Light in the Window

by June Goulding

A moving account of the cruel reality of life inside a home for unmarried mothers in 1950s Catholic Ireland written by a young woman who took up a position of midwife in the home run by the Sacred Heart nuns.

Genres: Nonfiction, Ireland, Memoir, Irish Literature, Biography, Historical, Autobiography

Paperback

First published January 1, 1998

Reviews

[Jo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a true account of June Gouldings work as a midwife in a home for pregnant, unmarried mother's. This home was set in Ireland in the 1950's, and it was owned by the Catholic church, and ran by nuns. This book is presented as a memoir, and the names and place is not mentioned.

The mothers, who were mostly teenagers, were kept there until they gave birth, with no form of pain relief or the stitching up of tears that the birth may have caused afterwards. They were also expected to give birth on a commode, instead of a bed. All of this, because these girls were considered outcasts and sinners to society.

After the women had given birth, the babies were kept a while, but then were sent by the nuns themselves over to America to be adopted, giving the birth mother no indication of what may have happened to their baby, again, this was done as a form of punishment.

I could sit here and write an essay on what I think of these atrocities that were committed to these poor women, but I'll try to keep it short. The way in which the Catholic church uses and abuses it's power (it still does today) is truly horrifying. I gave birth out of wedlock, does that make me a sinner? No, it certainly doesn't. As far as I know, it takes two to tango, and from experience, hostility is not helpful to anyone, especially a vulnerable, expecting Mother, who is still trying to understand why their family have shonned them. I do wonder why someone didn't blow the whistle on these people earlier. What nauseated me, is how these nuns would happily cart off these babies to homes in America, giving them no chance to see their birth Mother, if they chose to. There should always be a opportunity. As an adoptee, this is something I feel strongly about, and although I never met my birth mother, I know the opportunity was there if I chose to seek it.

The writing was simple to understand, and I appreciated the honesty from Goulding. I think this must have been difficult to write about, and is probably something that would never leave you, for the rest of your life.

[Edie · Rating 5 out of 5]

My father was born there, its a truly amazing book

[The Book Club · Rating 4 out of 5]

“ They were so vulnerable and alone and without hope. This was the worst aspect of this place. It was all tears and toil and no help or hope and then the final amputation between mother and child, and the mothers never ever knowing where their beloved children went.”

The Light in the Window is set in Ireland in 1950, most specifically in a home for pregnant, unwed women. The book is written by June Goulding who worked as a nurse there and had as a life goal to tell everyone what those poor girls, which were considered outcasts and sinners by the society of that time, went through.
The author write this book as a memoir, without naming the institution or giving the real names of the Sisters and patients, except for a really few exceptions. I admired her grace and compassion towards the patients, and I understood her frustration and impossibility of doing more at the time, as a pregnant unwed woman was seen as degrading to the family name, especially in a catholic country.

I’m glad that now we are over this stigma, but it’s still important to commemorate those stories and pass them into the next generation!

[Sportyrod · Rating 4 out of 5]

Set in Ireland in the 1950’s in a home for pregnant, unwed women, a whistle-blowing nurse reveals the treatment of innocent women who sought refuge. Trapped in a desperate situation, and having no other means to support themselves and their baby, they fall prey to the nuns who are sadistic/heartless in their piety. Instead of giving birth in a discreet location with care and kindness, they are denied their human rights as a person and parent. They are forced to give up their babies and not given information about where their babies went.

The institutionalisation of the constant suffering they endured is heart-wrenching.

The author tells the story as a memoir without naming the establishment or real names of the nuns and patients, except for a couple of the latter. While the author is brave for doing so, I struggled to understand how she could have limited her involvement to being the merciful one and not gone to greater lengths to fight for these defenseless women. This was especially disconcerting as she had medical connections and could have tried to expose what was going on as soon as she left the place. Of course there is a different social climate towards helping others now than at that time when authoritative figures yielded immense power.

I was personally vested in this story for two reasons: a close relative of mine was adopted out in 1949 at two years of age; and another close relative was physically abused by nuns in a Catholic school. This memoir helps the reader to gain greater insight into what they went through.

