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The sixth annual Flowers for Magdalene event, held last year. Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland

Magdalene Laundries 'Memorial needed for women detained under heartless, vicious regime'

Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald argues work should begin on a memorial on the site of the Sean McDermott St Laundry.

WHO WILL EVER forget the outpouring of emotion from the Magdalene women when the State finally apologised for its role in their barbarous captivity?

Some of these women were in the visitors’ gallery of the Dáil on the 19 February 2013 when the Taoiseach made his remarks, and their raw emotion could be felt throughout Leinster House.

For my part, I’ve worked with many of the women who endured the Magdalene Laundries in the years running up the State’s apology, and since.

During my statements that night, I set out the State’s complicity in the women’s detention and abuse. It oversaw the system of slave labour woven into the Laundries, a system that the State had commercial relationships with and was responsible for the inspection of the institutions.

Yet the State’s guilt went much deeper than the horror of unending incarceration. It was a party to the wholesale violation of the basic freedoms and rights of the girls and women detained. The brutality of the regime they were locked within was heartless, vicious and violent. Yet the women’s humanity and dignity has always shone through.

Many of the women and girls enslaved in the Laundries did not live to see the State acknowledge and accept its neglect and complicity in their trauma. They too must be remembered.

On the evening of the 19 February, the former Taoiseach committed to engage directly with survivors on the creation of an appropriate memorial to be financed by Government.

Mr Justice John Quirke in his recommendations for a redress scheme and related matters noted the consensus in favour of the creation and maintenance of a memorial within the former Seán McDermott Street Laundry site.

He went on to recommend the acquisition, maintenance and administration of any garden, museum or other form of memorial.

In recent months, Dublin City Council management agreed to the creation of a memorial on the Seán McDermott Street site. Whilst they have sought to tie the memorial to the controversial sale and development of the site there is not a single reason why the memorial itself cannot proceed as a standalone project.

Justice for Magdalene Research (JFMR) has long advocated that the surviving women’s experiences be memorialised.

Last month, the Justice and Equality Minister committed to facilitate JFMR plans to honour the women at a two-day event in Dublin in June where they will discuss how they would like their experiences to be officially remembered.

Ardmhéara Bhaile Átha Cliath Mícheál MacDonncha announced that he will host the women at the Mansion House during the event.

Everything is moving in the right direction, but we are not there yet.

Thanks to the long years of advocacy by organisations like JFMR and the personal strength of the surviving women, we are much closer to securing an appropriate memorial at the Seán McDermott Street site.

The Department of Justice must work with JFMR by ensuring all women who accessed the Department’s Magdalene Redress Scheme are invited to attend the #HonourMagdalenes Dublin event in June. Funding must be released by the Department.

Dublin City Council management must engage in this process and work with the Department to deliver an appropriate memorial to the women at the Seán McDermott Street site, as determined by the women themselves following the June consultation.

As a woman and mother, these women’s experiences stay with me. Each of these women were failed, over and over again by the State and wider society.

#HonourMagdalenes is an opportunity that must be grasped enthusiastically with both hands by the Government and Dublin City Council.

Mary Lou McDonald TD is the leader of Sinn Féin.

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78 Comments
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    Mute CaighdeanBAC
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:06 PM

    This is the same Catholic Church that separated babies from their mothers, selling them to childless American couples whilst the nuns pocketed the money for themselves and wouldn’t use it to buy medicine for the children in their gulags. The Irish Mother & Baby homes had the highest imfant mortality rate in Europe. #LoveBoth indeed.

    285
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    Mute Ciarán Masterson
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:12 PM

    @CaighdeanBAC:

    So the wrongs done by a minority of members of the clergy in the past make it OK intentionally terminate the lives of unborn children, do they?!

    119
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    Mute The Risen
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:18 PM

    @CaighdeanBAC: You missed the #loveboth brigade in action yesterday on the article about the mass grave in Tuam. It was all ‘move along, nothing to see here’. Pro birth, nothing more….

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    Mute CaighdeanBAC
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:18 PM

    @Ciarán Masterson: Hypocrisy has no time limits. It wasn’t a minority, it was all the nuns on all the homes.

    113
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    Mute Karen Wellington
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:22 PM

    @Ciarán Masterson: minority? Are you delusional or just spouting lies? The entire catholic corporation is rotten to the core and has been for quite a while (a little over 2000 years).

    98
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    Mute CaighdeanBAC
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:40 PM

    @The Risen: When did our moral guardians become so unChristian?

