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Child Item

No Redress For Victims of Magdalen Laundries

JupiterKid

It's been reported in the Irish Times today that the former inmates of the church run Magdalen laundries will not be able to access the monies of the institutional abuse redress board because the government have deemed that the Magdalen launderies were not funded by the State. Despicable b*stards.:mad::mad:

For anyone who isn't aware, Magdalen laundries were places run by nuns where pregnant unmarried women were sent to have their babies who were then forcibly removed from them to be given up for adoption.

The women were effectively imprisoned in the laundries and suffered horrific physical and mental abuse by the Nuns - they were treated as slave labour. Many died as inmates and were buried in mass graves. The last Magdalen laundry closed as recently as 1996.

Article here:
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0918/1224254799965.html

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mattfender

So theyre having trials still with the schoolkids who were abused in class but not helpin out these women that were treated like sh1t? balls

994

They should get minimum wage for every hour they worked, plus compensation from the Gardaí who hunted down escaped women.

brendansmith

The Government has failed! Thats disgusting

thomond2006

A bit OT but that film was terrifying.

getz

this is a irish shame,the world looks on and the world will condemn,

Joey the lips

Interesting! Does this increase the victums chances of a private cival case i wonder?

Noffles

Ireland really was a terrific place to live in them days.....

myflipflops

Sue the Cathloic Church. If they say they have no money then tell them to sell some of the huge amount of expensive real estate they own. That church at the crossroads in Donnybrook must be worth a few quid.

THis helps in 2 ways:

1. Abuse victime are compensated.

2. The church has less money and therefore less power and influence and is less able to inflict it's will on innocent people. It spent enough time f**king up the country - time to give something back folks.

getz

maybe they could take ireland to the european court of justice over this ?

brummytom

Absolutely disgusting.. I think my great-grandmother was sent to one when she was pregnant with my nan (we presume, we don't know).

The horrors they suffered there were dispicable. If the state had let these places remain open with knowledge of their actions, how can they claim it's nothing to do with them?

JupiterKid

It really does beggar belief that the government could be so callous to these victims - but sure the former inmates of Magdalen laundries aren't prominent bankers or developers are they now?:mad:

And look at the "sweetheart"! deal the govt did with the religious orders implicated in widerspread child torture to limit the amount the orders had to pay over to the victims - yes , let the powerful get away and get the taxpayer to foot the rest of the bill. (NANA anyone?)

Turns my stomach...

Rob Northall

We are trying to change this at
www.shameofireland.co.uk
you can also vote against the Statutory fund at
http://www.petitions.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=238&Itemid=9&latestnews=latest

PeterIanStaker

This should go all the way to European court I think. Seems that RCC and Govt still have a cosy little relationship though, makes me sick really.

Also, there's a thread over on A&A that says religious orders are offloading their assets elsewhere over the past decade so that they will pay out nothing. Wouldnt suprise me.

http://boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055756208

[Deleted User]

There's one of these laundries in Galway. I think it's an old-folks home now, but I could be wrong. It's a really eerie thought to pass there and wonder what happened on those grounds, what sort of brutality and punishments these women had to endure. There's a statue placed near to remember them.

galwayrush

From the days when the Catholic Church were no better than the Taliban.

JonJoeDali

I wonder how many women are actually affected.

I notice the OP is very thin on details and very thick on anti-Catholic rhetoric.

He/she/it obviously hasn't been listening to the Pope over the last few days.

If you expect people to take you seriously, you'll need to drop the hysteria and talk in a rational manner.

Rob Northall

http://www.magdalenelaundries.com/

bronte

JonJoeDali wrote: »

I wonder how many women are actually affected.

Are you actually serious?

GLaDOS

bronte wrote: »

Are you actually serious?

I suggest a glance through his previous posts

[Deleted User]

Rob Northall wrote: »

We are trying to change this at
www.shameofireland.co.uk
you can also vote against the Statutory fund at
http://www.petitions.ie/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=238&Itemid=9&latestnews=latest

Does anyone find it sorta fitting that the shameofireland website is actually .co.uk instead of .ie?

KittyeeTrix

horrible conditions suffered by those poor women. My mum was reared ( beat up) in an Industrial school from the age of 2-16. At the age of about 12 she was sent to work in the adjoining magdalene laundry and I won't even go into the hardships here that she endured.