I would recommend this to anyone with an interest in human tragedies and true stories about religious perpetrators of suffering.

[Heather Bacon fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

A friend in uni has just finished reading this book and asked if I would like to borrow it, given that we are student midwives I thought it would be a good human interest story to read. It was done in an afternoon, and by the evening I was in disbelief.
While parts of it were compelling, one thing over shadowed the clumsily written memoir - her wait of half a century to write the damned thing.
I knew that I would struggle to like the author after her initial account of leaving her "private case", and I'm only pleased to have read that decision haunted her for the rest of her life...but then again so did the red suit she wanted to buy for her "trousseau", so maybe that's not much of a contrition. I wasn't sure what the following pages would hold for a woman who left a man dying of TB in what she was already convinced would be his last month of life.
The only reason I was able to continue reading was that it was a real-life account of the horrors visited on women by religion, and the pious folk that peddle it. The end of the book doesn't demonstrate much shame or remorse in regard to what she was responsible for during her time at the home for unwed mothers. She spends most of the book trying to convince the reader of how she would have loved to have railed against the Sister in charge...but once she had a "free leg" out of there herself, what did she do? Expose the place? Report it? Campaign for its overhaul and the atrocities being committed against women and their children?
Nope. Got married, had four kids, and stuff the lot of em, eh, June?
It is fair to say that there would be few in her position who would have the stones to stand against the might of the Catholic Church in Ireland, in the fifties, but one would hope that there would be fewer still who would witness the abhorrent treatment of these women by a nun, and then allow that nun to slather her in tanning lotion before she tripped off out to a "dress dance".
"Oh you horrible woman, Sister! Wait...did you get my shoulder properly this time?!"
An unscrupulous woman who, while did not paint herself as some pioneering hero in this book, was as much a part of this vile regime as any of those about whom she complains so heartily.
As for her husband's part in this? Also a medically trained man, whose protests against this institution went as far as a few cross words, tuts, eye rolls, and slight indignation at the sight of pregnant women doing manual labour...by tarring the hot road round the corner from the home. June does very little to paint him in a good light in this respect, but he must have been worth it as she managed to buy him gold cufflinks on Christmas, while buying nothing at all for any of own family, instead guiltlessly swanning past the working mothers in the greenhouse to collect dozen chrysanthemums with the Sister to take for her mammy.
My two stars serve only as a hope that other will be able to read this book and realise the horrors of what women in that place went through, but please borrow this from a library, don't do anything to furnish that woman's estate with any more ill gotten gains.
Also, a ghost writer wouldn't have gone amiss; I'm all for Irish vernacular, but some of her writing should have been corrected by the most junior of sub-editors. Clumsily formed sentences made particular parts of this account difficult to understand.

[Vichta · Rating 4 out of 5]

Książka znana wielu czytelnikom. Sam temat również.
Irlandia, początek lat 50 ub. wieku. June przyjmuje ofertę pracy w prowadzonym przez zakonnice domu dla ciężarnych, niezamężnych kobiet. Bardzo szybko rozeznaje się w warunkach tam panujących i stwierdza, że nie ma siły ani możliwości, żeby cokolwiek zmienić. Siostra przełożona jest osobą wyjątkowo okrutną i bezlitosną. Zmusza pensjonariuszki do ciężkiej pracy, zabrania zabawy, a nawet krzyku podczas porodu. A te są czasem bardzo trudne. Jednak June nie dostaje środków przeciwbólowych. Nie ma też możliwości zaszycia krocza, pękniętego w trakcie porodu. W domu przebywają głównie bardzo młode, nastoletnie dziewczęta, których często jedynymi grzechami było zaufanie i miłość do mężczyzn, którzy je wykorzystali i zostawili na pastwę losu i zakonnic. Rodziny często się ich wyrzekały, zrywały kontakty. Kobiety spędzały w placówce czas do porodu, a potem musiały odpokutować przez następne trzy lata, żyjąc w poniżeniu i harując jak woły. Miały ograniczony kontakt ze swoimi dziećmi, a po na koniec musiały je własnoręcznie przynieść i oddać osobie, która zabierała je do adopcji. Żadnej z nich nie wolno było zabrać dziecka ze sobą.
June zarzuca sobie, że nie miała możliwości działania. A jednak zrobiła bardzo dużo. Dała tym dziewczynom szacunek i przyjaźń. Trzeba wspomnieć, że wszelkie osobiste kontakty zostały jej zabronione, a dziewczęta przebywały tam pod wymyślonymi imionami. Pomagała im z całych swoich sił. Jednej z nich umożliwiła ucieczkę razem z dzieckiem, a drugiej pomogła, kontaktując się z jej rodziną, która zabrała kobietę do domu. One jej ufały. W domu, gdzie nie miały żadnych praw, każdy ludzki odruch był na wagę złota. Dotrzymała też danego im słowa i opisała ich historię.
Tym, którzy znają polską wersję, polecam dotarcie do wydania uzupełnionego, w którym June opisała, jak po publikacji książki odnalazło się kilku jej bohaterów :)
Książkę przeczytałam po angielsku i było tam sporo sformułowań, które ciężko mi było zrozumieć. A że posiadam też wydanie polskie, więc miałam okazję porównać moje tłumaczenie z profesjonalnym. Cóż... czasem nawet tłumacz dawał sobie spokój i omijał niektóre zwroty albo je bardzo upraszczał ;)

