Magdalen Laundry stories.

Morag

With the report being published today and the number of 30,000 women that were locked away in the laundries and kept there as slave labour, I found myself thinking that surely we must all know someone whom this happened to.

One of my grandmothers as due to be sent to a laundry, she wasn't a fallen woman, she wasn't pregnant. She was the 15 year old daughter of a widower
and the nuns who used to call to the house to help get her and her younger brother up and out for the day and who used to clean the house decided that it wasn't fitting that she coming into womanhood would be left alone living in the house with her father and younger brother. Before she was taken away she ran away up to Dublin and got a job as a child's maid and 3 years later she meet my grandfather and got married.

A friend of mine's mother was briefly in a laundry.
It was 1967 and she was 19, pregnant and was due to marry but her father didn't approve as the young man was a protestant and when he found out she was pregnant he took her in the middle of the night and handed her over to the nuns. Her intended and his father took 10 weeks to find her as she had been send from Dublin to a laundry in Cork and only by producing a reverend who was willing to marry them right away they managed to get her out. She was married with her hair shorn and still wearing the laundries uniform. They are still happily married and have 5 childern and 8 grand children.

So do you have any stories to share of women that you know or were in your family?

Faith

My best friend's mum was born in a local laundry, back in the 60s. All her records have been destroyed, on purpose she believes. As far as she could tell, her birth mother came from an affluent family, and her birth grandfather arranged for the records to be destroyed so it couldn't be traced to them. That's all I know about it.

My mum grew up within a couple of miles of said laundry (that's still there, and is still a mother and baby unit, but obviously isn't run by nuns anymore). A friend of my grandaunt living nearby woke up early one morning and found a young girl in her garden who'd escaped from the laundry. She gave her some food, clothes and possibly some money so that she could get away. This could have been in the 30's or 40's (I'm not sure exactly) so it's amazing that she wasn't just sent back.

eviltwin

I have an aunt who is a nun, she was in the Navan Road home during the 50's and 60's, I don't know what involvement, if any, she had in the laundry but I feel sick to think she was there knowing what was going on and did nothing. She's very old now and ill so I wouldn't trouble her by asking her about it but the topic has been raised with other members of my family in the past and not one of them think there was any wrong doing on the part of those nuns.

My friend was born in one back in the 70's, like Faith her records were destroyed, in a fire...a fire that there no record of ever having happening. When she went to get her information she was told her mother had been a young single woman who had an affair with her father, a married man. She eventually after a long battle found out it was lies, her parents were a couple and actually married after her birth, she missed meeting her father by a few months, by the time she traced her mother he had just recently died.

I've been reading some of the stories on the Journal over the past few days and they are utterly heartbreaking. I can be a tough nut but some of the accounts have had me in floods of tears. I can't believe this was going on in my lifetime!!! It makes me feel very ashamed to be Irish and to have been involved with the Church for so long while this was actually happening. :mad:

rainbow kirby

A girl in my year at school was born in one in late 1983 - her mother got pregnant at 17, and her extremely conservative Catholic family sent her away to one. She escaped with the baby when the baby was about a week old and never spoke to her family again.

baby and crumble

Having worked for the last few years with older adults with intellectual disabilities to help them tell their life stories, nothing shocks me anymore. Which worries me- when you've heard some of those stories, you realise how bad the country was, and you get desensitised.

And to that poster above who had an aunt as a nun, you can't just blame her. The culture of the time meant that the whole country was just as much responsible for these institutions not shutting down until the mid 90's. Everyine knew what was happening. Maybe not the details, but the idea that there were non legally condned prisoners trying to escape on a regular basis... Well that says a lot.

eviltwin

baby and crumble wrote: »

And to that poster above who had an aunt as a nun, you can't just blame her. The culture of the time meant that the whole country was just as much responsible for these institutions not shutting down until the mid 90's. Everyine knew what was happening. Maybe not the details, but the idea that there were non legally condned prisoners trying to escape on a regular basis... Well that says a lot.

Well to be honest I am sick of blaming institutions. What are institutions if not a group of individuals. I think anyone who was involved, who stood by and let it happen should be called out on it, not jailed but at least told its not okay. I'm sick hearing "ah but it was a different time". Its not an excuse.

Dolbert

I have posted about my great-grandmother a couple of times before. I can only imagine what her life and death were like. Her rapists never got as much as a slap on the wrist, yet her life was essentially taken away from her. I am filled with such deep sorrow and rage for her. RIP Margaret.

My grandmother on the other side was raised in an orphanage with nuns. Her mother died in childbirth, and her father dropped off all of the girls to the orphanage. He kept the boys, remarried, had more children and never saw the girls again. She never discussed her time in the orphanage, but she ran away from there at 16 and despised nuns her entire life (but not as much as she despised her father).

