"It Will Be with Me until the Day I Die': Woman, 79, Who Survived Irish Magdalene Laundry Reveals How She's Still Haunted by the Fear, Back-breaking Labour and Loneliness She Suffered in Brutal Workhouse 60 Years Ago
By Naomi Greenaway
Speaking about her time in the institution to Fiona Phillips on ITV's Lorraine this morning, Kathleen, who was born in Lisvernane, Co Tipperary, said: 'I used to wake up screaming. 'I never told my husband where I'd been but he used to wonder why I had these nightmares. 'It was the shame,' she said, explaining why she never told her husband, who has since passed away. 'It was kept a secret for 60 years.' The laundries were set up in 1922 when the newly independent Irish state delegated welfare duties to the religious orders. Named after the Bible's redeemed prostitute, Mary Magdalene, the workhouses were used to reform 'fallen women' but they soon expanded to take in girls who were considered 'promiscuous', unmarried mothers, the criminal, mentally unwell and girls who seen as a burden on their families. Now a new book, Whispering Hope: The Heart-Breaking True Story Of The Magdalene Women, which documents Kathleen's and other survivors' stories, describes the true horror of what went on. Kathleen recalled: 'My grandmother died when I was 11 and I virtually looked after myself until I was 14.
My mother was unmarried and when I was 14 thought I would continue my education with the nuns. But her mother had no idea of what awaited her young daughter. 'There was no mention of the laundry,' Kathleen said. She was sent to a Laundry in Stanhope Street, Dublin, and was forced to work for the nuns in wretched conditions. 'For the next four years I would scrub, polish and clean every inch of that building, working long hours in the laundry 'There were great big heavy rollers. The sheets would be red hot. It would be the work of an adult man. I was up at six in the morning and every time the bell rang you went where you were told to go. 'I didn't know how old I was. There were no mirrors and birthdays were never celebrated.' She also described how the nuns systematically ensured the girls there did not make friends. 'We didn't speak to each other. We were too frightened,' she said. In the room we sang hymns all day long. 'The worst moment was the night a man from the asylum broke in and was standing at the end of my bed. That gave me nightmares for years after. 'I was there for three years and never paid anything.' In an article in Irish publication, The Journal, Kathleen revealed further details about her ordeal. Rather than getting an education, once she entered the convent and was stripped naked and given a uniform, she wouldn't see another classroom for four years. She said: 'For the next four years I would scrub, polish and clean every inch of that building, working long hours in the laundry. I had my name changed and I was known as number 27.
THE HISTORY OF IRELAND'S MAGDALENE LAUNDRIES The Magdalene Laundries in Ireland were institutions run by nuns, first set up in 1922 when Ireland became independent. Until the last laundry closed in 1996 around 30,000 women were forced into the brutal workhouses in which they were often referred to only as a number, were denied adequate food, forbidden from making friends and suffered hard labour for 14 hours a day. Half of the women were under 23. Named after the Bible's redeemed prostitute, Mary Magdalene, the workhouses were ostensibly run to reform 'fallen women' but their remit widened to house girls who were considered 'promiscuous' along with unmarried mothers, the criminal, mentally unwell and girls who seen as a burden on their families. The survivors allege that they were treated like slaves, and in some cases the girls' families were told their daughters were studying at school and even received falsified reports. Babies born to the women were taken from them and adopted, women found themselves imprisoned and unable to leave. The last laundry closed in 1996 but it took until 2003 for the government of Ireland to issue an apology and set up a ?50 million compensation scheme for survivors. According to the 2013 McAleese Report, by Senator Martin McAleese, the Irish state was directly and fundamentally involved in the Magdalene Laundry Institutions, with the state awarding the laundries lucrative contracts. The report noted that: 'The large majority of women who engaged with the Committee spoke of the deep hurt they felt due to their loss of freedom, they were not informed why they were there, they had no information on when they could leave and were denied contact with the outside world, including their family and friends.' 'All the time I was there I had little to very basic food. In fact it was dismal and how we survived I’ll never know. I was constantly hungry and on the verge of starving. 'The nuns treated me and indeed others in there as slaves.' Kathleen says the nuns sent her mother falsified school reports saying how well she was doing in lessons yet she says she didn't attend a single class, she never met the mother superior and never saw a clock, book or newspaper during her time there. She recalled: 'Every morning you would awake to the sound of a bell. You operated like a robot and you did not dare question a nun. We bathed once a week and I remember the lice from our hair used to float around the top of the water so if you were one of the last to get washed it was horrific.' And in a devastating consequence to the years of heavy lifting during such a formative time, Kathleen was told years later that it had left her unable to have children. She said: 'The nuns robbed me of my life and the life I could have given to others.' Other survivors share the same stories of having their name changed on arrival and of constantly washing laundry in cold water, of using heavy irons for hours, of being forbidden to form close friendships and never feeling free to leave. Worked to the bone, starved, beaten and abused, women reported frequent injuries caused by handling the huge mangles, a precursor to the spin dryer.