[Maureen Grigsby · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a heartbreaking book about a home for unwed mothers in Ireland. The book takes place in 1951 - 1952 when June Goulding worked there as a midwife. The girls and women who were admitted there had to stay there for 3 years, and their babies were all put up for adoption. This facility was run, of course, by the Catholic Church, and imposed much shame and humiliation on the inmates. The author had promised that she would one day write a book about the place, and did just that in 1999.

[Adele · Rating 3 out of 5]

A thoroughly depressing yet engaging read.

June is a young midwife in Ireland when she accepts the post of midwife in a home for unwed mothers. It was an honest read and must have been a challenge for June to write. She describes her role and her inability to challenge the ways of the home, without trying to paint herself as a hero - it is quite clear that she was complacent, she was young and inexperienced and was tied up in the horrible well established system. It was a different era after all, one where religious figures were the highest authority and young midwives did as they were told. I particulary found her discriptons of the nuns 'after hours' interesting. You can't help but assume that women who did what these women did would be rotten and bitter to the core, yet after hours June gave us an account of the nuns that was playful and frivolous as they fussed like excitable teenagers whenever June had a date with her long time boyfriend.

Read this and be greatful for professional autonomy and a society that questions dubious practices!

[Yvonne]

It is so vitally important that the girls' stories are given a voice and I think it is a very important book. I cannot rate the book since the writing style is not quite good, but I cannot help but feel that this should be overlooked in favour of the importance that these stories are finally heard. June Goulding, after all, was a nurse and not a writer.

[beti_czyta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wspomnienia June która przez rok pracowała w domu samotnej matki jako położna .
Rok 1951 dom samotnej matki w Irlandii ,prowadzony przez bezwzględną Przełożoną .
Wierzyć się nie chce że takie rzeczy się działy ,jest to bardzo smutna książka .To co przechodziły te dziewczyny i kobiety ,nie mające innego wyjścia ,napiętnowane przez rodziny i odrzucone przez partnerów.
A poród.... Aż skóra cierpnie jak się czyta o praktykach Matki Przełożonej.....
Tego się nie da opowiedzieć ,tę książkę trzeba przeczytać .

[Clazzzer C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this until bed time as I wanted to finish it but it kept me awake for hours with thoughts if what those girls endured. It is harrowing deeply upsetting. June’s account is matter of fact, bare and honest. It is an account that shows how those poor girls truly suffered, one which reveals so much of what’s previously been hidden. Without the strength of people like June, their stories would never have been told. It is a good, honest, account, and a must read for anyone interested in this grim era of society’s recent past.

[hannah · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was interesting to read about the harrowing events that took place in these homes from a midwife's perspective

[Liralen · Rating 3 out of 5]

When Goulding took a midwife position at a home for unwed mothers in 1951 Ireland, the situation seemed promising: the chance to help women in need, the chance to use her newly certified skills, and no night duty. It quickly became apparent that the reality was something else: 'no night duty' meant 'no formal night duty but on call 24 hours a day', and, much harder to bear, the women in the home were treated by the nun in charge as less than human, with Goulding little able to make changes.