Lollipops23

It breaks my heart every time I think of those places.

My step father was training with the Del La Salle Brothers in the 60s (it was like a boarding school where you eventually became one of them, he planned on teaching before he got disillusioned at 17 and left without so much as a backward glance).

Their laundry used to be sent to the Magdalenes and he said they used to have penpals they'd sneak letters to in the amongst the clothes. Makes me sad, both sides must have longed for company of the opposite gender (not in that way). Imagine being a teenage girl and never spending any time with lads your own age....

Macha

My grandmother was raped when she was 17 and became pregnant. She was put into what was a Magdalene Laundry by everything other than name. She was forced to give my dad up for adoption when he was only 6 months old. She stayed on for some time (a few months I think) after he was taken from her, and only left when her sister came to get her out.

The institution she was in wasn't included in this report. I would love to know why.

Faith

Macha wrote: »

The institution she was in wasn't included in this report. I would love to know why.

Neither is the one I mentioned. It wasn't a Magdalen laundry, but the name was the only difference.

There was a very good book published about it. It's written by a woman who worked there as a midwife in the early 50's, and mentions stuff like heavily pregnant women being forced to tar the long driveway, and cut grass by hand.

xLexie

Are these places the same places that took the babies and sold them to people from America?

April O Neill

rainbow kirby wrote: »

A girl in my year at school was born in one in late 1983

:eek: 1983! Only the year before I was born!

Morag

April O Neill wrote: »

:eek: 1983! Only the year before I was born!

The last one wasn't closed until 1996 and then some women were moved into convents to be housekeeping staff.

The Snapper (written in 1992, filmed in 1993) would have been a very different story if Sharon Curly's Da had to dragged her to the Laundry.

Morag

xLexie wrote: »

Are these places the same places that took the babies and sold them to people from America?

In some cases yes.

The_Morrigan

My grandmother used to tell us tales of some of the girls she knew from the laundry in her area. My grandmother was not a resident in any of the laundries, like most she knew exactly what was going on inside those walls but unlike everyone else she did something about it, in her small little way.

She had 10 children and would arrive at the doors of the laundry on a Sat morning, no makeup, hair a mess, half dressed dirty children hanging off her and would plead with the nuns to give her some girls to help cos her useless husband never came home from the pub and she needed help.

All lies, everything down to the snotty nosed kids was a set -up, it was her way of getting some of the girls out of the laundry over the weekend. My grandfather had the worst reputation in town for his jaunts (theses 'jaunts' were spent in his potting shed out the back), but every few weeks she tried to get some of those poor girls out of the nuns grasp and they both agreed the bad reps were worth it.

It is the smallest of things that they tried to do and she knew the girls had to go back, but it was the only way she could see to 'help'. She couldn't take on the church so she figured a break from the institution might be enough to save some of the girls from a day/night of horrendous treatment. It doesn't seem much in the grand scheme of things, but we are all proud of her rebel ways and bare faced lies to the catholic church.

Ambersky

It is interesting how within institutions even the people who seemed to be in control, often that was the religious, had their own history of deprivation, lack of emotional support and development and just plain love. There were, and are those above them, the hierarchy, who seemed even more dispassionate and controlling but even there, they too seem to have their own story and are looking for understanding as to why they did what they did.

It seems as more and more stories are coming out from remand homes, from boarding and industrial schools, from laundries and from individual family’s, even from the thread here on have you ever been sexually assaulted, we are getting a better picture about just how wide and common the experience of abuse is.

We know that abusers are often damaged in one way or another in childhood. Now it seems as we look back the very society we lived in, the institutions the belief systems and the way we were as families were often toxic too. The problem is, I think, that many of us saw no reason to grow up and out of these habits or we were so trapped inside them we couldnt even see them. We didn’t pull ourselves up and away from the crowd, the family, the group, the gang, the organisation and become fully conscious responsible adults.

Compassion is as far as I am concerned The Golden Rule and we do need to be compassionate even about abusers. We also have to find out the truth of a story and not everyone accused is guilty but it seems an awful lot of people who were and are guilty are very far from taking responsibility for it.
Compassion however does not always require one to simply be nice.
It can also express itself in strength when confronting someone with the pain they have caused and it can be expressed in blocking, if necessary and possible, future harm.

It seems that all groups and individuals who were involved or are involved in abusive situations use pretty much similar tactics and excuses to evade taking responsibility The reports from the Dail yesterday and on the Vincent Brown show, looked like a text book example of evasion by the government of taking responsibility for the states part in the incarceration of women doing unpaid labour in the Magdalene laundries. It shocks and angers me every time I see it happening but it is important to be able to see these tactics not only in situations where you already don’t like or know the person responsible it is vitally important to see these tactics in yourself or in people you already like and perhaps support.

