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Magdalene Laundries - From the Vault · Who Did What Now With Katie Charlwood

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: Hello, delicious friends, and welcome to a very special episode
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of Who Did What Now? The history podcast that is
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: not your history class with me, your host Katie Charlwood,
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: History Harlot and reader of books. So this is a
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: re release of an episode I did several several years
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: ago on the Magdalen Laundries. So bear with me for
• 0:41
  Speaker 1: audio and other such concerns. It was a few years ago,
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: and I think I've got slightly better as time has
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: gone on. Now, the reason this is getting a re
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: release is because not only is it Women's History Month,
• 0:55
  Speaker 1: but it is also Irish Heritage Month, and I think
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: it's a massive disservice to talk about women's history and
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Irish heritage without bringing up the importance of the Magdalene
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Laundries and the entire system that allowed it to flourish.
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: The second reason that this is being re released is
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: I'm going to have an episode coming out on Tuesday
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: and is the regular release day, and it's going to
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: be on the Two Babies. Now, I did warn all
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: of you that things were going to get much worse
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: this month, but I do have a lovely palate cleanser
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: at the end. I've got something nice coming don't you
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: worry about it. It's going to be very fun and lovely.
• 1:37
  Speaker 1: So I understand that this can be a very difficult
• 1:40
  Speaker 1: topic for people to absorb and learn about because it's
• 1:44
  Speaker 1: just so horrible and harsh and depraved, especially considering everything
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: that's going on in the world at the minute. So
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: I do have some lovely, fun like fluffy content coming
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: at the end of the month, just to give you
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: all a break from the whole horrors which persist, but
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: of course.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: So do I, and I will always be a to
• 2:05
  Speaker 2: tell you the truth.
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: Now, if you have managed to live a life without
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: knowing anything about this, well buckle up.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: And consider this your content warning, your trigger warning for
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: this episode, because I am going to be discussing abuse
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: and assault and infanticide and femicide and trauma and abject
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: fucking horror. And it's not about sensationalism or drama or
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: making mountains at molehills. This is about giving these women
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: and girls their voice back, giving them their stories. A
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: lot of them died not being able to tell the truth,
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: having everything swept under the rug. And I might just
• 2:54
  Speaker 2: be one voice shouting it from the fucking rooftops, but
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: their story to be told, and we need to keep
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: telling it, and we need to put pressure on everyone,
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: from the institutions that forced this to the governments that
• 3:10
  Speaker 2: allowed it, for everybody who turned a blind eye. There
• 3:13
  Speaker 2: were so many mechanisms working together to keep this situation going,
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: to keep this afloat. And not only do they absolutely
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: deserve to feel pure on adulterated shame, but the women
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: and girls who suffered at the hands of these institutions,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: they deserve to be heard. History isn't just dates on
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: a timeline. History is it about people, about their lives,
• 3:45
  Speaker 2: about humanity. And there were women still alive today who
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: suffered through these who may never tell their stories, who
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: may never feel that it's acceptable to do so. And
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: we have to be able to stand up and say
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: that we're listening and to make sure that no one
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: suffers like they did. I'm going to have a message
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: at the end of this episode, and I really hope
• 4:12
  Speaker 2: you'll stay to listen to it. But I know what
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: you're thinking right now, you're thinking what your gibber jabber
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: in fact me, in fact you I will. But first
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: we've got to get our source on. Our sources are
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: shaped by silence. Stories from inmates of the Good Shepherd
• 4:30
  Speaker 2: Laundries and Reformertories by We Crawl, Do Penance or Perish?
• 4:37
  Speaker 2: A Study of Magdalen Asylums in Ireland by Francis Finnegan.
• 4:43
  Speaker 2: Ireland's Magdalen Laundries and the Nation's architecture of containment by
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: James M. Smith. Republic of Shame. Stories from Ireland's institutions
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: for fallen Women by Caylin Hogan. The documentary Sex in
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: a Cold Climate for Channel four. Institutional Abuse in Ireland.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Lessons from survivors and legal professionals by O'Donnell, mahoney and O'Rourke.
• 5:17
  Speaker 2: Nothing About Us Without Us Giving Voice to diversity and
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: criminological research by Ahmed and Wendell. The Justice for Magdalen
• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Research Archive. Report of the International Committee to Establish the
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Facts of State Involvement with the Magdalen Laundries. Origins of
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: the Magdalen Laundries, An analytical history by Rebecca Lee McCarthy.