I've read about The Girls Who Went Away in the US in roughly the same era: sent away to bear children in secret and then returned to public life as soon as possible afterwards. At Sacred Heart, the story was different. The young women Goulding guided through birth were required to stay at the convent to raise their children for up to three years, whereupon those children would be adopted out. They were only permitted to leave earlier if they paid a substantial fee (roughly £3,000 in 2018 funds, I believe); fees or no fees, the only way they could leave with their children in tow was if they married (and one does not end up in a home for unwed mothers because one has good options). Adoption law was not codified in Ireland until 1952, months after Goulding left her position to get married, and the women simply had no rights. Three years of caring for a child they wouldn't be permitted to keep, and then they'd be sent back out into the world with, in most cases, no money or support.

That's the worst of it, maybe, but it's also the tip of the iceberg. Goulding rapidly realised that nursing at the convent was going to bear little resemblance to the standards of care she was used to. The sister in charge had the final say, and her focus was punishment. That meant: insufficient rations, and hard physical labour while acutely pregnant, and no painkillers, and no stitches no matter how badly a women tore during birth, and no calling the doctor, and on and on it goes.

Gould only ever planned to be there temporarily. She was engaged to be married, and 1951 was not a time for (non-working-class) women to keep their jobs after marriage. Even if she'd stayed longer, though, it's unlikely that she'd have been able to follow up with more of the mothers than she did: they were all there under false names and with strict instructions not to speak to each other or to Goulding. She's a decent and compassionate storyteller, but it can't be anything other than a sad story, because so few women seem to have made it out in one piece.

[theirishbooklover]

Haunting, Tragic, Emotional.

The reality of life inside an unmarried mother's home in Ireland is brought to life in this emotional true story. Once you begin reading this haunting story, you become so attached to each person. It becomes painful in parts to remember that these people aren't characters, instead they are real people who lived through these times and in these places and conditions. As with any book of this type, you become emotionally attached to the book and the story.

I would recommend this book to anyone who has an interest in Irish History. I would also recommend this book to anyone who would like more of an insight into the lives of people who lived and worked in these homes for unmarried women in Ireland.

[Alix · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a part of Irish history that, while hard to swallow, we must all face head on and accept the truth of.

What went on in these places was horrific and brutal. So much credit to June to sharing her experience, and the experience of all of those poor girls who she came in contact with. Ironic that she was there for 9 months, only the start of their sentence, as she called it.

Only making 3 stars because I found the story hard to track and had to push through in moments. Appreciated the updated version with some stories from those who read the book and self-identified to share their stories.

[Teresa Bolster · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Light in the Window is not a particularly well written memoir but it was, and remains, a very important book.
As I was reading this, over in Ireland a national investigation is taking place into the activities of mother and baby 'homes' run by the all-powerful Catholic church from 1930s until closure in the early 1990s.
In reality they were run by cruel and despotic nuns whose regimes - in this case at Bessboro, Cork - were often too much for the local priests.

[Margaret Madden · Rating 5 out of 5]

Review to follow...

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

Enjoyed the book read on my Kindle. One small flaw. In the Epilogue June referred to Tony never finding his "real" mother. She might have said he never found his "birth" mother.

[Sadbh Ní · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreakingly honest

[Erin Olejniczak · Rating 2 out of 5]

A sad and interesting story, but not a very good book.

[Chloe]

I read The Light in the Window a few months ago and had to put it down and gather my thoughts for a bit. It pops back into my head all the time though, similarly to Deirdre Finnerty’s Bessborough, I’m sure it’s a book that will stay with me forever.

This is the true account of nurse June Goulding who took a position as a newly qualified midwife for a year between 1951-1952 in an Irish “home for unmarried mothers”.
The young girls and women who were admitted there were forced to carry out manual labour while heavily pregnant, give birth alone, and of course, most cruelly; breastfeed and bond with their babies before having them stolen from them and adopted out to wealthy families. They then had to remain in these homes for three years to “repay” the Catholic Church for their stay, unless a family member could cover their costs for them.

