Mary Anne "Mamie" Cadden | |
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 Mugshot of Cadden,c. 1939 | |
| Born | Mary Anne Caden (1891-11-27)27 November 1891 |
| Died | 20 April 1959(1959-04-20) (aged 67) |
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Mary Anne "Mamie"Cadden (27 October 1891 – 20 April 1959) was an American-born Irishmidwife,backstreet abortionist, and convictedmurderer. She was born 27 October 1891 inScranton, Pennsylvania, to Irish parents Patrick and Mary Cadden. In 1895, Cadden and her family returned toLahardane inCounty Mayo, Ireland, where she completed years of schooling. Once she obtained her spot on the list of licensedmidwives in Dublin, she opened a series of maternity nursing homes to aid women with health issues and to perform illegalabortions. After a series of criminal convictions, Cadden lost her status as a licensed midwife. In 1944, Cadden was charged and convicted for the murder of 33-year-old Helen O'Reilly. She was sentenced to life in prison, and after a year atMountjoy prison, she was declared insane and moved to the criminal lunatic asylum Dundrum, where she died of aheart attack on 20 April 1959. Although many people committed backstreetabortions during the period of Cadden's life, Cadden was the only person in Ireland to be sentenced to thedeath penalty for amaternal death occurring as a result of an abortion.[1][2] As the most notorious Irish abortionist of her era, the term 'Nurse Cadden' was synonymous withevil in the Irish public's mind.[3]
Mamie Cadden was born Mary Anne Caden on 27 October 1891 inScranton, 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 aminer. In 1895, upon the death of her paternal grandfather, Mamie's father inherited his father's farm and so Cadden and her family returned toLahardane, County Mayo. Her parents settled down, purchased a small family farm, and opened agrocery 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]
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 inmidwifery, 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 toDublin to train as a midwife at theNational 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 inRathmines 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.
During the time Mamie Cadden was entering the medical field in Ireland, the medical industry was dominated by Irish men. TheCatholic Church andIrish political state were heavily intertwined. The Catholic Church wanted to ensure that medicine in Ireland operated under the ethos of the Church.[7] This Catholic ethos helped ensure in theIrish health care system made things likecontraceptives relatively inaccessible. In 1929, theCensorship of Publications Act banned the sale of literature that advocated the use of birth control.[8] While the Act did not ban the access or sale of birth control, it did, however, ban the access to information about contraceptives.Birth control was officially prohibited in Ireland in 1935 until 1979.[7] Many believed that birth control would tarnish the work inprenatal clinics and mother and baby entities.[9] For many years, Catholic principles and Catholic professionals remained central to developments in the Irish medical scene.[10] As a result, many women resorted to illegalabortions and contraceptives. These illegal actions were facilitated by people like Mamie Cadden.
After Cadden completed her training at theNational Maternity Hospital, Dublin, she began working as a midwife. She first worked in the Alverno maternity nursing home on Portland Row in Dublin from 1927 to 1929. In 1929, she opened her own maternity nursing home in the suburb ofRanelagh which operated until 1931.[4] Cadden's work became quite large, and her business outgrew her facilities. In 1931, she moved her business toRathmines and became the owner of one of Dublin's most extensive nursing homes. Based at 4 Ormonde Terrance, she later changed the name toSt. Maelruin.[11] At St Maelruin, Cadden gave help for health issues, pregnancies, illegal abortions, andfoster care operations for unwanted children born. Her cousin, Molly O'Grady, helped as her maid and accomplice. Cadden also accepted fees for placing children inadoption. She also operated a fostering service, which placed children with families who received payment for caring for the child.[12] She also procuredabortions – bothmedical (using preparations such asergot) and surgical (by injecting a solution).[2] The intentional killing of anunborn child was acriminal act in Ireland at that time and remained illegal until 2018.[13]
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'shard labour inMountjoy Prison for abandoning andexposing a new-born baby on the side of the road inCounty Meath.[2]
After her first conviction forchild abandonment, Cadden was removed from the roll of registered midwives and was banned from aiding women in childbirth.[4] When she was in prison, Cadden was forced to sell St Maelruin as she faced a financial crisis from the legal stresses of her arrest. The home sold in May 1939. During this time there was aGarda investigation of her property and the remains of an aborted fetus were found. The Gardai was able to trace the mother, who admitted consulting Cadden following a failed attempt at self-abortion. Although this discovery did not lead to charges being pressed against Cadden, they permanently rose Gardai's awareness of Cadden.[2]
Once out of prison, Cadden resumed her illegal activities in rented premises despite having beenstruck off as a midwife. She also provided miscellaneous medical treatments such as supposed cures forconstipation anddandruff. She fell foul of the law again in 1945 when a pregnant girl who went to Cadden for an abortion denounced her. The girl claimed that Cadden had inserted thelaminaria tents which were found in hercervix. Cadden was tried under theOffences against the Person Act 1861. Despite denying the charges, she was convicted of procuring an abortion and was sentenced to penal servitude inMountjoy Prison for five years.[2]
Having served her full term she resumed her former trade on her release, this time inHume Street, near Dublin's fashionableSt 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 anair 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 wassentenced to death byhanging 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 lasthanging 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 inDundrum, Dublin, where she died of a heart attack on 20 April 1959.[2]
In 1994, she was the subject of two episodes ofRTÉ television documentaries, one in the series entitledThou 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 theRTÉ television documentary seriesScannal featured the case under the title "Scannal: Nurse Mamie Cadden".[16]
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