Mamie Cadden
Mary Anne "Mamie" Cadden | |
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Born | Mary Anne Caden 27 November 1891 |
Died | 20 April 1959 | (aged 67)
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Mary Anne "Mamie" Cadden (27 October 1891 – 20 April 1959) was an American-born Irish
Background
Childhood
Mamie Cadden was born Mary Anne Caden on 27 October 1891 in Scranton, Pennsylvania, to Patrick and Mary Caden, and was the eldest of seven children, five of whom survived infancy.[4] Patrick and Mary Cadden had met in America, where Patrick worked as a miner. In 1895, upon the death of her paternal grandfather, Mamie's father inherited his father's farm and so Cadden and her family returned to Lahardane, County Mayo. Her parents settled down, purchased a small family farm, and opened a grocery store on their land.[4] There, her parents expanded the family and Mamie became the eldest of seven siblings and her father's favorite child.[5] Cadden spent much of her early life on this farm, and continued to live there until she was 33 years old.[4]
Education
While living in Mayo, Cadden and her siblings attended school from a young age. She attended Lahardane National School in Mayo until the age of fifteen,[4] and was literate and spoke good Irish and English.[5] After completing school, Cadden worked on her family's farm. Once many years had passed, Mamie realized she did not want to spend the rest of her life on the farm with her next youngest brother. She had always taken an interest in midwifery, and in 1925, shortly after her sister Theresa's death, Cadden sold her portion of her land to her father to finance her midwifery certification course.[4] She moved to Dublin to train as a midwife at the National Maternity Hospital, Dublin, and completed a six-month course, qualifying as a midwife on 10 December 1926.[6][4] While there, she changed the spelling of her name 'Caden' to 'Cadden' upon her move. In 1931 she purchased a property in Rathmines and ran it as her own maternity nursing home. This was a common practice among midwives at the time, the profession then being one that operated independently of nursing and medicine.
Legal context
During the time Mamie Cadden was entering the medical field in Ireland, the medical industry was dominated by Irish men. The
Midwife and abortionist
Early career
After Cadden completed her training at the
As there was a large demand for her services, Cadden did not need to advertise her work; and such an advertisement would have been illegal.[5] "Nurse Cadden's" activities were an open secret and many women wanted to use her services. Enjoying a thriving business, she enjoyed a flashy social life, frequenting dances, dining and drinking in Dublin's top hotels, and driving a highly conspicuous red open-top 1932 MG sports car.[4]
In 1939, Cadden was sentenced to a year's
Working after her first conviction
After her first conviction for
Once out of prison, Cadden resumed her illegal activities in rented premises despite having been
Having served her full term she resumed her former trade on her release, this time in Hume Street, near Dublin's fashionable St Stephen's Green. Operating out of a one-roomed flat, she was able to continue her illegal business and was still well known enough in Dublin not to need to advertise. One of her clients died from an air embolism in the heart in 1951. Cadden left the woman's body outside on the street. Even this did not put an end to her activities as there was not sufficient evidence to connect her. Five years later, one of her patients, Helen O'Reilly, died of an air embolism during a procedure to abort a pregnancy in the fifth month. When her body was found on the pavement in Hume Street, Cadden was arrested and tried for murder. She was sentenced to death by hanging in 1956, but this was commuted to life imprisonment after public appeals for clemency and due to the unintentional nature of Helen O'Reilly's death. (The last hanging in the Republic of Ireland took place in 1954, while the last woman to be hanged was Annie Walsh in 1925.) Cadden started serving her term in Mountjoy Prison, but was declared insane and moved to the Criminal Lunatic asylum in Dundrum, Dublin, where she died of a heart attack on 20 April 1959.[2]
Criminal record
- 1939: Cadden was sentenced to a year in prison for child abandonment.[1]
- 1945: Cadden was sentenced to 5 years in prison for an attempt to procure a miscarriage.[1]
- 1956: Cadden was sentenced to death by hanging for the murder of Helen O'Reilly. Helen O'Reilly died as a result of an air embolism. She was 5 months pregnant, and the death occurred during an abortion.
Cultural depictions
In 1994, she was the subject of two episodes of RTÉ television documentaries, one in the series entitled Thou Shalt not Kill, which examined and dramatised famous Irish murder cases under the title "The body in Hume Street",[15] and on Monday 18 November 2007, an episode of the RTÉ television documentary series Scannal featured the case under the title "Scannal: Nurse Mamie Cadden".[16]
References
- ^ a b c d "Mamie Cadden and the Unlearned Lesson. #repealthe8th – Human Rights in Ireland". humanrights.ie. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
- ^ a b c d e f White, Lawrence William (October 2009). "Cadden, Mary Anne ('Mamie') ('Nurse Cadden')". Dictionary of Irish Biography. Retrieved 30 July 2022.
- ^ "The Irish abortion question has always been linked to class, secrecy and moral judgment". The Irish Times. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
- ^ a b c d e f g h i "The book with 9,000 lives". The Irish Times. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
- ^ OCLC 57493345.
- ^ The Irish Times (Tuesday, 23 October 1956), page 4.
- ^ ISBN 9780230304628.
- ISBN 9780230304628.
- ISBN 9780230304628.
- ISBN 9780230304628.
- OCLC 57493345.
- OCLC 57493345.
- ^ "Abortion now legal in Ireland as President signs Bill into law". irishexaminer.com. 20 December 2018.
- ^ a b "Back-street abortion in Ireland". The Irish Times. Retrieved 1 December 2017.
- ^ "Thou Shalt not Kill". www.locatetv.com. Archived from the original on 3 May 2012.
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link) - ^ "Scannal! Nurse Mamie Cadden". RTÉ TV. Archived from the original on 17 September 2012.
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: CS1 maint: unfit URL (link)
- Kavanagh, Ray (2005). Mamie Cadden: Backstreet Abortionist. OCLC 57493345.