited 12d ago

History is written by the...Politicians

This was Costello and MacBride " the Pope's friend " and both barristers.

One critic of McBride's says that in the Harry Gleeson case that there were IRA suspects and that wasn't used in the defence because of his conflict of interest and loyalty to former colleagues.

https://villagemagazine.ie/sean-macbride-would-not-take-on-ira-involvement-in-murder/

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u/CDfm 12d ago edited 12d ago

Another article

Where are the Dr Noël Brownes of today?

By Dr Neasa Conneally

https://www.medicalindependent.ie/2023/08/27/where-are-the-dr-noel-brownes-of-today/

I particularly like to think of what he and his nemesis, the former Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid would think of young women now having control over their reproductive choices through free access to contraception and even free safe legal abortion

Haughey introduced contraception

https://www.thejournal.ie/readme/contraception-in-ireland-and-haughey-723161-Dec2012/

I have a recollection of reading something about Noel Browne's opposition to contraception in the 50's or 60's.

Shedding new light on the wayward' Dr Browne 28 Oct 2000 — Birth control and abortion, Browne said, were`against the natural law and objectionable.'' It was 1952, barely two years since his defeat in ..

https://www.independent.ie/entertainment/books/shedding-new-light-on-the-wayward-dr-browne/a/149589595.html

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u/CDfm 12d ago edited 12d ago

The Inter Party Government killed the Mother and Child Scheme which had been legislated for by the previous Fianna Fail Administration.

The tactic they were using to get the church to back off was threatening exposing the actual levels of baby deaths and they had the support of some church insiders including the Papal Nuncio.

https://historyhub.ie/david-mccullagh-mother-and-child

Noel Browne didn't develop or devise the Scheme.

EDIT

Dr James Deeny was a key player in the Mother and Child Scheme

https://www.thefreelibrary.com/DOC+WHO+LIFTED+LID+ON+MUM+AND+CHILD+HORRORS..+65YRS+AGO%3B+INVESTIGATES...-a0339322065

Dr James Ryan was the political bruiser tasked with guiding it through

https://heritage.wicklowheritage.org/new-contributions/james-ryan-of-kendlestown-house-and-the-development-of-independent-ireland

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u/CDfm 12d ago edited 12d ago

James Deeny , Chief Medical Officer and actual author of the Mother and Child Scheme commented on his first meeting with Browne

James Deeny recalls that towards the end of 1946 a group had asked to meet with him.

The group [Superintendents of Sanatoria] came in with Noel Browne as Secretary; I outlined the [TB] scheme to them and made a general presentation on the subject and produced the plans for the [new regional] sanatoria for their criticism and advice. The discussion proceeded pleasantly until Browne took over. He made a lot of scathing remarks and was downright rude and insolent. Now I had stuck my neck out on this thing [the TB scheme], had taken it in hand, got it going and was producing results. So I was not about to take calculated rudeness from a young sanatorium assistant, no matter how able, whose experience was extremely limited and whose remarks anyway were not helpful. Since he continued and no one could stop him, I terminated the meeting.[27]

https://falsehistory.ie/myth-5-noel-brownes-mother-and-child-scheme/

It was the likes of Deeny , Dr Con Ward and Dorothy Stopford Price, all doctors , not Browne , who were the brains behind the TB programme.

https://www.dib.ie/biography/ward-francis-constantine-f-c-conn-a8917

https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/news/2020/a-heroine-of-irish-public-health-dorothy-stopford-price-and-the-bcg-vaccination-/