Magdalene Laundry Must Be Saved As a Lesson from History

By Gary Gannon
The Times
August 31 2018

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/magdalene-laundry-must-be-saved-as-a-lesson-from-history-czp3r6jfb

The Pope professed to be shocked when he heard details of Irish mother and baby homes, and he had no idea what a Magdalene laundry was, according to survivors of clerical abuse who met him last weekend. “It ended up with me giving him a three or four-minute crash course through his translator,” Paul Redmond said.

This was all the more surprising considering that the Pope had met Philomena Lee, the adoption rights campaigner, in 2014. But he is not alone in claiming ignorance of the religious institutional abuse that has existed since the state was founded. Discourse about our identity fails to address the effects this abuse and incarceration had on many families.

The acceptable narrative of modern Ireland is that we have persevered…