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: And we have articles from the Irish Times, The Guardian
• 5:47
  Speaker 2: and the New York Times. Now, if you're not from
• 5:50
  Speaker 2: the Island of Ireland, you may be unaware of anything
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: to do with the Magdalen Laundries and For some, it
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: may be a term that you've heard like every now
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: and again without really knowing what it's about, let alone
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: the horrors that existed within their walls. Make a pun
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: about it. But the fact that it's about the Magdalene laundries,
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: the term itself sort of washes away sort of the
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: sharpness and the barbarity of what they really were. It
• 6:27
  Speaker 2: really doesn't give an inkling to just how bad it was.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: But yeah, they were laundries, and ron sealed Diamond Coop
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: does exactly what it says in the tin. It was
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: a laundry. Shit was washed there. Women and girls did
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: laundry in absolutely horrific conditions while being stripped of their
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: human rights and their bloody dignity. They're imprisoned performing slave
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: labor for the very people who are supposed to be
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: helping them, the nuns who were supposed to be providing education, skills,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: spiritual guidance, but instead they used and abused these women
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: and girls. The laundries an inferno in which to contain, hide,
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: or demonize any woman or girl who fell out with
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: the Catholic standard, the patriarchal standard, and it worked for decades,
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: like the last laundry didn't shut down until the late
• 7:42
  Speaker 2: nineteen hundreds nineteen ninety six, and even then, as we
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: edged closer towards the twenty first century, what really happened
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: in those laundries was still kept, you know, hush hush,
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: and like you only really knew what was going on
• 8:01
  Speaker 2: in the laundries if you had been involved in it,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: or if someone you knew was involved or had been
• 8:08
  Speaker 2: a part of it and they had actually spoken up
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: about it to you. And that's a stretch. So listen,
• 8:16
  Speaker 2: somebody wants to ask me if I was proud to
• 8:18
  Speaker 2: be Catholic. It's called Catholic guilt for fucking reason. Like
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: institutions like this rely on shame and guilt, and it
• 8:31
  Speaker 2: is so deeply rooted, like through through Irish society, like
• 8:36
  Speaker 2: this is generational, and Catholicism is really hard to escape from,
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Like it is very difficult to be excommunicated, clearly because
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: none of these nuns were no nuns none, Like for
• 8:49
  Speaker 2: the majority of Irish history, there was no separation of
• 8:54
  Speaker 2: church in state. It's not secular, it is ingrained in there.
• 9:00
  Speaker 2: And for years, even when you know, people started actually
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: talking about the laundries in the early two thousands, the
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: Irish government was not too keen on starting any inquiries
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: that would sort of bush them aside. It wasn't really
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: looking to be involved in that because that would, you know,
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: bring some skeletons out of the cupboard, you know what
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: I mean. So the official, the logged registered amount of
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: women and girls went through the laundries is about ten thousand.
• 9:37
  Speaker 2: The state has argued that it wasn't that many, whereas
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: advocacy groups and other researchers think that the number is
• 9:45
  Speaker 2: much higher, like closer to thirty thousand dollars all. And
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: that's between like nineteen twenty two and nineteen ninety six
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: when the last one closed. So the laundries in Ireland,
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: they were sort of all over but mainly in sort
• 10:02
  Speaker 2: of bigger, more urban areas, and they were run by
• 10:09
  Speaker 2: four separate Catholic religious orders. And so we have the
• 10:14
  Speaker 2: Order of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge. And they
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: had institutions in High Park, Drum, Condra and Sean McDermott Street,
• 10:24
  Speaker 2: that's all in Dublin. These Sisters of the Good Shepherd.
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: They had Sunday's Well in Cork City and they had Waterford, Limerick,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: and then in New Ross in Wexford, the Congregation of
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: the Sisters of Mercy. They had laundries in so the
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: Irish laundries. They were sort of they were all over
• 10:46
  Speaker 2: but they were mainly in urban areas. So they were
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: in Dublin sort of High Park, Drum, Condra, Sean McDermott
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: Street and Donnybrook. They were in Cork and sort of
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: peacock Ley and Sunday as well. They were in Waterford,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: they were in Limerick, go Away, Dounlere it like they
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: were all over the shop, you know. And they were
• 11:10
  Speaker 2: run by four sort of religious orders for Catholic well
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: religious orders nuns all nuns, so the Order of Our
• 11:20
  Speaker 2: Lady of Charity of Refuge, the Sisters of the Good Shepherd,
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: the Congregation of the Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: of Charity. So the largest of these institutions was the
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: High Park Convent in Dublin, which was run by the
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: OLC the Order of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge,
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: and in nineteen ninety three it wasn't doing too well financially.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: Basically they were having some money worries, forcing them to
• 11:53
  Speaker 2: sell some land that the convent owned now, the reason
• 11:56
  Speaker 2: they had to sell this land, they said, was because
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: you know, they'd spent all this money building this refuge
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: for women in need, when really it was much dodgier,
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: like they had lost money on the stock market. They
• 12:13
  Speaker 2: had like dodgy, dodgy investments that put them in so
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: much debt that they had to sell eleven point five
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: acres of land to developers for a cool one point
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: five million pounds or punts as they were then. So
• 12:33
  Speaker 2: this land that the nuns had sold the developers to
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: the land developers just so happened to have, you know,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: a mass grave in it. And this wasn't a surprise,
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: like the nuns knew about this grave. It wasn't like, oh, dear,
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: we've suddenly uncovered this huge chunk of bodies. No, no, no,
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: they were well aware of it. And it wasn't like, oh, oh,
• 13:00
  Speaker 2: this is a mass grave from when the famine happened. No, no,
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: there was. It was a burial ground of girls and
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: women who, of their own volition chose to spend the
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: entirety of their lives in the High Park laundry, and
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: of course definitely absolutely passed away from natural causes, and
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: nothing untoward whatsoever. And the nun said that in this
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: fucking body pit, that one hundred and thirty three women
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: had been buried there between eighteen eighty six in nineteen
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: eighty six, a solid in what some might say strangely
• 13:46
  Speaker 2: convenient period of time. So, yeah, this land had been
• 13:50
  Speaker 2: sold to these developers and obviously their own purpose, the
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: reason they purchased the land is to develop it, and
• 13:58
  Speaker 2: in order for that to happen, the bodies need to
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: be exhumed from the mass grave and then reburied like
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: that's just legally what has to happen. And in order
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: for that to happen, there's a fuck ton of paperwork
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: and licenses, and there has to be a paper trail,
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: and there has to be appropriate documentation. That's just how
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: the law works. And this may shock you, but they
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: did not, in fact have all of the appropriate documentation.
