General Chat

I am perplexed as to how so many do not appear to have heard of the Magdalene Sisters. As has already been mentioned about some 20 years ago there was a film on tv and then I can recall a documentary with many ladies being interviewed. One I can recall managed to escape to N. Ireland - her convent was close to the border.

Any trivial excuse was used to place women/young girls in these convents, not just pregancy/lewd behaviour but giving cheek to a parent, scrumping apples etc.

There was actually a discussion in my hairdressers last year and I did not raise the topic.

In the seventies there was a programme on tv re women's rights and I can recall being horrifed that in Eire a woman could not have a library ticket without either a husband or father's signature.

Also in Eire a woman and daughter related the womans experience of trying to leave an abusive husband. They had a tied cottage - he was a railway worker.
Someone saw her getting on a train, he rang the Garda who apprehended her further down the line and her husband signed her into an asylum.

She was there for over a year until her daughter, her eldest child, reached the age of 21 and was able to 'claim' her mother out of the asylum.

However in the same breath, thousands of children were sent to Australia/Canada from UK via Liverpool until mid sixties. A friend and neighbour worked in the Cunard Offices on Liverpool waterfront and was horrified when these stories of children came to light and swore blind that he had never heard a whisper of the children. He came to the conclusion children must have boarded in the house of darkness.

How sad :-(

Sue. Just something I picked up whilst reading about it on Wikipedia. This is what I read:

"As the phenomenon became more widespread, it extended beyond prostitution to unmarried mothers, mentally retarded women, and abused girls. Even young girls who were considered too promiscuous and flirtatious, or too beautiful, were sent to an asylum by their respective families. This paralleled the practice in state-run asylums in Britain and Ireland in the same period, where many people with alleged "social dysfunction" were committed to asylums."

Somewhere else I read that girls who were negative and rebellious were admitted. And usually by their fathers.

And often these incarcerated girls took religious vows and spent rest of their lives institutionalised :-( :-(

I haven't heard of the Magdalene Laundries until there was a news item on our television. Apparently it was thought that they made a great deal of money but this has been disproved. Dreadful treatment of young women.

Just a question John as I know nothing about these institutions. Why do you say they were incarcerated because they were 'too good looking' naughty and/or wilful? I know my grandmother was in an institution of some kind in the 1911 census for some reason - I suspect she had a baby before she married my grandfather.

Thanks A/Canuck.

Sandie. We did talk earlier on thread about other countries than Ireland. Not specifically Nazareth House.

My favourite character in the whole of the Bible was Mary of Magdela - a "fallen woman" who was loved by Jesus so much and was the first of his devotees (or disciples) to realise he had defeated that last great enemy of mankind, Death. So not too happy her name has been drawn into this tragedy of girls being incarcerated because they were too good looking or a bit nowty and wilful.

My grandfather had an aunt who was orphaned as a young girl and disappeared in the 1890's and was eventually found about 1908 working as a laundrymaid for the de Staffords - who I think were the major Roman Catholic family in Manchester area. She subsequently went on to be Head Laundrymaid at Arundel Castle, the home of the Howerds (Duke of Norfolk). Her daughter (I called her my Auntie Elsie Glossop) died just before Christmas aged 97.

Now I suspect my grandfathers Auntie Gertie Glossop (Auntie Elsie's mum) may have been put in one of these institutions - probably in north-west England. :-(

Thank you John for posting this thread & yes, I too had watched the movie Magdalene Sisters in recent years, which aired over here. Plus a documentary "60 Minutes" via CBS, where survivors were interviewed. Absolutely heart breaking & gut wrenching.
K/Regards,
A/Canuck.

It's not just the Magdalene Laundries that these poor children suffered abuse John.
I haven't read right thro the thread so forgiveme if it has been mentioned.

Nazareth House was another Catholic Order homes where children suffered such abuse, the closest to you being in Cardiff,.
My sister lived on Column Rd in Cardiff for 2yrs whilst in Uni , and their house backed onto Nazerth House,when I stayed with her I thought it was just some sort of Nunnery!
Probably was just that then ?!! I don't know...It is now Nazareth House Care Home run by Sisters of Nazareth...I don't think I'd like a relative to to be in such a place, that has had bad publicity in the past, but it may be a very good home as it's Web site suggests.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/nuns-abused-hundreds-of-children-1171988.html

Ineresting tho very disturbing reading.Such abuse allegedly happened there too.

watched the film a few years ago. very sad for the young ladies who were treated in such a vile way. dont wonder many tryed to escape from the hell hole it was.

I look forward to reading it Sue

Sue thank you once again.

Emma

AnninGlos..

It's an interesting read and if your anything like me your mouth will drop open with shock..

Emma,
If you can get BBC World News it will be on that..one of the pictures they show are women walking round a fountain and another is women congregataing outside.well if that happened it must havew been back in the early 1900's as according to a few of the lasses that were there in later years worked from 8am until 9pm.scrubbing floors and in the laundry.

It might be on Channel 4 News which is on now,.

Missed Story re Magdalene Laundries on the 6.30 news, anyone get it.

Emma

I have ordered one book on this from Amazon. Childhood Interrupted: Growing up under the cruel regime of the Sisters of Mercy"
O'Malley, Kathleen; Paperback; £1.49 post free.

A very interesting thread.

I knew nothing of the Magdalene Laundries until today.

Dispicable to learn how these poor creatures were treated in these types of institutions.

:-( :-( :-(

The Irish PM Enda Kenny has given an apology to the women for the stigma and conditions.

But No Official apology as yet for them.

Thanks, Sue. Hopefully, society is much more open today. But I do worry it may still be going on in some of the more secretive groups in our society.

I am thinking, for example, of the young Muslim boy in Cardiff who was tortured and murdered by his mother for not learning the Q'ran properly. But not thinking only of Muslims. Two gay Nigerian Christian men might not have the freedom in our big cities that British Christians now have. :-(

Thanks to you John for putting this thread on as more people now know about the Physical,Mental and Sexual abuse of the Nuns and Priests that ran the Magdelen Laundries.

And how the young women and girls suffered.

I just hope this never happens again.

Many thanks Dizzi, Wisechild and others.

Caught my eye this morning and I was really thinking how many of us have lost rellies and they could easily have been in these institutions.

Some wonderful posts on this thread. Really interesting :-) :-)

Have just been googling Nazareth House here in my city as
it rang a bell when mentioned. Grampian Police are apparently
the only force to investigate the abuse etc that went on here,
this ofcourse is of not much help to the sufferers as the nuns
would long be dead.

Emma