    38
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    Mute Francis Mc Carthy
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:41 PM

    @Ciarán Masterson: “terminate the lives of unborn children” -more hogwash from you
    zygote,embryo,foetus,neonate,infant,toddler (child),teenager,young adult,adult,geriatric

    Do you call an infant a teenage? No? Thought so.
    So why do you call an embryo a ‘child’?

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    Mute Ciarán Masterson
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:44 PM

    @Francis Mc Carthy:

    Weren’t we all embryos in wombs before we were born?!

    35
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    Mute Ciarán Masterson
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:46 PM

    @CaighdeanBAC:

    Sadly, some nuns were brainwashed into believing what they thought of the girls and many nuns were afraid to go against their mothers superior.

    The Church is more compassionate towards unmarried mothers today.

    27
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    Mute CaighdeanBAC
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:48 PM

    @Ciarán Masterson: LOL!

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    Mute Brian Deane
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:48 PM

    @CaighdeanBAC: Am sure you feel better now that you’ve got your daily dose of anti-Catholic bile off your chest. By the way, will the leader of SF also be campaigning for a memorial for its many victims or was that ok because it was for the cause?

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    Mute Ciarán Masterson
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:48 PM

    @Karen Wellington:

    Sadly, what happened reflected the attitude of a significant part of society towards unmarried mothers. Those nuns who were abusive towards the girls have since died.

    Violence towards children was endemic – sure, many teachers and ordinary parents used the cane against children in Ireland and in Britain in those days.

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    Mute The Risen
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:58 PM

    @Ciarán Masterson: ‘unmarried mothers’?? Did you quantum leap here from 1983?

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    Mute Sean O Sullivan
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:06 PM

    @Ciarán Masterson: the church is compassionate??haha did the head of that cult not recently call victims of child sexual abuse by the hands of priests liars recently

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    Mute Francis Mc Carthy
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:10 PM

    @Ciarán Masterson: wow! Stop the lights!

    Zygote, embryo, foetus, neonate, infant, toddler (child), teenager, adult, geriatric. Those are the life/developmental stages. You would not call an infant a teenager, so why do you call an embryo a child?

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    Mute rowan hill
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:17 PM

    @Ciarán Masterson: too late

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    Mute Karen Wellington
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:20 PM

    @Ciarán Masterson: well at least you acknowledge that it’s brainwashing. Who exactly do you think brainwashed those sadistic money grubbing nuns?

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    Mute Bernadette Purcell
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:49 PM

    @CaighdeanBAC: indeed! Love both always…

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    Mute Gus Sheridan
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:52 PM

    @Ciarán Masterson: a minority???????

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    Mute Gus Sheridan
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:55 PM

    @Ciarán Masterson: the evil organisation still seems to be dragging its feet in reparation to the victims. Time to take some of their properties from them, Henry VIII had the right idea!

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    Mute League of shadows
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    Apr 15th 2018, 8:39 PM

    @CaighdeanBAC: #LOVE BOTH #SAVE THE EIGHTH, thought you might need cheering up.

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    Mute Patty Cullinane
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    Apr 16th 2018, 12:55 AM

    @Ciarán Masterson: ” The Church is more compassionate towards unmarried mothers today.” Seriously? What century are you living in? It isn’t about the church being more compassionate. It is about it being more practical.

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    Mute Patty Cullinane
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    Apr 16th 2018, 12:56 AM

    @Ciarán Masterson: so what?

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    Mute Patty Cullinane
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    Apr 16th 2018, 1:00 AM

    @Ciáran Masterson: and your nun defense is ridiculous.

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    Mute Mj Osu
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    Apr 16th 2018, 1:14 PM

    @CaighdeanBAC: This is pure lies.
    It was the parent and Grandparents.
    That did not want any thing to do with the Child
    The Nuns were overcrowded with Mothers
    And Baby’s that no one else would give a
    Shelter. What money they got for finding a good home went back into the home .

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    Mute O'Boyle Darragh
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    Apr 18th 2018, 7:30 AM

    @Ciarán Masterson: Minority? Those that weren’t directly involved colluded with those that were.

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    Mute Kate Flaherty
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:14 PM

    The best way of honoring these women and children to my mind is to make sure we never allow our way of life to be dictated by any religion ever again, and of course that we never forget!….

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:43 PM

    @Kate Flaherty: It isn’t really strange that at this moment that these articles surface which are meant us to feel ashamed of the past while I admire the older Irish people so much even though most are now gone. It would not be above a politician to bring up a tactic that the Brits tried to use to further their common law in this country including unreasonable entitlements like ‘vulnerable witness’. Attacking Irish society of 100 years ago or later ignores just how hard the people of the State worked to create the imperfect State we had today so while it is right to take care of those who were done wrong by, there has to be a balance which highlights how kind and humane Irish people always were.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:43 PM
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    Mute Bernadette Purcell
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:51 PM

    @Kate Flaherty: its the state who has got away with the blame, they set up these homes, oversaw them, and women religious are blamed – its all women’s fault. Very clever!