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: You could say, their files pretty thin. You know, out
• 14:44
  Speaker 2: of the one hundred and thirty three women they said
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: were buried there, the sisters were only able to provide
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: seventy five death certificates. And I don't know how good
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: your math is, but seventy five much smaller than one
• 15:01
  Speaker 2: hundred and thirty three. That is fifty eight fifty eight
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: people who do not have a death certificate or any
• 15:14
  Speaker 2: known or logged cause of death. So for about thirty
• 15:18
  Speaker 2: of those they were able to provide names. For about
• 15:22
  Speaker 2: twenty ish they were only able to provide like their
• 15:26
  Speaker 2: religious names, like Augusta for Delma, Mary fucking Clarence. And
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: there is even one woman in this grave who was
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: only identified by her first name, which is absolutely shocking.
• 15:42
  Speaker 2: And like fifty eight fifty eight women who don't have
• 15:46
  Speaker 2: a death certificate, which you know, not only unethical, but
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: it's illegal. Failure to register a death that happens on
• 15:58
  Speaker 2: your premises is a criminal offense in Ireland. Like legally
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: you have to declare those depths. It's a pretty standard
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: law in fairmness. Somebody dies on your property, you've got
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: to declare it. But yeah, they gather up what paperwork
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: they have and the sisters and the developers get started
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: on examine the bodies. And they actually split the cost
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: of this because it costs money to bury someone, you know,
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: to dig them up and rebury them. So on the
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: twenty third of August nineteen ninety three, the excavation starts.
• 16:36
  Speaker 2: So they start digging, and it becomes very apparent, very sharpish,
• 16:43
  Speaker 2: that there's more than one hundred and thirty three bodies
• 16:48
  Speaker 2: in this grave. They find another twenty two for whom
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: they have absolutely zero explanation. That's an extra twenty two
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: people in this grave, and they are all exhumed by
• 17:04
  Speaker 2: the beginning of September, so like seven eight days. They
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: just dig them all up, and they don't have a
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: reason or an explanation or death certificates, and there's no investigation, nothing,
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: They're just allowed to dig them up. And out of
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: these one hundred and fifty five women and girls, only
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: one is claimed and she is reburied in her family
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: plot by her relatives. The rest are cremated and buried
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: in glass Nevin Cemetery now cremated, I hear you ask, Yeah,
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: convenient that. So if there was anybody snooping around or
• 17:52
  Speaker 2: investigating or planning to look at these bodies and maybe
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: try and figure out a cause of death, not a
• 18:01
  Speaker 2: fucking hope, because they've destroyed the evidence. And it's only
• 18:06
  Speaker 2: at this point where information starts to trickle out, and slowly,
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: very very slowly, information about the laundries starts to enter
• 18:18
  Speaker 2: the public consciousness, and it would be twenty years before
• 18:25
  Speaker 2: anybody got any sign, any inkling of justice. But before
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: we get into that, I'm going to take you back
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: to the very beginning, and our journey actually starts in
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: London in seventeen fifty eight. So the first Magdalene asylums,
• 18:43
  Speaker 2: as they were known, they were established in England, initially
• 18:47
  Speaker 2: in London and by well, by a philanthropist, by a
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: do gooder man, and it was called the London Magdalene Hospital,
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: or it's full title, the Magdalene Hospital for the Reception
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: of Penitent Prostitutes. Yes, that was its name, and so
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: it was run by well actually Protestants, It wasn't run
• 19:14
  Speaker 2: by religious orders, and it was an institution whose entire
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: purpose was to reform the character of fallen women, specifically prostitutes.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: Now I'm not going to say sex workers in the scenario,
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: because sex worker implies agency and implies choice, not necessity.
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: If you're selling your body in Victorian, sorry Georgian London,
• 19:46
  Speaker 2: it's probably because you don't have any other bloody choice,
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: you know. So the whole point was to bring them in,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: give them religious instructions, so good Church of England stuff,
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: you know, have them learn a skill, give them the
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: means in which to support themselves, and then they would
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: go on and live a good life. Like that was
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: the purpose. Now, the thing about asylums like this one
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: and bedlam, like people could buy tickets to go in
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: and look at the people who were suffering, like you
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: could go and look at somebody who had a mental illness.
• 20:25
  Speaker 2: You can go and look at a penitent prostitute and
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: they would sing in a church choir for you, like
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: it was a sideshow, which is absolutely demoralizing at the
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: best of times, but like, what the actual fuck Like,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: I'm not surprised a human behavior, but sometimes I'm still
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: also surprised a human behavior. So back to the name,
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: I should probably just clarify this, Yes, named after Mary Magdalene,
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: because there is an assumption nowadays that Mary Magdalene was
• 21:04
  Speaker 2: a prostitute, which only really came about because of one
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: of the Gregory's, Pope Gregory. Most of the Gregory's are
• 21:14
  Speaker 2: shit right, They're just dodgy pope's at the best of times.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: But this Pope Gregory in like the sixth century, he
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: is the one who's like clearly a whore, Like that's
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: that was his whole stick when there was nothing in
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: the Bible to even suggest that. Like, she just happened
• 21:32
  Speaker 2: to be a woman with money who was around Jesus, right,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: she had her own means, and she chose to hang
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: around this villa. And like he is the person who
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: sees him first, Like when he rises from the dead,
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: he's like, hey, why hurt? Maybe there's a reason, Like
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: even by Bible standards, I don't think the first thing
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: Jesus did when he rose the dead was like, gonna
• 22:01
  Speaker 2: get me some of that? I don't think so. No, anyway,
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: not the point being named after an assumption about women,
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: And I don't know this massive morality thing comes about
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: where like the worst thing a woman can do is sex,
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: even though there has to be another person involved in that,
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: the two to tango scenario, Like hmmm, why is it
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: damaging to one and not the other? Like if virginity
• 22:38
  Speaker 2: is not a social construct, then there would also be
• 22:42
  Speaker 2: a test for men. You know, if people do the
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: whole hymen thing, which isn't real because it's stretching. The
• 22:49
  Speaker 2: hymen's real, but the testing to see if somebody is
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: a virgin by their hymen is not a real thing.
