IRELAND
Galway Independent
Marie Madden
The treatment of the women of the Magdalene Laundries is a subject that continues to grip and horrify the nation, but one of the first true insights into the lives of these victims was written by a Galway woman and revealed to the nation in 1992.
The treatment of the women of the Magdalene Laundries is a subject that continues to grip and horrify the nation, but one of the first true insights into the lives of the survivors was written by a Galway woman and revealed to the nation in 1992.
‘Eclipsed’ by Patricia Burke Brogan tells the story of a young novice nun who is set to work in a Magdalene Laundry and is hugely troubled by her experiences. It draws on Ms Burke Brogan’s true-life experiences and aims to show the day-to-day reality of life for those interned in these religious prisons.
When first performed by Punchbag Theatre in 1992, the play drew scorn and abuse on the writer, with Ms Burke Brogan once telling me that someone had cut her picture out of the paper and drawn horns and different symbols on it before sending it to her home.
“I got up one morning and this had been thrown in the door, which was very upsetting and hard to handle. People thought I was being anti-Church but I wasn’t. Everyone blamed the sisters, but the State did nothing to intervene.”
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