"Give Me Back My Mother's Body': Woman Whose Mum Was Buried in Magdalene Laundry Mass Grave Demands Justice
By James Ward
A woman whose mother was buried in a mass grave after spending 27 years in a hellhole Magdalene Laundry last night begged for her body to be returned. Mary Collins has told how her family was torn apart when the Traveller was “snatched from the side of the road” and thrown into the hated institution. The 54-year-old said at St Vincent’s home in Cork her mum Angela was forced to give up her youngest child in an illegal adoption and was denied vital medical treatment, which eventually led to her death. Mary, who lives in London, believes the grave is filled with Traveller women subjected to the same inhumane treatment. She told the Irish Mirror: “She was put into a mass grave with 72 other women in Cork and that is where she lays. “Although they knew she had children, and that we would like to pay our respects, they still put her in there.” Mary was just two when her mother was taken away. She was placed in an industrial school, the Sacred Heart in Cobh, while her older sister 14-year-old Angie was taken to the Good Shepherd Convent. The girls were taken from Angela despite social service records stating she was a good mother. While at St Vincent’s she was forced to give up her youngest child for adoption in exchange for regular visits from Mary. Mary said: “I have the report. When I was taken into the children’s home, it said I was well nourished, no marks on my body, no bruises. “The only reason they took me is because I didn’t have a home. “They snatched my mother off my street and they put her in a Magdalene Laundry. And why? Because she lived and travelled the roads of Ireland in a caravan. “I was away from my mum for nearly seven years. “I was in the children’s home and I got abused really badly because of my background and because of my roots and where I came from. “My mother was in the Magdalene Laundry and had a younger girl as well. I had a sister. They were trying to get her to sign the adoption papers for her to be adopted.
“Although I was taken away, the issue was that I wasn’t allowed to see my mum again. The nuns said to her that if you sign the adoption paper for the younger girl, we’ll allow you to see Mary Theresa. “She was forced to sign the papers. Being from a Travelling background, you don’t give your children up. They forced her to do that. “So that’s why I started going up to the Magdalene Laundry from the age of seven, right up to the age of 18.” Mary said her experience in the laundry turned out to be worse than the abuse she was subjected to at the industrial school. She added: “I witnessed my mum, I witnessed the state she was in. I was abused up in the laundry. I was being punched and kicked under the tables.” “This went on for years and years and years until my mum, at the age of 48, was admitted to hospital because she was bleeding very, very heavily. “The doctors recommended a hysterectomy because her iron levels were 9.4. “I have the records. She didn’t have it [the procedure]. “She went back to work at the Magdalene Laundry. Ten years later she died of ovarian cancer because she didn’t get the treatment.”
Mary suffered from severe post-traumatic stress disorder as a result of her horrific experiences. Yet she was excluded from the commission of inquiry into the Magdalene Laundries. She said: “I showed them my psychiatric report and my documents showing what happened to my mother. “And they chose to leave me out of that investigation. Why? Because they didn’t want to apologise to the children. “Because they didn’t want the Travelling community involved. There would have been uproar if the Travelling community had got involved.” Mary left Ireland for England after turning 18 and set about rebuilding her life. But she could never escape the horror she had endured as a child here. She said: “I moved to London, I got on with my life and then I returned to find the mass grave. It was just a stone, it was dirty. “I asked them if I could have her removed from the grave, if I could bury her somewhere else, and they said no, that it would cost too much money.” Mary was allowed to erect a plaque at the site of the grave, which she says offered her some comfort.
But she now believes the grave is home to dozens of other women who suffered just like her mother and is calling for a Government inquiry. She added: “I don’t want to have these memories. But I can’t escape them. “I just got on with my life, because I hated Travellers. I hated anything to do with them because I got beaten. I was dirty, everything about me, I was gross. “But now I realise all these unnamed bodies in the graves, they belong to Travelling women. They are the women that are in those graves that can’t be identified. The Irish Government needs to open this up and investigate this. “I’ve been trying to tell my story for years and the Government haven’t apologised to me, as a child survivor going up to the Magdalene Laundries. “They haven’t apologised for putting my mum in a mass grave, haven’t listened to my story. “They excluded the children from the apology, knowing there were children out there who suffered, who are still suffering. I’m fighting for my mum. I want justice and I want an apology.” Mary was speaking at the entrance to the Dail, where she was joined in her protest by the Coalition of Mother and Baby Home Survivors. Chairman Paul Redmond called on the Government to stop dragging their heels on the inquiry and to open it to include survivors of all institutions across the country. He said: “The longer this goes on, the more survivors will pass away without seeing justice and an apology. That is a national disgrace.”
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