Analysis of Mothers in “Mother Ireland”: The Butcher Boy and “Happiness” Societal pressures on Irish women to be the “perfect mother” led them to aspire to an idealized version of family that is ultimately unhealthy. In Patrick McCabe's novel The Butcher Boy and Mary Lavin's short story "Happiness," mothers are confronted with idealized notions of family that leave them feeling alienated. Much of the pressure on Irish mothers specifically comes from the concept of Mother Ireland, which Bernadette Devlin McAliskey sees as "in its own unconscious way...[Mother Ireland] is an acceptance of the oppression of the country and the oppression of women » (quoted in Lyons, 1996). The mothers in Butcher Boy and "Happiness" face oppression and feelings of not measuring up to the ideal version of what constitutes a family in different ways, but they both face the anxiety in the face of immense pressure. Both stories offer insight into the lives of mothers facing seemingly insurmountable family circumstances and treat them in contrasting ways. Patrick McCabe's novel The Butcher Boy addresses the ramifications that societal pressure creates to be a "good mother" by featuring the story of a mother who succumbed to these pressures and the boy who was left behind. account. The boy, Francie, exhibits increasingly violent delusional behavior after his mother's suicide. At the height of his deranged behavior, he murders a mother who epitomized the traditional Irish housewife. By telling the story of a troubled boy who uses his mother's suicide as a catalyst for his psychotic behavior, McCabe subtly critiques the idea that families must conform to the idea...... middle of paper...... from the Irish Family. Once a mother was labeled "bad," families were often morally or economically marginalized, as was the case with the Brady family. In a time when women had the choice of becoming either a housewife or a nun, the inability to live up to what society considered “good” could be extremely painful. The pressure on Irish women to conform to the standards of a "perfect housewife" drove the already emotionally fragile Mrs. Brady to suicide. The domain of the family is traditionally the domain of the woman and when her domestic life is judged harshly and categorically as "good" or "bad", this greatly influences her health and that of her family. The close association between "motherhood" and Ireland itself further complicates matters as it helps to keep women repressed and able to function only in the domestic realm..