This study focuses on how self-selecting Muslim women navigated Irish maternity services and uncovers ways in which their care was shaped by often unconscious but nonetheless harmful discriminatory policies and practices. We share examples of overt racism, negative attitudes and a failure to support often basic cultural needs. Some healthcare workers corroborate the stories these women share, for others ‘race’ was an uncomfortable topic. We argue that although education can help, this must be rooted in Freirean, critical pedagogic philosophies that seek to politicise learners by not only illuminating their own prejudicial practices, but by locating these behaviours in an analysis of a global socio-economic model of neoliberal capitalism that relies on structural racism (and patriarchy) for its own survival.