Evelyn: Changing The Law In Ireland

At issue, in this story, is a constitutional question:  Did the Doyle family have a right to stay together?  If so - and that right was guaranteed by the Irish Constitution - why were the Doyle children removed from their father's care after their mother abandoned her family?  Image online, courtesy National Archives of Ireland.

Unless and until the mother returns
to the marital home,
the state has the duty to ensure that the children
are not returned
to the father and his Protestant housekeeper.

Father Nolan
October, 1955

Evelyn Doyle, Desmond’s oldest child, saw her mother get on a bus with another man. Clutching her new doll that day after Christmas, the young girl had no idea her familial world had just collapsed.