Status of children raised by their own extended family before 1952?

After independence, but before the 1952 Adoption Act, I understand there was no legal concept of adoption at all. Plus fostering law doesn't seem to be updated/properly addressed until the 1991 Childcare Act, as far as I can tell. (Really??? That seems worryingly recent!)

I'm wondering please how it worked for kids between 1922 - 1952 who were living full-time in the care of blood relatives who were not their parents (e.g. an aunt and uncle, or grandparents), because presumably either their parents had died or were totally absent.

They were basically being unofficially/de facto adopted, or at least fostered, but was there any recognition or record of the child's situation and that of their primary care-givers? I know the role of social workers existed by then, although Tusla had not been formed yet.

Did the council, schools, church or doctors etc. acknowledge the actual care-givers as being the child's legal guardian, with full custody of them, full parental responsibility for them, and allow those adults to make significant decisions for the child? If there were 3+ kids, could the (male) carers claim Children's Allowance for them, from 1944 onwards?

To be clear, I am not asking about children from workhouses, industrial schools, county homes, or mother and baby homes etc., who were fostered or adopted by strangers. I'm specifically interested in what is now known these days as "kinship" care, unless some aspects of the system that applied to the former also applied to the latter.

Go raibh míle maith agat!