Tactics of evasion and denial usually take a common form, there is an automatic denial without really listening, then a minimising, then comparing it to other situations to cloud and further minimise the issue, then shifting the blame, then we sometimes have tears, statements of good character, calls for support, attack on the abused, reversals or statements that the abusers are now in fact the victims of the situation.
I suggest watching events over the next few weeks and see how many of these tactics you can spot in action. An ability to see and recognise these things would be a good start in preventing future abuse and excuses for abuse.

I know all that's a lot of analysis but I have found it necessary to survive and make some sense of events and situations in my own life.
As a teen I was brought by nuns, who were very good to me, to dance with and bring some semblance of normality to boys in a reformatory a few miles away from my home town. That and other social activist type things we did made a real impression on me. Those young radical nuns from the Sisters of Mercy of the 60s and 70s gave me an education, gave of their own personal time with extra classes in my subject for free, got me into college when I wouldnt have known how to even apply and I would say they saved me.
In my own professional life I have worked in many institutions including High Park Drumcondra when it was a home for girls and just before it closed down ( it was also a laundry). All along I questioned whether I was upholding institutions even by simply being there and being kind to the girls. I have been cross examined by groups of nuns and in court for listening to the girls and telling their stories. Revelations of abuse is rarely simple it develops all kinds of complexities and implications and in the middle of it all you can be left wondering if you are doing more harm than good. The part I hold onto now, are the experiences I have had of past pupils coming up to me and telling me about the even brief relief or help I brought to their lives in difficult times.
It wasnt a case that nobody knew what was happening. There were people saying this is wrong and speaking out against things but they we were whistle blowers, trouble makers, odd people with queer views about everything and sure you couldnt be listening to them.
In fairness I have received an official apology from one religious order of nuns for not listening to me and for treating me unfairly .
It has taken me time to learn to even see what is going on in the web of interconnectedness of it all.

Lollipops23

The_Morrigan wrote: »

My grandmother was not a resident in any of the laundries, like most she knew exactly what was going on inside those walls but unlike everyone else she did something about it, in her small little way.

Your granny is a legend.

baby and crumble

eviltwin wrote: »

Well to be honest I am sick of blaming institutions. What are institutions if not a group of individuals. I think anyone who was involved, who stood by and let it happen should be called out on it, not jailed but at least told its not okay. I'm sick hearing "ah but it was a different time". Its not an excuse.

I agree, completely. I'm simply saying that pretty much the whole country is eligible for 'blame' in some ways.

I also think its important not to dwell so muh on the past, when to be frank, some similar institutions are still up and running in the country today. Ok, perhaps the residents aren't working 16 hour days, but many are denied basic rights like travel, money, communication and decent food. And I'm not talking about jails.

The_Morrigan

Lollipops23 wrote: »

Your granny is a legend.

Yes, yes she was!

And I think we all inherited her brazen streak towards the church - at 12 I refused to make my confirmation 'cos I thought it was crock of sh*t

I'd like to think, if I was around at the time I would be brave enough to do the same.

Macha

The_Morrigan wrote: »

My grandmother used to tell us tales of some of the girls she knew from the laundry in her area. My grandmother was not a resident in any of the laundries, like most she knew exactly what was going on inside those walls but unlike everyone else she did something about it, in her small little way.

As was my other grandmother, the woman who adopted my dad.

Here is the documentary that apparently inspired the movie, The Magdalene Sisters:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FtxOePGgXPs

Madam_X

I don't think it's fair to say that people, besides the abusers and the families who maliciously dragged their daughters into those hell-holes, are in some way complicit. As Morrigan said, there was only a tiny little bit that her nan could do to help the girls, and even that involved a huge amount of bravery.
I don't understand assertions that nobody did anything - the above is an example of someone doing something. Seeing as people in general were no worse back then than they are now, I am fully confident there were plenty of people who tried to speak out or who did little things to help in whatever way they could. As acknowledged, what they were up against was too powerful to simply stand up to. The ordinary people of those times were our parents/grandparents/great-grandparents - is it really reasonable to say they all had a degree of accountability? If we were told we were in some way responsible for a monstrous system, would we view that as fair?

People back then were just less educated, more ignorant - I don't mean ignorant in the derogatory sense, more innocent, less knowing; they were taught that this organisation was love. Even as a child in the 80s/early 90s, I thought the church was incapable of wrongdoing because I had been taught it was a charitable and compassionate organisation, and my immediate family wasn't particularly religious. When the abuse revelations started to trickle out gradually in the early 90s, I assumed "a few rotten apples" (which alone was horrific enough)... no way did I expect such a mammoth scale. I went to a convent school in the 90s and none of the nuns seemed particularly dreadful people. I thought a mother and baby home was a charitable nursing home type place where girls who were shunned could have their babies in secure, comfortable surroundings.

