Boston College Professor Writes Book About Irish Prostitutes

James Smith is a professor of English at Boston College. It has become a cause, a quest, a rickety bridge between the country of his birth and the place he now calls home..........

Ten years ago, he was working on his PhD dissertation at BC and one chapter was about the Magdalene laundries, institutions in his native Ireland, run by nuns, where “fallen women’’ were sent to work off their sins. A few years ago, he decided to do a whole book.

In going after Catholic orders and the Irish government, Smith is taking on two institutions to which BC is inextricably linked. It was the school that Irish immigrants founded because their kind weren’t welcome elsewhere.

BC is the American university with the biggest footprint in Ireland - figuratively with its Irish programs, literally with its imposing building on St. Stephen’s Green in Dublin.

But BC also is run by Jesuits, who know a thing or two about justice. “I have received nothing but support at BC,’’ Jim Smith said.

Link (here)