The Forgotten Women of Ireland's Magdalene Laundries
By Rachel Cooper
Justice could be imminent for the women who toiled in Ireland's Magdalene Laundries. Rachel Cooper talks to Maeve O'Rourke, the lawyer who has made sure their voices are heard. They have been described as 'Ireland’s disappeared'. Thousands of women are thought to have passed through the gates of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, some of them never to emerge again and others to leave with deep emotional scars. The women - some of whom had fallen pregnant outside marriage, or were the daughters of unmarried women - worked for years in church-run laundries, at times allegedly enduring both mental and physical abuse. Campaigners have long been calling for justice for the Magdalene women and this week, it could finally come. “The women have waited too long for the apology that they’re due, for their pension, compensation and unpaid wages,” says Maeve O’Rourke, a 26-year-old lawyer with the Justice for Magdalenes campaign. “It’s time that everybody acknowledges that they were innocent victims of a system that included society, state and church. “They were sacrificed for the sake of an ideal - and it was only an ideal - of a pure society.” From the early 1920s, it is estimated that tens of thousands of women worked in the laundries, which were run as businesses while the women were said to go unpaid. Women worked in the laundries sometimes for years. On arrival at the laundry, they were said to have been given a different name by which they would be known. Those who have spoken about their experiences talk of constantly washing laundry in cold water, of using heavy irons for hours, of close friendships being forbidden, and of never feeling free to leave. Named after the Bible’s redeemed prostitute, Mary Magdalene, the laundries were first used to reform so-called ‘fallen women’. But, they then expanded. Justice for Magdalenes says the laundries took in girls who were considered ‘promiscuous’, those who were unmarried mothers or were considered a burden on their families. Ireland’s last Magdalene Laundry closed in 1996. Three years earlier, the laundries were brought to light when a convent sold off part of its land and the remains of 155 inmates who had been buried in unmarked graves on the property were exhumed. 'I was horrified' “I was horrified that I’d known [about the laundries] and not understood,” says Dublin-born O’Rourke. “I’d been to a Catholic girls school, been very well educated, studied history, was interested in human rights. And yet, I hadn’t come across this. It was a history that remained to be told.” O’Rourke took her chance to tell that history when she went to Harvard after doing a law degree in Dublin. While in America, she studied children’s law, reproductive health and women’s rights. She was drawn to these topics partly because of her upbringing, which instilled in O’Rourke a commitment to equality. “My mum is a feminist - she was the first female sports broadcaster in Ireland. I grew up, whether I knew it or not, with a real sense of feminism.” Given this background and her study of human rights, particularly women’s rights, O’Rourke was shocked when she read the Irish government’s investigation into abuse in industrial schools - published in 2009 - and found no mention of the Magdalene Laundries. She went to her lecturer, Catharine MacKinnon, telling her of her concerns. “It represents continuing discrimination against women on the basis of sexuality,” O’Rourke told her. “She said: ‘What are you going to do about it?’” O’Rourke answered the call to arms and decided to write her Masters thesis at Harvard about the laundries. 'That could have been me' In the course of her research, she discovered the Justice for Magdalenes campaign and has been working for them - for free, and in her own time - ever since. Last month, O’Rourke received an award from the Ireland Fund of Great Britain, recognising her work. Following her year at Harvard, she worked in London for year on a fellowship, spending time with the women’s rights organisation Equality Now and still working on the Magdalenes campaign. While in the capital, she took the opportunity to interview women who had been detained in the laundries. “When I spoke to women in London, what really gets me is, I think 'that could have been me'. Had I been born a few decades earlier, had I lost my parents for example, that could have been me. “It really hit home then. It really horrifies you and you think this is something we’ve got to put right.” While the Irish government has acknowledged that women in the laundries were victims of abuse, it maintained that because they were privately run, they lay outside the state’s remit. 