Lunchtime Seminar Series:

The Ryan Commission: between justice and re-traumatisation, than and nowby Rosaleen McDonagh, leading feminist within the Traveller community

The Irish Centre for Human Rights, in cooperation with Global Women’s Studies, is pleased to welcome Rosaleen McDonagh, a doctoral scholar at Northumbria University, reading for a PhD titled “An Exploration of the Relevance of the Affirmative Model in Relation to Traveller Identity.” She teaches “Gender and Race, Feminism from the Inside” on the M.Phil Racial and Ethnic Studies at Trinity College Dublin. As a child, Rosaleen attended a residential “special education” school for Travellers until the age of 18. She subsequently earned a BA degree in Theology at Trinity College Dublin, followed by an M.Phil in Ethnic and Racial Studies. Rosaleen worked in Pavee Point Traveller and Roma Centre for ten years, managing the Violence against Women programme. She has been involved in many initiatives on Traveller women’s issues and is regarded as a leading feminist within the Traveller community.

Her talk will focus on the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (CICA), known as the Ryan Commission that was established in 1999 to investigate all forms of child abuse in Irish institutions for children. The majority of the abuse allegations investigated related to residential “Reformatory and Industrial Schools” operated by religious orders affiliated with the Catholic Church under the supervision of the Irish State. Commencing work in 1999, the Commission published its public report (the Ryan report) in 2009. Rosaleen McDonagh will critically discuss her experience as a witness in the Ryan Commission investigation process. Noting the deficiencies of the legalistic investigation process and procedures employed by the Commission, she will highlight shortcomings of the process and failures to fully recognise and respect her as an agent and subject of human rights, because of her identity as a girl/woman marked by “disability” and by membership of the Traveller community. Further, as the most recent HIQA reports demonstrate, protecting, respecting and fulfilling the human rights of people with disabilities remains an unfinished agenda in Ireland on the eve of its centenary year.

All are welcome!

For more information please contact t.ananthavinayagan1@nuigalway.ie