Question about Magdalene Laundries

InchicoreDude

If you go to the following link,

http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/name.htm

it provides links to 1911 census of the magdalene institutions. Looking through these names, quite a few are married. Much more than I would have expected.

What would be the reaons for a married person being admitted into a magdalene institution?

Kettleson

I'm guessing..from the Census return's that I have read there doesn't seem to be many married?

For those that are listed as married, some possibly might have been employed there and stayed on the night?

Widowed? Mental illness, ill health, poverty, deserted by husband, and as much as it pains me to write "child out of wedlock" or following "court proceedings".

Some of the women were listed as "deaf and dumb" and another census has women listed as "in mate". Many older women are listed as "widows".

It's all terribly sad to read.

InchicoreDude

Kettleson wrote: »

I'm guessing..from the Census return's that I have read there doesn't seem to be many married?

For those that are listed as married, some possibly might have been employed there and stayed on the night?

Widowed? Mental illness, ill health, poverty, deserted by husband, and as much as it pains me to write "child out of wedlock" or following "court proceedings".

Some of the women were listed as "deaf and dumb" and another census has women listed as "in mate". Many older women are listed as "widows".

Yeah, it is incredibly sad. Especialy when you look at the ages of some of the women in there.

It's all terribly sad to read.

ok well there isnt many overall, but still there were more than I expected. That was my point.

It would be interesting to see how some of these married women ended up there though. There has been a lot of documentaries / films about how unmarried women ended up there.

Kettleson

InchicoreDude wrote: »

ok well there isnt many overall, but still there were more than I expected. That was my point.

It would be interesting to see how some of these married women ended up there though. There has been a lot of documentaries / films about how unmarried women ended up there.

First of all, thank you for posting that link up. You also might want to check out the wikipedia entry for Magdalene Laundries, there's a lot of info there.

Many thanks

jonniebgood1

InchicoreDude wrote: »

What would be the reaons for a married person being admitted into a magdalene institution?

The main reason would have been having a child outside of marriage. A secondary reason would have been mental illness. It was however the enforcement of the strict Catholic 'moral' values that saw most of these women locked into the laundries. The group 'Justice for Magdalene' made a large submission last year to the investigation into the laundries which supported the idea that the state was largely responsible for this.

bobbyss

What did these women do in the Laundries? Whose clothes were they laundering?

tac foley

bobbyss wrote: »

What did these women do in the Laundries? Whose clothes were they laundering?

Hotels, restaurants, the many great houses and estates, businesses with a high turnover of bed-linen like hospitals, prisons, as well as the clothing and linen of folks who were well-off enough to have all their clothes laundered rather than having to do them themselves.

tac

jonniebgood1

Also for the army in some locations.