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    Mute The Risen
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:58 PM

    @Bernadette Purcell: Buildings don’t beat, enslave and torture people. It was the dogma of catholicism that facilitated the laundries.

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    Mute Brendan O'Brien
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    Apr 15th 2018, 8:07 PM

    @Bernadette Purcell: It’s partly the fault of a relatively small number of women who were party to victimization and oppression of larger numbers of women. It makes no sense to try to defend those nuns on quasi-feminist grounds.

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    Mute Brendan O'Brien
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    Apr 15th 2018, 8:09 PM

    @Gerald Kelleher: ‘… how kind and humane Irish people always were’ is nonsense. Many of them were quite the opposite.

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Apr 15th 2018, 8:33 PM

    @Brendan O’Brien: To use the past like this is despicable for although injustices were part of Irish society, the older people were fair minded and never really held the Brits accountable for the famine or many others things. The lack of balance to promote an agenda of entitlements is as much an injustice as the launderies but using the past Irish society (which was overwhelmingly good in nature) to further a current agenda should not stand unopposed

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    Mute Joe Travers
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    Apr 15th 2018, 10:10 PM

    @Gerald Kelleher: go away ya clown

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    Mute Patty Cullinane
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    Apr 16th 2018, 1:12 AM

    @Gerald Kelleher: the older people had problem saying shite if they had a mouth full of it. This is not a virtue. It is stupidly based on a class system that made them think they were beneath being treated as equals..by the British, by doctors, solicitors, and most importantly…priests and nuns. And it is an attitude that still exists amongst oap’s today.

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    Mute O'Boyle Darragh
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    Apr 18th 2018, 8:04 AM

    @Bernadette Purcell: These homes pre-dated the state but once the Free State came into being it did collude with the RCC in them, likely based on those in power in the state being brainwashed in the teachings of the RCC cult.

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    Mute The Risen
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:14 PM

    Call it what it was abuse, torture and slavery of Irish women by the Catholic church. The harshest punishments they could get away with this side of biblical times for ‘fallen women’

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    Mute Charliegrl80
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:37 PM

    @The Risen: I am a survivor myself and I’m not defending any origination, but it wasn’t just the catholic church, although they were the biggest culprits in the whole abuse scandal, it was other religious orders and the state and like everything in Ireland there was big money to be made from the misery of others. I survived from the institutional abuse system run by nuns, and we never even got the opportunity to be hear in a court, it was all done behind closed doors and our mouths have been shut with the threat of jail, and not one apology from our abusers at the living ones well protected by the state. They set up an organisations to help survivors called Caranua and its not fit for purpose, many feel it makes them feel like beggars.

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    Mute Noelle Walsh
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:55 PM

    @Charliegrl80: Use Twitter – get your voice out there. And well done you! You survived such a situation.

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    Mute Paul Fahey
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:50 PM

    @Charliegrl80: which other religious orders (plural)? To my knowledge there were only Catholic (vast majority) and Protestant (a few) who had such institutions.

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    Mute Bernadette Purcell
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:52 PM

    @The Risen: blame women again. It was all their fault, no one else involved? Male politicans, business men?

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    Mute Karen Wellington
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    Apr 15th 2018, 8:15 PM

    @Bernadette Purcell: theRisen didn’t blame women. It’s written right there at the top of this thread; “abuse, torture and slavery against Irish women by the catholic church”.

    You’re really bad a deflection.

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    Mute Karen Wellington
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    Apr 15th 2018, 8:16 PM

    @Karen Wellington: *of Irish women by the catholic church

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    Mute Charliegrl80
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    Apr 15th 2018, 10:05 PM

    @Paul Fahey: Paul that’s what I said in my comment but didn’t name them and I did say the Catholic Church was indeed the biggest culprits.

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    Mute Charliegrl80
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    Apr 15th 2018, 10:20 PM

    @Noelle Walsh: These are the word I use to help me daily “I will stand up against those who are against me, I will be strong and will not be broken by the very people that were meant to take care of me. I will never allow another person to hurt me again, if they want to fight survivors again bring it on!

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    Mute Ciarán Masterson
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    Apr 15th 2018, 11:56 PM

    @Charliegrl80:

    You could have avoided the gagging clause by not applying to the Redress Board.

    The reason for the clause is that the Redress Board would have been left open to being sued for defamation if it had publicised testimony.