June became friendly with a woman living long term in this home who had become institutionalized and just never left after having her own baby there. So much tragic wasting of peoples lives and all for nothing.

June recounts all of this faithfully but most interestingly for me, she adds in her perspective as a nurse and midwife. The goal here was clearly to punish vulnerable women and girls; how else could you possibly explain a nun refusing to allow a teenage mother to be sutured following a traumatic delivery? No pain relief or medical interventions allowed either. No kindness, no dignity, no care.

I felt incredibly angry reading this book. As a health care professional I can’t countenance this sort of treatment of anyone, but especially pregnant women, who were alone and scared.

The only positive I could take from this book was that these women had June looking after them, by all accounts a kind and caring person. She details some of their stories here and I often think of those women now and what happened to them as the years went on.

We’ve seen recently how little our government cares for the survivors of the Mother & Baby institutions. Their redress scheme was an insult to everyone who suffered at the hands of these religious orders. The very least we can do is read their stories and keep talking about it.

[Sabrina Rutter · Rating 5 out of 5]

I didn't know what to expect with this book since I didn't see a lot of five star reviews, but for me this is definantly a five star book. This is one of the most moving memoirs I have ever read. This book will definitely make you feel all kinds of emotions.
Imagine being young, pregnant, and unmarried in a time and place where religion rules and human emotion is not acknowledged. The poor girls that found themselves in this situation were not only treated as outcasts by their families and neighbors, but were also treated worse than criminals by their religous leaders.
This book is the first book that I have read about mothers forced to give their children up for adoption. I will say that this book makes me grateful that I don't live in that time and place as I too could have easily been one of those unfortunate girls.

[Cindy · Rating 5 out of 5]

FGiving this 5 stars only because it's someone's personal story, of working as a labor and delivery nurse in a home for unwed mothers in the early 1950s in Ireland. The mothers were not allowed to keep their babies and fathers were not held responsible or given any choice or even contacted. As others have said in reviews, the writing isn't all.that great, but the story remains what happened.

[Lisa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this in one day - very hard to put down. It's hard to believe that women were treated this way - the suffering, both theirs and their children who had no details of their birth mothers with which to trace them in the future is hard to comprehend. So sad.

[Heather · Rating 3 out of 5]

a nonfiction book about this woman's time working at a home for unmarried pregnant mothers in Ireland in 1951. She can't write well at all, but it's an interesting story nonetheless.

[Readgina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I only read this book for my book club. I was not impressed. Goulding should have used a ghostwriter.

[Agnesxnitt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I haven't re-read this book for some time and found it as moving and emotionally frustrating as when I first read it.
I know the world was a very different place when the events that took place in the book occurred, but I could still slap the face of the Nun who condemns the girls and women who come to the convent to be hidden away while they are pregnant and to give birth.
The girls and women who all survive - I cannot call it living - in the convent at Bessborough (the subject of a fascinating article on the BBC website https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/resources/...) are all unmarried and pregnant. This is enough to have them hidden away and punished needlessly when, in a time and society when sex education was not spoken of, young girls were seduced and men faced no repercussions for their actions.
June Goulding is a 22 yo nurse who comes to work at the Mother and baby home, unaware at the time of accepting the job, what the purpose of the home is. Girls/women have their children, breast feed them for 10 days and then are seperated. At 3 years of age, the mothers desperately seeking every opportunity to see their child, the children are adopted out, the 'lucky ones' going to Shannon Airport to be adopted by childless American couples. There is minimal medical care - June herself buys a simple heartburn remedy from her own money, and the Sister, a qualifed midwife herself, refuses to let June stitch the mothers who have torn during labour, or even send for a Doctor to assist at a difficult birth. June is horrified, frustrated and angry at this regime, but she cannot bring herself to leave the job because the women who come/are sent to the home need her.
June steels herself to deal with the Sister in charge, a woman who appears to have no finer feeling and certainly not the ideals of a monastic to my middle of the road Anglican mind. The women are so terrified of the Sister, they don't reveal when they are in labour until June is on duty, including leaving a light in the window of an unused toilet to alert her on her nights out that she is needed and to hurry into the home.
Amongst the misery and unhappiness, there are moments of light: kindnesses received and given amongst the women incarcerated there, their kindnesses to June, the joy of a safe delivery, the chatter when the Sister is back in the convent and can't punish the women in the home.
Overall not a happy book but one that demands to be read.