It's unfair to say "everyone on the outside knew" without knowing for certain.

And as Ambersky alluded to, there were even people working within those institutions who had no idea of what horror would start to take place under the same roof. I read about a priest who was based at Artane and he sent letters upon letters to the Department of Education begging for someone to stop the abuse, and eventually an "inspection" (which the school was warned about in advance :rolleyes:) was carried out, and it was concluded the boys' bruises were just boys being boys and having rough-and-tumble fights...

miamee

Madam_X, I think you are right regarding not everyone knowing what was going on at the time. It is probably quite difficult now to imagine a time where the only way to get news was by word of mouth or on the daily local news on the radio because these days we have everything at our fingertips.

I was talking to my grandmother about this on Tuesday evening when the report came out and she told me that the only thing that she knew about the nearest laundry to where she lived was that a man came to their house every Friday to collect what they needed washed/laundered. That was it. And she was very well educated for the time as were her family so it's not a case of not understanding what was happening or turning a blind eye - she has no time for the church now - but if she knew anything she'd tell me, she has told me some other stories about priests and nuns from her childhood.

lazygal

I think a lot of people knew everything wasn't quite right though. My dad comes from a rural town that had a notorious industrial school in it. He says even as a child of six he wondered about the dirty children down the back of the class who had to leave early and often missed school, probably because they were put to work on the school's farm. He said the threat if you misbehaved was to be sent there, why would a parent make such a threat if they didn't have an inkling something was wrong? You hear the same stories about Artane being the threat for bold children in Dublin. And I recall a documentary on Sean Fortune, where older men and women nearly joked about how they kept their sons away from his because they knew he was into young boys for his kicks. To say 'we didn't know and what could we have done' isn't really cutting it as an excuse for me. There were a brave few who did try to do something, and because no one else wanted to stand up and be counted, their efforts were in vain.

miamee

You could be right lazygal, people who were in the vicinity of these laundries and schools probably knew there was something absolutely not right going on. However the rest of the country living nowhere near a laundry or home possibly believed that they were what they proclaimed to be - homes for mothers and babies. To save face for the family and to make sure the girl was looked after or whatever else they were proclaiming to do for individual women. I'm not trying to excuse people turning a blind eye who knew about it - that disgusts me as much as the abuse itself - I'm simply trying to imagine how likely it is that everyone, i.e. the whole country of ordinary people knew about it. In my opinion, not that likely. However people in power did know and allowed it to happen and to continue to happen and I think that is a disgrace.

(Apologies if this is taking the thread in an unintended direction, that's the last on it from me )

Lollipops23

Madam_X wrote: »

It's unfair to say "everyone on the outside knew" without knowing for certain.

I agree- to the best of my knowledge, none of us posting were there during the times that the laundries were common.

Yes, I'm sure people knew there was something "not quite right" going on, but they were terrified of the Church and were conditioned to not ask questions. I don't think we can fully appreciate it from our educated and more liberal standpoints.

lazygal

Lollipops23 wrote: »

I agree- to the best of my knowledge, none of us posting were there during the times that the laundries were common.

Yes, I'm sure people knew there was something "not quite right" going on, but they were terrified of the Church and were conditioned to not ask questions. I don't think we can fully appreciate it from our educated and more liberal standpoints.

Reports from the 1930s on by educated state employees said what went on. The Catholic elites chose to turn a blind eye. My parents are both third level educated and said they knew the church was a savage place if you were of the wrong sort, but everyone just turned a blind eye. People don't want to admit,even if it was difficult, that they could have done something but chose not to.

The_Morrigan

I do agree to an extent that not 'everyone' knew, but I think it's not hard to comprehend, considering other factors, but there was the fear of speaking out.
By other factors, I tend to draw a comparison to the nuns and brothers in the ordinary schools, punishment was swift and harsh and often physical in nature, considering this was being dished out to the 'respectable' school goers, the shunned and fallen of society would have been subjected to a lot worse.

But this is very much a hindsight thing, at the time people may not have put two and two together and realised the level of abuse. I know in the case of my grandmother, they lived very close and in the dead of night sound travels quite far, if she wasn't as close, she may never have known and may never have tried to help.

eviltwin

Members of my family knew what went on, they just didn't care. My mother always justified the way unmarried mothers were treated by saying ' if they take the sweet, they take the sour'. Funny she never felt unmarried fathers were responsible.

Chronic Button

There is horrendous abuse taking place today in institutions all over this country, and nobody cares. The reports are published and nothing changes. When will we learn?

midlandsmissus

People did know. It's the old human adage: if it's not happening to you: you don't care.

vitani

I often find myself wondering what the big scandals of this generation are - what, in 20/30 years, will our children look back on and find themselves disgusted by.