• 22:58
  Speaker 2: It's scientifically void, right, but it's a test that exists
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: in society and if virginity, because virginity is a social construct. Otherwise,
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: as I just said, we would have a virginity test
• 23:15
  Speaker 2: for men just then, and that's heteronormative at the best
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: of times. AnyWho, that's why the laundries exist. It was
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: for fallen women and the ages of the women that
• 23:31
  Speaker 2: entered these laundries. Because yeah, it started off as laundries
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: because like, you'll get a skill, you'll get a job,
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: and you can go earn your money. You know, these
• 23:43
  Speaker 2: laundries and houses. They would pop up all over the UK,
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: and they were in like nearly every major city in
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: Victorian England and would later evolve into workhouses. And these
• 23:58
  Speaker 2: are on a road through the eighteen hundreds. So when
• 24:02
  Speaker 2: it's the turn of the twentieth century nine, you know,
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: one in the factory actors passed, you know, the workhouses
• 24:08
  Speaker 2: they can't make people work all day and they start
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: getting phased out a wee bit because it limits you know,
• 24:14
  Speaker 2: the working hours to twelve hours a day, which is
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: a completely reasonable period of work, she said sarcastically. But
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: it didn't take long for this idea to spread across
• 24:27
  Speaker 2: the Irish Sea, and it was less than less than
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: a decade before the first one was in England. That
• 24:36
  Speaker 2: one popped up in the Pale in Dublin. So at
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: this point Dublin in Ireland was actually part of the
• 24:45
  Speaker 2: United Kingdom, it was under British rule. So the Magdalum
• 24:51
  Speaker 2: Asylum for penitent females, I hate that. I hate females.
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: It just reminds me of the Ferengi from Trek, that
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: sort of creepy like sleazy little Originally, the Magdalene Asylum
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: only excepted Protestant women, like if you were Catholic, you
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: weren't allowed in the doors, and it was all about,
• 25:18
  Speaker 2: you know, repent to penance, make yourself better, and that
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: was the purpose of it, helping women, rehabilitating ladies of
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: the night, not in any way using them for cheap labor,
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: not at all. Yet these laundries, they pop up all
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: over the fucking shop. So they are in like Sweden
• 25:43
  Speaker 2: and Australia, in Canada and the US, and the conditions
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: everywhere shitty, shitty as fuck. They're all over the world.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: They're all over the world, but we mainly now associate
• 25:57
  Speaker 2: them with Ireland specifically, because that's where they really had
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: a chokehold. Like I said before, like the separation of
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: church and state wasn't a thing. Catholicism was so ingrained
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: in Ireland, and when the sisters, when these orders, the nuns,
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: started running these establishments, these essay establishments, these institutions. When
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: you have the Great Hunger, you know, the famines which
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: were agena side when they occurred, it really made these
• 26:36
  Speaker 2: institutions more prominent. It created an area of cheap labor,
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: especially when so much of the population left, like the
• 26:48
  Speaker 2: population of Ireland today as I speak, still has not
• 26:53
  Speaker 2: reached the level it was pre famine. Like to they
• 27:00
  Speaker 2: it decimated a lot of the population between death and
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: mass immigration. Like these laundries became established. These they were workhouses.
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: It was cheap labor or free labor for a lot
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: of them. And thanks to how deeply rooted Catholicism was
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: in society, it meant that these religious orders were able
• 27:30
  Speaker 2: to just do what they wanted. A blind eye was turned.
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: It didn't matter if they weren't following regulations or they
• 27:38
  Speaker 2: were just being downright illegal, and these religious orders were
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: able to continue doing what they did. Were the government
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: really paying attention or you know, looking too much in
• 27:52
  Speaker 2: that direction. I mean, this is a society in which
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: wayward women or you know, women who fell out with
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: the bounds of what was deemed respectable in Catholic society.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: Anyone who didn't fit the Irish Catholic idea of what
• 28:11
  Speaker 2: a woman should be was a wayward woman, a fallen
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: woman by the end of the eighteen hundreds, and therefore
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: they were sent to work in the laundries. The wayward women,
• 28:26
  Speaker 2: the fallen women. It becomes this blanket term for anyone
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: who doesn't fit these ideals. So it was no longer
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: you know, a prostitute, a sex worker, someone who had
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: nowhere else to go. If you were in anyway sex positive,
• 28:46
  Speaker 2: if you were pretty, if you had performed a petty
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: crime of some form like stealing a loaf of bread,
• 28:55
  Speaker 2: if you were not a virgin regardless of worth or
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: the loss of virginity was consensual or not. If you
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: had learning difficulties or a mental illness, if you were
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: an orphan, if you questioned the Catholic faith. That's right,
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: anyone who didn't fit the ideal Catholic women could very
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: well be on the chopping block like. It got to
• 29:26
  Speaker 2: the point that it actually became sort of a legal
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: means of punishment. So if a woman was sentenced, if
• 29:37
  Speaker 2: she had committed a crime, the judicial senst them could
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: sentence a woman to the laundries instead of a reformatory
• 29:48
  Speaker 2: school or prison, right they would send them there. This
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: was a valid means of punishment. And the majority of
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: the time, any woman or girl that was sent to
• 30:04
  Speaker 2: the laundries would never see their family members again. Like
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: visiting the laundries and visiting your family or any women
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: in the laundry, it was discouraged, to say the least.
