Trauma

Through the fictional characters of Honor White and Bridie Sweeney, Donoghue illuminates the real trauma of the Irish Catholic residential school and institutions which brutalized marginalized poor Irish citizens. Although Bridie Sweeney and Honor White are fictional, Donoghue draws the details of their institutions from real testimonies complied in the 2009 Ryan Report on Irish Residential institutions. Donoghue thus uses their stories to educate the reader on the violence enacted by the Catholic Church and Irish government.

Honor White’s plotline revealed the cruelty of the mother-and-baby house, one of the Catholic residential institutions which houses unmarried women who become pregnant. Honor was admitted to one of these homes for falling pregnant, with no choice in the matter. After her first child was born, she was forced to stay for a year and work for the convent due to their claim she must make up for the...