Billing
For seven decades, the Irish State conspired with families, parishes and religious congregations to imprison and enslave over 10,000 Irish girls and women in the so-called Magdalene Laundries. After decades of silence, survivors of that system now share their experiences during and since their incarceration, and reveal how, even today, they are having to fight for the care, redress and acknowledgement that was promised to them.
“People think they know the Magdalene laundry story, but they don’t. They don’t know the half of it, to be honest.” – Teresa O’Connor
Episode 1 focuses on the experience of the girls and women in the laundries: who was sent there, why, and what happened to them. It contains shocking personal testimonies, with just enough expert comment to give context, where necessary, to what they say. One of the most striking things is that this isn’t ancient history, but living memory. The last laundry, in Dublin’s Seán McDermott Street, only closed in 1996. There is a particular poignancy in hearing these now elderly women describing tearfully their experiences of being sent away as young girls with little or no idea of what awaited them, sometimes as a result of domestic and sexual abuse, for which they themselves were made to pay a desperate price.
“You were constantly being told, ‘Nobody loves you. Nobody wants you. Your mother dumped you.’” – Maureen Sullivan
“Families dumped daughters and aunts and sisters, who were deemed ‘in the way’ or perhaps the objects of shame. Irish society and Irish families re-victimised the female victims of male sexual violence, be that rape, be that incest, be that sexual abuse. The family was sacrosanct after the 1937 constitution – inalienable rights. So, we asked no questions. There was no comment. And it was easier in some cases just to send Mary away or Bridget away.” – James M. Smith, Boston College
The series concludes next Wednesday at 9.30pm on RTÉ One.
ABOUT THE SERIES
One of the constant themes of this story is how the impact of what happened to these women continues to be felt today. These are not documentaries about a fossilised and distant past. This is living history. There is a legion of women still alive, whose lives were blighted by their experiences in and after the laundries. Those experiences have also impacted their families across the next generations.
“It affected my marriage. It affected my children. I’ve now got seven grandchildren and I’m happy with my life, but I’ve felt that there was a great injustice served to us. Sometimes, I think we were punished for being born.” – Gabrielle O’Gorman
“My mother was Magdalene Number 322, real name Margaret. Margaret was committed to industrial school in 1954, age two years and four months. She left 49 years later in a coffin.” – Samantha Long
One of the women’s most consistent wishes is that their stories be shared with younger generations, not only because they want them to know and understand what took place, but to ensure that this can never happen again. They, themselves, missed out on an education, and so they are all the more determined that part of their legacy will be to educate others. Alongside the television series, New Decade TV, the Producers, will therefore produce an online educational module, making all of the recorded testimonies and research available as part of the curriculum for second level students, and for anyone else who wants to study this aspect of our history further.
“Well, I had seven children, five sons and two daughters. I now have 27 grandchildren. I now have 24 great grandchildren. And what’s important for me is that they know about what their mother and their grandmother and great grandmother went through. And let’s hope it never happens again. The truth be told.” – Teresa O’Connor
“The history of 20th century Ireland contains a really awful story. And that is that we managed to lock up 1% of our population within a whole network of related institutions – psychiatric institutions, mother and baby homes, Magdalene laundries, industrial schools. And there’s not a family in Ireland that actually isn’t affected by this legacy.” – Professor Katherine O’Donnell, UCD.
Much has been written about the culture of incarceration in Ireland. The story of the Magdalene Laundries has sometimes become enmeshed with that of our Industrial Schools and Mother & Baby Homes, because they were often located close together and some people spent time in all three types of institution. In 2018, during his Irish visit, Pope Francis inadvertently highlighted his own lack of knowledge, when he failed to mention the Magdalene Laundries during his wider apology for the sins of institutional abuse. He and his advisors didn’t seem to realise that the Magdalene laundries were different from other institutions. He had to be told afterwards of the error, but that was too late for the few Magdalene survivors who had listened, hoping that he might apologise to them, or even mention them. Once again, they felt ignored.
Already, in February 2013, many of the women had felt poorly served by the report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries (IDC). The report concluded, unequivocally, that there was extensive State collusion in referring women and girls to the Magdalene Laundries, in awarding State contracts to the laundries, in ensuring that escaping women and girls were returned to the institutions by Gardaí and in failing to have the religious orders comply with State legislation relating to pay, pensions and other obligations to employees, even as the laundries were routinely inspected under the relevant Factories Acts. What were largely missing, however, were the detailed personal testimonies of the women who worked in the laundries. The Report declined to issue any definitive findings relating physical abuse in the laundries on the grounds that it had heard from too few of the women.
This series hears from only a handful of the survivors, but, underpinned by a much wider database and oral history of the Magdalene women’s experiences, it nonetheless provides graphic testimony about what they suffered, psychologically and physically, at the hands of a system that was supported by every tier of Irish society: the family, the parish, religious congregations and the State. That abuse happened under the pretext, or pretence, that these girls and women somehow deserved to be punished. Now, the remaining survivors are determined, not only to be heard, but believed.
“The nun said to me that I would corrupt an army of soldiers. I think they thought I was a temptation to men. I think they thought I was a bit too attractive… I think they kind of wanted to clip my wings, stop me from being who I was.” – Gabrielle O’Gorman
“Hold on. Why did this happen? Why was I sent there? Why was I treated so badly? Why didn’t people just put out a kind hand and say, ‘This shouldn’t have happened to you. This was wrong.’” – Maureen Sullivan