• 30:17
  Speaker 2: Now I'm going to touch on the mother and baby
• 30:20
  Speaker 2: homes for a quick second, So it's a separate entity
• 30:25
  Speaker 2: to this, to the laundries, but they collaborated. The mother
• 30:29
  Speaker 2: and baby homes were also run by nuns, sometimes of
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: the same congregation, sometimes of the same order, sometimes not.
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: So if you were pregnant out of wedlock, you were
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: sent most of the time to the mother and baby homes.
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: Now experiences differ, but you would be pregnant and you
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: would be sent away to mother and baby home. Once
• 30:56
  Speaker 2: you started showing, you know, you would give birthday and
• 31:00
  Speaker 2: if you were lucky, you would have some period of
• 31:03
  Speaker 2: time with your child. You could be there up to
• 31:07
  Speaker 2: ten months, or you could have your baby ripped from
• 31:11
  Speaker 2: your arms just several hours after giving birth and the
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: baby would be taken to an orphanage if you're fucking lucky.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: There were some mother and baby homes that were physically
• 31:25
  Speaker 2: connected to a laundry, so the mother and baby would
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: be separated and the mother would be put in the
• 31:34
  Speaker 2: laundry and on the other side of the wall, knowing
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: fine well, her child was there and she had no
• 31:41
  Speaker 2: access to them. And so many of these children, those
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: that survived, were sold to Catholic families across the world.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: In the UK, in America, it was socially acceptable human trafficking.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: In some of the women and girls who went to
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: the mother and baby homes, like their families would collect
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: them and take them home. Others would end up in
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: the laundries. Remember, sex for women were seen as like
• 32:14
  Speaker 2: the worst shame, like if you weren't a virgin, if
• 32:18
  Speaker 2: you weren't pure, like you were soiled, you were damaged,
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: or worse, you were vile. Which is weird though, because
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: you know it takes more than one person to create
• 32:33
  Speaker 2: a fresh human, you know, and yet no men are
• 32:37
  Speaker 2: being punished for this. Just the women, just the girls,
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: And it didn't matter if the pregnancy was the result
• 32:48
  Speaker 2: of a consensual act or not. The women was always
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: to blame. Like the refusal to acknowledge that men played
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: a massive, if not eat, part in this scenario is
• 33:03
  Speaker 2: ridiculous at best, because like, if this woman magically became
• 33:08
  Speaker 2: pregnant on her own, then really you should be praising
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: her because that's clearly the next Jesus. But no women
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: were to blame, and unworried mothers are the absolute she devil,
• 33:22
  Speaker 2: like they were despised and hated to a point of visceral,
• 33:30
  Speaker 2: like the cruelty that they suffered was worse than others,
• 33:34
  Speaker 2: Like the nuns really enjoyed punishing those who had any
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: post birth symptoms. If you had bleeding, if you were lactating,
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: if you suffered any post birth pain, like you were
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: going to suffer. They were going to make you suffer.
• 33:55
  Speaker 2: But here's the thing. Girls weren't sent to the Magdalen
• 33:58
  Speaker 2: laundries just as punishment. They also gave out the impression that,
• 34:07
  Speaker 2: you know, they were going to be educating and reforming
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: and doing all that jazz. So families would send their
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: daughters there to get an education, to learn a skill,
• 34:20
  Speaker 2: you know, embroidery, laundry, and that would give them like
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: a better step up in life. But even if you
• 34:27
  Speaker 2: consider the age range of people that entered the laundries,
• 34:30
  Speaker 2: like the youngest recorded age is eight, Like on average
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: would they would go in at like twelve? But yeah,
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: the youngest would be eight, and like the oldest like
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: Entreys eighty nine. Like who sends an eighty nine year
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: old to go work in a laundry? Like where where
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: is the logic in that? Like what could they have done?
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: Like seriously? But yeah, they're they're percent to the laundries
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: with the idea of of these young girls getting up trinities,
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: you know. But the laundries, we're business and they need workers,
• 35:11
  Speaker 2: and so they would have to find as many new
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: people to come in. They need to boaster their workforce,
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: and they would do that. However, they could even if
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: it meant lie into people in order to use their
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: children as slave labor. Now I don't know if you've noticed,
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: but this is quite a massive jump from you know,
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: reforming prostitutes, Like we're no longer trying to help. You know,
• 35:40
  Speaker 2: way where women turn their lives around, Like you've got
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: family sending their kids there because they genuinely think that
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: their daughters are going to have a better chance at life,
• 35:51
  Speaker 2: but they're not. I mean, they were supposed to educate
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: these girls, but they don't, and that's by design. By
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: keeping them uneducated, by ensuring that they don't have any
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: extra skills, like it forces them to be ignorant, and
• 36:10
  Speaker 2: it forces them to rely on the system in which
• 36:14
  Speaker 2: they are imprisoned. Like after nineteen twenty two, after the
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: Irish Free State is established, a quarter of the women
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: quarter twenty five percent who were sent into the laundries.
