IRELAND
The Journal
FOR MARY COLLINS and her daughter Laura Stewart, a trip from the UK to Cork this month will be full of difficult memories. Together, they will travel to St Finbarr’s cemetery in Glasheen on the 27th to light candles and remember Angelina Collins, Mary’s mother who died at a Magdalene laundry.
They will remember not just Angelina, who they say died after years of abuse, but the other women and children of Magdalene laundries across Ireland. Mary grew up in an industrial school after being removed from her mother’s care, and said she suffers post-traumatic stress disorder from the abuse she suffered there.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie, the pair underlined how much they believe the Irish State needs to apologise to the children of Magdalene women – a State apology was given to the women themselves in 2013 – and how they feel they have been forgotten by Ireland.
image (1) The Collins family.
It’s understood that at least 1,663 former Magdalene women are buried in Irish cemeteries – many in unmarked graves. In 2013, Taoiseach Enda Kenny apologised to Magdalene women in an emotional speech, saying the laundries “have cast a long shadow over Irish life”.
Collins told TheJournal.ie that her mother, an unmarried Traveller woman, was put into a Magdalene laundry, while Collins was put into an industrial school.
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