Those women should be compensated to the highest for what they were put through. Anything else is a travesty and a downright second injustice to them.

I remember sitting thru the "Magdalene" film with my mam and she wasn't too affected by it whereas myself and my sisters were visibly upset by some parts of it. She replied that the movie was not half as bad as actually living in one day to day:(:mad:

PeterIanStaker

galwayrush wrote: »

the Catholic Church are no better than the Taliban.

Fyp
The RCC and the Taliban, both backward mysoginistic and controlling. A lot in common really.

Chuchoter

What does it matter if they weren't owned by the state? Thousands of women imprisoned for no crime, thousands of children stolen from their mothers and this all happened in plain sight of the government and the country. Everyone is responsible, the RCC, the government and the people of the time.

byhookorbycrook

and most of all the parents/family who sent the women to them.

Ickle Magoo

crayolastereo wrote: »

What does it matter if they weren't owned by the state? Thousands of women imprisoned for no crime, thousands of children stolen from their mothers and this all happened in plain sight of the government and the country. Everyone is responsible, the RCC, the government and the people of the time.

I was about to say that - what about the people that sent their daughters, nieces, granddaughters to these places. The way some people go on the church or state dragged these women away from their families for forgetting it was the families that forced them to go to the laundries.

It's deplorable that those poor women won't get compensation for what they were forced to endure.

KittyeeTrix

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

I was about to say that - what about the people that sent their daughters, nieces, granddaughters to these places. The way some people go on the church or state dragged these women away from their families for forgetting it was the families that forced them to go to the laundries.

It's deplorable that those poor women won't get compensation for what they were forced to endure.

Good point raised by yourself and Crayolastereo!!

I can only speak from my own families experience of this situation. My mam had no family and at the age of 16 the state would stop paying the industrial school money towards her upkeep:rolleyes: which meant that the youngsters would normally leave and reunite with their families.
In my mam's case however because she had no family who could watch out for her she was kept in the industrial school/laundry until she was 21 and never informed that she could actually leave.
We were shocked to discover a few years ago going thru the reddress process that the industrial scool had doctored documents stating that she was working as a domestic at age 16 having left the school when in fact she was there for a further 5 years:eek::mad:

LadyMayBelle

Ickle Magoo wrote: »

I was about to say that - what about the people that sent their daughters, nieces, granddaughters to these places. The way some people go on the church or state dragged these women away from their families for forgetting it was the families that forced them to go to the laundries.

It's deplorable that those poor women won't get compensation for what they were forced to endure.

Couldn't agree more. My great grandmother was a midwife in Galway, and practiced out of her home on Foster Street, right beside the Maggies. My gran relays so many sad, sad stories about those women, the babies my great grandmother delivered and also how she and her brothers used to run up to the gate and leave bread and the occasional biscuit they used to be given for the girls behind the walls.

Actually, can anyone recall the Irish book some of us studied in Leaving cert (circa 1999/2000), which was the story of a young women who got pregnant by a neighbour and was sent to the Maggies? I can't remember it or find it on google.

mikemac

"You've brought shame on the family"
"Watch yourself or you'll end up in Letterfrack"

In most cases it was the family who sent the girls there. The Church didn't arrive on your doorstep and drag you away

The Church and State have a lot to answer for these laundries and industrial schools.
And within the next decade we probably will see a motivated team take this case to Europe.

But the people who will never answer for anything are those that sent their daughters, nieces and granddaughters away.

Latchy

Seperate issue I know but the popes 4 day vist to uk cost £12 milion .
The uk goverment in it's cut backs plans to take another £12 million of people in child allowances . Can understand why people, catholic and non-catholics alike are so not pleased and the CC with it's billions should have funded this trip .

Killer Pigeon

getz wrote: »

maybe they could take ireland to the european court of justice over this ?

I was just about to say that. If the church (i.e., the Vatican) or the Irish State hasn't been brought to the European Court of Justice already it's kinda shocking.

The Irish state back in those times must have been comparable to Saudi Arabia today. Truly horrific. I could never put the true horrors of what happened in church run institutions into perspective. The Mendelian Laundries sound a bit like concentration camps or gulags.