• 36:29
  Speaker 2: They were sent there by the judicial system. That's right,
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: the law. They were sentenced to the laundries instead of prison,
• 36:39
  Speaker 2: instead of jail, and it uses them or it's supposed
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: to use them as a halfway home, but most ended
• 36:50
  Speaker 2: up staying there much longer because they really didn't have
• 36:54
  Speaker 2: a choice. Like over two thousand women were sent to
• 36:59
  Speaker 2: work houses by government authorities. This state did this, This
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: state was actively involved in this. And like it's not
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: as if these women were committing murder or arson. They
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: were being sent there for like nicking some fruit or
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: forgetting to pray for a train ticket. So the government
• 37:22
  Speaker 2: knew what was going on. It knew that these laundries
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: were used as a form of imprisonment. It knew. It concluded,
• 37:32
  Speaker 2: I'll give you three guesses as to who the biggest
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: clients of the laundries were. Anyone, anyone who do the
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: laundries have massive contracts with. Oh, I'm glad you asked,
• 37:47
  Speaker 2: because I'll tell you the Irish government and the Army,
• 37:54
  Speaker 2: and of course all of the major businesses. Like we've
• 37:57
  Speaker 2: got the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries, Department of Defense,
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: Aris Nocton itself, We've got Guinness and Clari's and the Gaiety,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: Theater Bank of Ireland, the Portmarnoch Golf Club and the
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: ce Corus Imperer. Like that's the transport system of Ireland.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: Like what big businesses involved in slave labor? What? No? No? Now? Yes? Actually, yes,
• 38:32
  Speaker 2: the government was the biggest client of the laundry. It
• 38:36
  Speaker 2: was twenty percent, twenty percent of the laundry services. So
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: being a cleaning service, the laundries epso facto were a
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: workplace and as such were subject to the factory acts,
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: which means the state by law had to inspect it
• 38:58
  Speaker 2: like fairly regularly, just like any other workplace on the island,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: like it was supposed to. So either either they were
• 39:11
  Speaker 2: inspecting the area and not giving a shit, or they
• 39:16
  Speaker 2: just chose not to inspect it, like which one was?
• 39:23
  Speaker 2: It Hymns to say this collaboration and collusion between church
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: and state really allowed these religious orders. It allowed the
• 39:36
  Speaker 2: Catholic Church to just do whatever it wanted, like because
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: apparently slave labor is a okay if the church does it.
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: Because so many women and girls worked through the laundries
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: and earned nothing, They earned absolutely nothing. There was a
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: girl who was sent to the laundries by her family.
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: After being visited by her parents, her mo was like,
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: you need to be getting more money for this, because
• 40:02
  Speaker 2: you know, you're doing a job. And so this kid's
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: like twelve thirteen, and so she says, you know, to
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: mother superior, you know she should be earning more money,
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: and the nun just drops her off at a bus
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: stop with like a bit of cash to get the
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: bus into the nearest town. Like that's that's it just abandoned,
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: like out you go buy done, and that's the thing,
• 40:26
  Speaker 2: like most girls and women who like dead leave the laundries,
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: they had little to no education, like so many were illiterate,
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: Like they deliberately didn't teach them to read, even though
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: you think they'd want them to be like reading the
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: Bible and praying and whatnot. Turns out no, turns out
• 40:45
  Speaker 2: weren't really into that, just scrubbing sheets. So yeah, they
• 40:51
  Speaker 2: knew very little of the outside world. They knew very
• 40:55
  Speaker 2: little of what was going on, and that, again, as
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: I said before, was by design because if they know
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: nothing other than the Magdalene system, the reliant on it,
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: and it stops them, you know, rebelling, and it stops
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: them thinking from themselves or even trying to escape. Luckily,
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: now I say luckily for a lot of girls. You know,
• 41:21
  Speaker 2: the average day in the laundries was like three years.
• 41:25
  Speaker 2: For most it was much longer. But for a good
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: chunk it was like you've served your time and off
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: you go. But it wasn't like, oh, you can leave
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: whenever you want, like you'll find that they say that, Oh,
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: they could have left when they wanted to. We didn't
• 41:42
  Speaker 2: lock them in. Like there were two official ways to
• 41:45
  Speaker 2: leave the laundries. One was a family member, a male
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: family member had to request to take you back, like
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: you needed their permission. The other was that the nuns
• 41:56
  Speaker 2: would just remove you. Like those were official options. I
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: suppose there's magic door number three, which is death. That's
• 42:06
  Speaker 2: the other way, although you don't really leave. You just
• 42:08
  Speaker 2: end up any fucking mass grave at the back apparently.