    Redress applicants didn’t have to prove they were sexually abused or physically assaulted. They only had to prove they were in a residential institution.

    What would be regarded as physical assault today may not have been a crime back then, i.e. corporal punishment.

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    Mute Liam Mac Roibin
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    Apr 16th 2018, 12:02 PM

    @The Risen: I despise the Catholic church, but you’re pretty close to an organisation that wallowed in torture and abuse. You’re not in a position to pontificate.

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    Mute Charliegrl80
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    Apr 16th 2018, 7:09 PM

    @Ciarán Masterson: Sorry, but sue who as the indemnity agreement between the state and the religious protected them from any prosecution. You can check Bertie Ahern’s gang in government at the time of the indemnity with Wood’s.

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    Mute Charliegrl80
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    Apr 16th 2018, 7:18 PM

    @Ciarán Masterson: Corporal punishment you call it, I am a survivor and a witness of the abuse that went on where I was as a 5 year old little girl. Being starved to almost death, being put in a dungeon in the dark, sitting and sleeping on cold wet stone floors, been beaten black and blue that the fingers in my hands are deformed. I can barely stand up straight and the mental torture I go through daily. And that’s the mild bits of what happened to others and myself including 3 of my siblings. We weren’t even allowed to talk to each other during our stay.

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    Mute Benny
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:35 PM

    The end of British rule in Ireland created a massive power vacuum that the catholic church filled – it was one tyrannical ruler replaced by another. May we never go back to those dark dark days!

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    Mute Bernadette Purcell
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:53 PM

    @Benny: lets be careful of what we choose as our tyrants!

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    Mute Gus Sheridan
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:59 PM

    @Benny: a lot of this torture and pain can be laid at the feet of DeValera whose priest ridden mentality allowed them to take over
    the education of our children.

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    Mute Philip Morgan
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    Apr 15th 2018, 8:12 PM

    @Gus Sheridan: Its simplistic to blame Dev alone for this. Ireland after the Civil war was an ugly place with many families, neighbours and parishes torn apart. One thing they all had in common was they where devoutly religious. They Catholic church positioned themselves as a group to bring the warring families together.

    After independence more should have been done to reign them in but all political parties, all TDs where quite happy to bow to the church. Dev was not alone in this.
    The Irish people where quite happy with the churches involvement too. They kept voting in deeply religious people. They also sent their daughters to the homes to avoid the shame.

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    Mute Teresa Ryan
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    Apr 16th 2018, 5:39 PM

    @Benny
    Nonsense. The Catholic church was in charge of the Irish people for a century before independence. In fact, since Maynooth was build in the late 18th century. The CC was the only organization to approve of the union with GB in 1800. Even the orange order disagreed with the union initially.

    The CC did and said nothing during the famine and stood by as a mass genocide was underway. Same for the decades of evictions.

    During the land wars, even Parnell had to work with the CC and get their aporoval.

    Yet so many Irish still adhere to the Irish Catholic church. Shame on you all.

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    Mute leartius
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:48 PM

    Well if I was one of these women, I would have told “the ginger nut” where to stick his hollow apology.
    Lets not forget that contraception was illegal in Ireland from 1935 till 1980. It still took until 1985 before a man could buy a condom.
    Slavery was abolished in Ireland since 1807 but these Magdalene’s asylums were allowed to prosper until 1996. How many of those involved are still running services within our state?
    we enacted a constitution in 1937 giving women equal rights then undermined those rights with cruel Catholic theology of sexuality.
    It was a pointless apology without compensation something many may never live to receive.

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    Mute DeFonz
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:51 PM

    Prosecutions needed..

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    Mute Gerald Kelleher
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:02 PM

    For all those families that sent their daughters into these awful places there were families absorbing mother and daughter into their wider family and I am extremely proud of these people. The darkness was in the pretense of an unmarried daughter as much as a Catholic or a political issue, something people simply ignore.

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    Mute Rob Cahill
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    Apr 16th 2018, 1:29 PM

    @Gerald Kelleher: No people don’t ignore that. The stranglehold the church had on this country at the time had people fearing them and doing as they were told. People back then thought the church was telling the truth and believed there was a god and a hell to be punished in. Luckily most see through it now and their grasp on us is gone. Good riddance to it.

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    Mute League of shadows
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    Apr 15th 2018, 8:43 PM

    While you’re at it Ms McDonald you might consider erecting a monument to the missing victims of Republican violence lying in unmarked and untraceable graves throughout the country, another dark legacy in our country’s troubled history.