[Simone The Glam Historian · Rating 3 out of 5]

The 3 stars in no way means I didn’t enjoy this book. I would never give a bad rating to a personal recollection of one’s life in tragic settings. Although June (the author) wrote this book in her older years, the recollections are strong and sharp and in focus. She writes about her year working as a midwife in a mother & baby institution in 1950s Ireland - a staunchly catholic country which persecuted women (don’t @ me, it’s all true and there is buckets of evidence). She was 22 at the time. It is written like she is 22 again and recounting what she sees as she sees it. It is almost diary like. Although naive upon her arrival, and her dialogue shows this, she soon opens her eyes to what is happening behind the beautiful Georgian mansion facade of Bessborough “home” in county cork. While reading this one must be aware of the context of the time - at time I was frustrated with her naivety but I reminded myself that:
1: she was young.

2: These institutions were not spoken about as those who “resided” in them were tarred as shameful, dirty, fallen whores, so June had no idea about them as she lived in “polite” society. Catholic guilt & shame permeated society & culture in this era.

3: she was told very little about the job position and even less when she arrived. She had to learn what the culture inside those walls was in stolen conversations with the incarcerated women and through what she witnessed because the nuns certainly weren’t going to talk and defer from their indoctrinated Catholic narrative.

But I love how she cares about these women and tried her best to alleviate their suffering in small ways during her time there. I enjoyed reading the contrast to the “home” of her own life and her courtship with her now husband. This gives you a glance at youth, dating & life in Ireland in this era for the everyday working person. You see 2 sides of the coin of life in 1950s Catholic Ireland. June made more difference to those women’s lives than she knows and by telling her and their story, she lifts the curtain of secrecy and shame a bit more for the modern era to learn about and never repeat those atrocities.

It’s a short book and worth a read. An important story. 7/10

[Esther Filbrun · Rating 5 out of 5]

4.5 stars

This book sat on my shelf for several years, and I never got around to picking it up, so it eventually landed on my read-and-possibly-cull pile. I’m so glad I finally took the time to read it, though, because this ended up being a fascinating story!

It’s hard to imagine people being treated the way it was described in this story. Some of the things described here were downright awful, and it makes me wonder what these women’s lives were like afterward. And knowing that this all happened just 70 years ago or so…it really is horrifying. At the same time, it was wonderful to get to see how far a little kindness and compassion went. In many ways, June’s hands were tied when it came to how she was able to help and support the women, but it was special to see how she did her best anyway—and how the women came to love and respect her because of it.

If you’re interested in the history of women’s health or enjoy reading about medical history in general, this could be a good book for you. As someone who typically reads fiction with the occasional memoir or biography thrown in, this book reads almost like a fiction story—but it’s real. I can’t say I enjoyed the book because the content matter wasn’t all that nice, but as a memoir about a little-known fact from history, I think it has a lot of merit and is worth reading.

[Claire Smiles · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s a relatively short memoir of June’s time working in an Irish Home for unmarried mothers. She tells quite a clinical story of the conditions that the poor mothers were forced to endure. There are no twists and turns, just an honest recollection of what it was like working as a midwife in such a terrible place in the early 1950’s. I knew these places existed, especially back in a time when having a baby out of wedlock was the ultimate sin, but i’d assumed they were like normal hospitals where women were cared for in the same way as everyone else just under the radar. That was an extremely naive assumption! You will not believe the torture those poor women were put through! (I say ‘were’ because I can’t bring myself to believe that this sort of thing still goes on today. Although i fear it probably does in some other countries.)
Anyway, this book isn’t fancy, it’s a little rough around the edges and you don’t get to know the storyteller very well, nor do you get a picture of the surroundings, (it’s all focused on the Home and the conditions within it, which isn’t a bad thing) but it’s just a telling of the cold hard truth and it’s certainly made me appreciate how well i was looked after when i had my boy.