• 42:12
  Speaker 2: But yeah, those were the official ways. And there is
• 42:16
  Speaker 2: this whole thing of well, you couldn't leave when you
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: wanted to. What in the name of gas lighting, tom
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: fuckery is this? That is something that an abuser states
• 42:27
  Speaker 2: and an abusive relationship, you know, oh, you could go
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: and you want no. You created a system of terror
• 42:35
  Speaker 2: and torture and conditioned these women and girls into believing
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: that they had no other choice. You forced them to
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: be there even if you're not physical, even though you
• 42:50
  Speaker 2: were physical, because you fucking beat them, Like that's how
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: abuse works. They created the cage and then have the
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: audacity to act like they didn't lock you in it
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: in the first place. Now, of course, the non official
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: way to leave is to bloody escape, which is easier
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: than it sounds, because you know you're living in an
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: absolute quagmire of despair. If you escape, you might not
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: have anywhere to go. You might be in an area
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: you don't know, like anything could happen to you out there,
• 43:25
  Speaker 2: and you don't know much about the outside world, like
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: how are you going to get about? How are you
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: going to eat? How are you going to survive? Is
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: this the lesser of two evils? And even if you
• 43:37
  Speaker 2: get over that, the guardee, the Irish police force would
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: literally seart you out, round you up and bring you
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: back to the laundry, like without cause, no warrant, no nothing,
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: They would just send you back to your abusers, abusers
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: who condition you to remove every distinguishing feature about yourself,
• 44:02
  Speaker 2: Like they would take you there and you would get
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: a name, like a religious name. Sometimes you wouldn't even
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: get a fucking name. Sometimes you'd just be a number,
• 44:10
  Speaker 2: and they would tear from you anything personal, any personal items,
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: any sort of belongings. Letters, if your family or loved
• 44:21
  Speaker 2: ones or friends dared to send you a letter, they
• 44:24
  Speaker 2: were intercepted by the Sisters. They were destroyed. They removed
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: your connection, They made you alone, they made you suffer,
• 44:35
  Speaker 2: and they made you work until you were a bother,
• 44:38
  Speaker 2: an issue, or even just no use anymore, and then
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: you were just dumped on the streets, no education, no money,
• 44:50
  Speaker 2: and no understanding of the outside world. And that's one
• 44:54
  Speaker 2: thing that comes up a lot actually with people who
• 44:56
  Speaker 2: did manage to leave or escape the loan, and that's
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: the lack of education, Like it really affect them and
• 45:05
  Speaker 2: it really held them back and it made it much
• 45:08
  Speaker 2: tougher to like navigate the world. Now, not every laundry
• 45:11
  Speaker 2: was a capitalist torture chamber, Like there was one or
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: two that was like designed for reforming. I mean, it
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: was still strict to shit because they're nuns, but it
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: wasn't like incredibly awful. And there are some people who
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: look back at their times in the laundries as you know,
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: fairly decent, fairly okay. But for the majority of people
• 45:36
  Speaker 2: as absolutely not the case. Most were worked to the
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: bone and punished anyway. Like there are reports and corroborations
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: of physical, sexual, and emotional abuse, solitary confinement, starvation abuse,
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: derogatory statements, sort of demoralization, allegation, so on and so forth,
• 46:02
  Speaker 2: And you could be punished for anything, for your nipples leaking,
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: for speaking to your bunkmate, for dropping a cup. Marina
• 46:14
  Speaker 2: Gambold was eight when she became an orphan, and luckily
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: she was able to go into the care of her
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: grandmother for a while, but she too passed. So when
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: she's sixteen and she has nowhere else to go, and
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: so the local priest brings her to one of the laundries,
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: and as soon as she enters the laundry, she is
• 46:35
  Speaker 2: told two things. One that she has a new name,
• 46:39
  Speaker 2: it's now Fidelma, and two to keep her mouth shut.
• 46:46
  Speaker 2: She was expected to be silent and suffer silently throughout
• 46:52
  Speaker 2: this well, she worked ten our days. You're in grueling,
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: manual labor and shaking with hunger like They would get
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: bread with beef dripping for breakfast, sometimes bread and water.
• 47:07
  Speaker 2: If the nuns were feeling like it, they would be
• 47:10
  Speaker 2: given the least amount of food possible to survive, while
• 47:15
  Speaker 2: the nuns would set oppits of them devouring fill meals.
• 47:20
  Speaker 2: And there was me thinking. Gluttony and great were some
• 47:23
  Speaker 2: of the seven deadly sins. And when Marina accidentally broke
• 47:27
  Speaker 2: a cup, the nuns decided that the teenager required training.
• 47:32
  Speaker 2: They tied a thick string around her neck like a
• 47:36
  Speaker 2: leash and made her eat off the floor for three
• 47:39
  Speaker 2: days one winter Marina and two other girls were locked
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: out on a balcony for two nights, convinced they were
• 47:48
  Speaker 2: going to be left there to freeze to death. When
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: she was nineteen and finally able to leave, she said,
• 47:54
  Speaker 2: fuck this for a game of soldiers and fled to England.
• 48:00
  Speaker 2: Like this happened a lot, and that's why. One of
• 48:04
  Speaker 2: the reasons that information about the laundries was so hard
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: to obtain from survivors was because so many of them
• 48:12
  Speaker 2: fled the country because that was the only option. They
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: couldn't risk staying here any more after what they suffered through.
• 48:20
  Speaker 2: Another survivor, Maureen Sullivan, was sent to the laundry when
• 48:24
  Speaker 2: she was twelve. Her mum and had remarried and her
• 48:28
  Speaker 2: stepfather was abusing her, and so the nuns told her
• 48:33
  Speaker 2: mum that she was going to a lovely school, and
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: she never saw a school book after the day the
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: nun took her Moreen would work from six in the
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: morning to nine at night. She would scrub floors and
• 48:48
  Speaker 2: knit jumpers and make rosary beads, and of course wash laundry.
• 48:54
  Speaker 2: She only saw her mother four times in the five
• 48:57
  Speaker 2: years she spent in the laundry. Before she was just
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: dumped Houston Station in Dublin until to go back to
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: the home in which she was being abused. Mary Merrick
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: grew up in an industrial school and when she was sixteen,
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: her and some friends snuck out one night to go
• 49:15
  Speaker 2: into a neighbor's orchard to steal some apples. She was
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: caught and the nuns sent her to a laundry. She
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: was given a new name, a religious name, a tractor
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: on the number sixty three. Her hair was cut short
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: and she was put in a white uniform. She was
• 49:37
  Speaker 2: often put in solitary confinement with just a bucket to
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: relieve herself. One night, she tried to escape by smashing
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: a window, only to discover that the windows were all barred.
