MANY Magdalene Women Spent Decades in Laundries

By Claire O'Sullivan
Irish Examiner
August 28, 2014

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/many-magdalene-women-spent-decades-in-laundries-284070.html


A grave just discovered by the Justice for Magdalenes group shows that, in one plot in North Dublin alone, a third of the woman buried remained at the Magdalene laundry for more than 50 years.

Such discoveries, which form part of the Justice for Magdalenes Research Graves Project, are in contrast to the findings of the McAleese report into the Magdalene laundries which stated that the median length of stay for the women was 27 weeks.

The interdepartmental report also stated that 60% of the women at the laundries from 1922 to 1996 stayed less than a year at the laundries — figures which have been hotly contested.

According to Claire McGettrick of Justice for Magdalenes, the deaths of women who never left the laundries and remained living with the nuns, in many cases working in the convents, after 1996 were not included in the 2013 McAleese report.

There are 13 names on the newly discovered grave, with Magdalene survivors buried there from 2008 and right up to this year. JFMR were so far able to find details of six of the 13.

According to JFMR, four of the women appear to have lived in the care of the nuns since 1954. Three of the women are recorded as absent from the electoral register for short periods during this period but returned afterwards.

Another two of the women appear to have been at Hyde Park since 1962.

The JFMR Graves Project also discovered earlier this year that 50% of the women who were resident at the Donnybrook laundry between 1954 and 1964 remained there until their deaths.

Their research at Hyde Park laundry has revealed that 30% of the women resident at the laundry between 1954 and 1964 also remained under the care of the nuns until they died.

In recent months, the UN Human Rights Committee supported JFM’s assertion that the planned commission of investigation into mother-and-baby homes should also examine the Magdalene laundries.

It said Ireland should “conduct a prompt, independent, and thorough investigation into all allegations of abuse in Magdalene laundries, children’s institutions, and mother-and-baby homes”.