The Magdalene Laundries

 

The Magdalene Laundries are barely talked about in Britain and I hope I can create awareness of what they were through this blog post. They occurred in Ireland from the eighteenth century to the twentieth century – crucially, and unbelievably, with help from the state. Over 30,000 ‘fallen’ (so unconventional women from that time – e.g. if they became pregnant outside of marriage like Philomena Lee) women were in a laundry. If you had fallen pregnant outside of marriage and weren't rich you were not allowed to keep your baby; instead, they were sold to the highest bidder, often from the USA. A lot of the women were traumatised at what had happened to them. In 2013, Ireland publicly apologised for what those women went through and established a compensation scheme. However, there has been no apology from the Church at Vatican City or from the Irish Church. These nuns were said to be acting according to God’s laws but they showed relentless unkindness to these poor women. Hopefully it won’t be too long until the Church apologises for what they did.