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    Mute ihcalaM
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    Apr 15th 2018, 9:23 PM

    @League of shadows: **deflection alert**

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    Mute League of shadows
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    Apr 15th 2018, 11:11 PM

    @ihcalaM: Pots and kettles, glass houses and stones, you get trend

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    Mute Liam Mac Roibin
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    Apr 16th 2018, 12:05 PM

    @ihcalaM: Said the kings of “Whataboutery”.

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    Mute Dan Boyle
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    Apr 15th 2018, 9:02 PM

    Isn’t it ironic that MaryLou has an article condeming attrocities of certain sections of our past and meanwhile will there be any mention of who she is associated with. At least the mother and baby homes have been rightly shut down and put into history but her colleagues such as kingsmill bread guy and tweeting senators tend to keep the shinners in the spotlight. At least i suppose they were indiscriminate in some of their bombing decisions such as Enniskillen and the pregnant lady with twins who were all killed. Marylou is not exactly the knight in shining armour to replace the church. I personally would rather listen to the church than the shinners.

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    Mute Teresa Ryan
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    Apr 16th 2018, 5:47 PM

    @Dan Boyle

    So Dan, do you have any of the same concern for your fellow Irish citizens murdered in the Rep by the British military and their loyalist murder squads? In fact more Irish citizens were murdered in the Rep than in GB.

    In fact, more Irish citizens were killed in Irish institutions than died during the troubles. All overseen by successive FF/FG/Lab governments.

    Deal with that.

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    Mute Michael Lang
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    Apr 15th 2018, 10:35 PM

    Many of the mother and child homes were in fact baby farms with unsold children raised on bare subsistence.

    Roman Catholic Canon law created the stigma of illegitimacy, bas tard y still part of Roman Catholic Canon Law.

    Exploited women were fallen women and the babies were the wages of sin.

    The primary influence on social culture in Ireland in the 19th and the 20th centuries was a severe, authoritarian, repressive, ultramontane and Jansenist Roman Catholicism, obsessed with sin, fornication and extra marital sex.

    The institutional Roman Catholic Church used sex and the power of denunciation as powerful methods of social control and exploitation.

    The last remnant of this condemnatory and controlling Catholic is the Eight Amendment. We can retain it or we can repeal it.

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    Mute Elvis King
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:14 PM

    lets see how long it takes micheal, to give us his tupence worth ,

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    Mute courageous
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    Apr 15th 2018, 6:23 PM

    @Elvis King:

    No need to be nasty Elvis, everyone’s opinion is valid

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    Mute Elvis King
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:13 PM

    @courageous: I am not being nasty micheal likes to bring in the bad catholics on any topic ,even if it has nothing to do with the artical,

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    Mute Michael Lang
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    Apr 15th 2018, 10:36 PM

    @Elvis King: thank you for the invitation and encouragement.

    The Roman Catholic Church is highly and centrally relevant to the article.

    Thank you for the encouragement.

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    Mute Elvis King
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    Apr 16th 2018, 12:14 AM

    @Michael Lang: Jesus you took your time , where you at extra prayers for Ramadan again, I like to stay in doors for that Month ,

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    Mute Michael Lang
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    Apr 16th 2018, 9:35 PM

    @Elvis King: your comment makes you sound like a Catholic extremist.

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    Mute Patty Cullinane
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    Apr 15th 2018, 8:06 PM

    What all these women need is justice, and the redress promised to the ones who still haven’t received it….of which several have died still waiting for. Is this the govt’s plan, to wait until the remaining die before paying the redress?

    https://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/seven-die-in-wait-for-magdalene-laundry-redress-payments-467883.html

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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:15 PM

    Great book called candle in the window from a woman that was held in bessboro in cork

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    Mute Irish First Mothers
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    Apr 16th 2018, 1:06 AM

    Children and babies were not in Magdalene laundries. Less than 5% of women who ended up in Magdalene laundries came from Mother and baby homes. Most of the women in Magdalene laundries came through Industrial schools and Courts. All assets should be frozen until such time as the issue of Genocide is dealt with. Mother & Baby homes are different than Magdalene Laundries.

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    Mute Daniel Donovan
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    Apr 15th 2018, 7:43 PM

    The Catholic Church is a disgraceful institution.

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    Mute Johnny Bellew
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    Apr 16th 2018, 10:49 AM

    A lot of barbarity happened on this island in the past as Mary Lou well knows. Let have a very visible memorial in a public area for all the victims of IRA atrocities. And let us have a sincere and fulsome apology by the perpetrators of these atrocities.

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    Mute O'Boyle Darragh
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    Apr 18th 2018, 11:56 AM

    @Johnny Bellew: Do you have an opinion on the issue being discussed or are you simply trying to deflect?

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