A CAMPAIGN is under way to find out who is buried in an unmarked grave next to one of Cork city’s former Magdalene laundries.

The campaign, by a group of survivors of the Good Shepherd Magdalene Laundry, is also seeking the development of a memorial park at the cemetery adjoining the Good Shepherd convent in Sundays Well.
Maureen Considine, who is working with the group of survivors on the issue, said one grave in the tiny cemetery adjoining the laundry has the names of 30 women who had been sent to work there. But a second grave on the site has no gravestone and there is no indication who is buried there.
She said the site was owned by Cork City Council and she had contacted each of the councillors to get their support for a project to have those buried on the site identified and the creation of a memorial park at the cemetery.
She said: “This project was born out of the frustration of many Magdalene survivors who have not been able to visit the Magdalene grave which is located behind Cork City Gaol and adjacent to the site of the former Good Shepherd Convent, laundry and orphanage.
‘‘The area known as ‘the gym’ is adjacent to the grave. and is directly behind the Cork City Gaol. Currently the site can only be accessed via the steep embankment behind the College View housing estate and the grave cannot be accessed at all due to the high walls and locked gates surrounding it.”
She added: “The area is land- locked, surrounded by the Gaol, private housing, private land, a national school, the Good Shepherd site and a community centre.”