Others have spoken about trying to escape but being unable to scale the high walls, often topped with glass. Maeve O'Rourke, a lawyer with the Justice for Magdalenes campaign, said of the survivors: 'They just feel let down and they feel abandoned by the Irish state and society. They still carry a lot of trauma.' '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.' It was only in February 2013 that survivors received an apology from the Irish government and have since received ?50million in compensation. The Irish Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, said the women's experiences had cast a 'long shadow' over Irish life and that 'for 90 years Ireland subjected these women, and their experience, to a profound indifference.' Mr Kenny said: 'By any standards it was a cruel and pitiless Ireland, distinctly lacking in mercy. 'I on behalf of the state, the government and our citizens deeply regret and apologise unreservedly to all those women for the hurt that was done to them.' The spotlight was first turned on the laundries after documentary maker Steven O'Riordan made The Forgotten Maggies, a film about the women's experiences, in 2009. Now he has written Whispering Hope, which he hopes will shed further light on what victims endured. Joining Kathleen on the sofa, Mr O'Riordan told Fiona Phillips why he started making the documentary.
'I'd seen the [2002 film] Magdalene Sisters and wondered how their lives panned out. I was flabbergasted that at the time no one seemed to know or care. These women suffered an enormous injustice. 'And [making the documentary] I realised they were telling these stories they'd never told before.' Talking of the success the political attention it brought to the cause Mr O'Riordan said: 'We never thought we'd set out on a campaign. A group of women who were told they worth nothing have now got the whole world listening 'It's remarkable that a group of women who were told they worth nothing have now got the whole world listening.' Campaigner Mary Merritt, 83, who was 'in the care' of the nuns for 14 years before escaping, spoke out in September, 2014, about her ordeal. She was born in 1931 to a single mother in a workhouse and went on to an orphanage, run by an order of nuns called the Sisters of Mercy where, she says, the children were made to work and were beaten if they refused. Mary, who now lives in Tunbridge Wells, said that at the age of 11, she was so hungry that she took apples from the convent orchard and as punishment was sent to work in a Magdalene laundry at High Park in Dublin run by another order, the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity. 'They told me that I would stay in the laundry until I learned to stop stealing. Fourteen years they kept me there. You get less for murder these days.'
Mary, whose story featured on Our World: Hidden Bodies, Hidden Secrets on the BBC News Channel in September, recalled how the women were made to rise at six o'clock for mass and then after breakfast went straight down to the laundry to start work. You can't underestimate the sense of the stigma and the sense of shame attached to having been in one of these laundries Maeve O'Rourke She said: 'The laundry was heavy, heavy work and the heat was terrible and you didn't break until 12 o'clock when you broke for your dinner, such as it was - potatoes and cabbage and fish - and then after you went straight back to the laundry again to work and you worked in the laundry until at six o'clock. Most shocking of all, Mary claims that after running away she was raped by a priest, but despite this terrible violation she was ignored by police and then shamed by the nuns. Mary said: 'When the police took me back to the laundry, they didn't believe I had been raped but shaved my head, made me apologise for running away and put me in the punishment cell.' But when Mary became pregnant as a result of the rape and gave birth to a daughter, in a stunning act of cruelty, the nuns took the baby against Mary's will and gave her away for adoption. For women like Mary, the formal apology from the Irish government is an acknowledgement of what was stolen from them, but many feel that justice will never truly be done.
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