'A sense of vindication' But, the premise of O’Rourke’s research was to demonstrate that the state had been complicit in the incarceration of women and girls and had dealt commercially with the laundries without ever subjecting them to official regulation or inspection. The research claims that laundries were used as remand institutions and that government departments may have held contracts with the laundries. Testimony from women claims that police would return girls who had escaped to the laundry. O’Rourke and her fellow campaigners compiled a submission to the Ireland Human Rights Commission, which led to the commission calling on the Irish government to initiate an inquiry. “I remember feeling this overwhelming sense of vindication for the women, that someone was listening,” recalls O’Rourke. But, with no inquiry forthcoming, the campaign decided to take their cause to the UN Committee Against Torture. They submitted a dossier to the committee, detailing what they believed “constituted a more than 70-year system of torture, or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of women and girls”. “I went to Geneva in May 2011,” says O’Rourke. “It was scary. I was 24. I’d read about these committees in college, studied what they do. You don’t really think you’d actually do it. “I just remember this giant conference room, six translators behind a big glass wall and ten experts from around the world. You get your five minutes and I made my case for the women.” 'Essential to fully establish the true facts' Subsequently, the UN committee said it was “gravely concerned at the failure by the State party to protect girls and women who were involuntarily confined” in the laundries. It recommended that the state instigate an inquiry into complaints of torture and other degrading treatments that were allegedly committed in the laundries, and ensure that victims had a right to compensation. In response, the Government said it was “essential to fully establish the true facts and circumstances relating to the Magdalene Laundries as a first step”. The Government therefore proposed setting up a committee that would clarify any state interaction with the laundries and address issues such as putting in place a “restorative and reconciliation process”. Representatives of the congregations of nuns who ran the laundries said they would be willing to participate in any inquiry that would serve the interests of current and former residents. At the time, they said that the the Magdalene homes issue is “a sad, complex and dark story of Irish society that extends over 150 years”. They added that acting in good faith, the nuns had taken over and run the ten homes during most or part of that time. Also, they noted that they were still “in relationship” with many current and former residents and the four groups of sisters were willing to participate in any inquiry that would bring greater clarity, understanding, healing and justice in the interests of all the women involved. 3,500 pages of evidence The state’s report, which has been prepared by officials from five government departments and chaired by Senator Martin McAleese - the husband of former Irish president Mary McAleese - is due on Tuesday. Senator McAleese, who is resigning from the upper house of the Irish parliament, said on Friday that he had completed the report after spending 18 months of putting it together. “It is my fervent hope that it will be of real public service most especially to the women concerned,” he said. Justice for Magdalenes has submitted 3,500 pages of evidence to the inquiry, including 700 pages of testimony from women who worked in the laundries, as well as people who visited them, such as delivery men. “I know that we have submitted what I would call a watertight case,” says O’Rourke. What will be of utmost importance to O’Rourke is the government response to the report and whether the women receive an apology. “I’m really proud to be Irish. I’d be even more proud if we could deal with this in an open and honest fashion.” She is also keen to see that the government do not distinguish between those women who entered the laundries at the hands of state actors and those who were sent there by their families. 'They just feel let down' O’Rourke trusts too that the report will provide some clarity on just how many women spent time in the laundries: “That is the question that everyone’s asking.” If an apology materialises, she hopes that this will give more women the courage to tell their stories of what they experienced in the laundries. “They just feel let down and they feel abandoned by the Irish state and society. They still carry a lot of trauma,” says O’Rourke. “It’s stayed with them throughout their entire lives, they speak about having nightmares, flashbacks, crying for no reason.” “You can’t underestimate the sense of the stigma and the sense of shame attached to having been in one of these laundries,” she adds. But with this week’s report, there is hope that more women will finally come out of the shadows. “Women need a chance to tell their own stories now,” says O’Rourke. “We’ve got to know our history, even the bad bits,” she adds. “Only by knowing and recognising what happened, can you make sure it doesn’t happen in future.”
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