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: She was put on day work at this farm. She
• 49:54
  Speaker 2: saw her opportunity and she took it. She legged it
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: and when she managed to reach Griffith Avenue, she had
• 50:02
  Speaker 2: no idea where she was. She seeks out help, ends
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: up at the archbishop's place, where she is sexually assaulted
• 50:11
  Speaker 2: and becomes pregnant as a result, and the priest who
• 50:15
  Speaker 2: raped her he called the guardee, who then took her
• 50:20
  Speaker 2: back to the laundry. A few months later, when she
• 50:23
  Speaker 2: starts suffering from morning sickness. She gets taken to a
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: doctor and he has to explain to her that she's pregnant.
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: Because this is a woman who had no sex education.
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: She grew up in a convent, in an industrial school,
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: and then the laundry. She had no fucking clue what
• 50:41
  Speaker 2: was happening to her. She was a victim, and then
• 50:45
  Speaker 2: she was sent on to a mother and baby home
• 50:47
  Speaker 2: before her son was taken away from her and she
• 50:50
  Speaker 2: was forced to return to the laundry. Fourteen years after
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: entering the laundry, she was finally released, like suddenly, a
• 50:58
  Speaker 2: bunch of the younger inmates. I'm going to call them inmates,
• 51:02
  Speaker 2: because that's what they were. They were just suddenly released.
• 51:06
  Speaker 2: They were let out, nowhere to go. And she was
• 51:09
  Speaker 2: lucky because you know, a stranger helped her, but so
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: many were not so lucky, and there were so many
• 51:17
  Speaker 2: stories we will never hear. And this is only some
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: of the horror stories. There were so so many more,
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: from making women strip down and judging them, ridiculing their
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: bodies because they could, public beatings, making them chant but
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: how they were nothing, over and over again, demralizing them,
• 51:43
  Speaker 2: removing every semblance of being of their own personality, breaking
• 51:49
  Speaker 2: them down till there is nothing burning, scalding, caning, just
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: on and on and on across the country. The laundry
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: is recorded officially eight hundred and seventy nine deaths, all
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: from A. Smorgan's Board of Natural causes, but between you know,
• 52:15
  Speaker 2: investigations and the lack of death certificates conveniently consistently. Yeah,
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: the theory as it's closer to about sixteen hundred, like
• 52:28
  Speaker 2: double the amount of what they say it is. Enter
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: the Justice from Magdalen's Group. So this is set up
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: by someone we believe to be a Magdalen baby, a
• 52:39
  Speaker 2: woman who, as far as we know, was torn from
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: her mother, a Magdalene woman torn from her and then
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: trafficked by nuns to the US and a private adoption.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: The Justice for Magdalene group has been a major, major
• 52:59
  Speaker 2: four and getting justice for so many women, for survivors
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: and for victims. The last laundry didn't close until nineteen
• 53:15
  Speaker 2: ninety six. Nineteen ninety six, Now it really was the
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: last one standing because the majority of the laundries closed
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: down in like the early seventies, and not because you know,
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: it was unethical not because you know, it was a
• 53:32
  Speaker 2: labor camp on Irish soil, and not because the secret
• 53:36
  Speaker 2: was out. No, no, no, no. It just wasn't making
• 53:39
  Speaker 2: good business anymore, so it was no longer practical technology
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: is becoming more affordable. Laundrettes were appearing in towns and
• 53:50
  Speaker 2: families and homes were having washing machines, so they didn't
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: need the laundries anymore. Like these institutions on they stopped
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: because of supply and demand. I never thought I'd do
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: an episode where capitalism is the good guy for a
• 54:09
  Speaker 2: little bit. I mean, obviously it's the bad guy for
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: a lot of this because they were able to have
• 54:17
  Speaker 2: slave labor so they could earn more money where that
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: money was fucking going. Whom's to say? The goings on
• 54:25
  Speaker 2: in the laundries wasn't really public knowledge. It wasn't out
• 54:29
  Speaker 2: there until nineteen ninety three, when the mass grave is
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: unearthed and people start paying attention and start asking questions,
• 54:42
  Speaker 2: And when the public starts learning about it, pressure starts
• 54:46
  Speaker 2: being put in the government, but they're refusing to acknowledge it.
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: By eight years later, the government did recognize that the
• 54:59
  Speaker 2: women in the laundries were in fact abuse victims. They
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: just happened to mention that they weren't involved. They didn't
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: abuse them, they knew nothing of the sort, nothing to
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: do with them. It was the Catholic Church doing it
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: was these sisters. They had no knowledge. You know, they
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: were privately run. Again, we didn't see it. It didn't happen,
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: which is a weird thing to state when you know
• 55:25
  Speaker 2: there's a fucking mountain of evidence against you showing that
• 55:30
  Speaker 2: you did, in fact have contracts with the laundries, that
• 55:34
  Speaker 2: you were supposed to inspect the laundries, and that your
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: judicial system literally sent women and girls to those laundries.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: But still no official apology came forward. Like the Minister
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: of Education back then, Barrel Keefe, he said that they
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: were privately run, so you know, it wasn't our fault,
• 55:57
  Speaker 2: and he was like there's no need for an apology
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: or a red rescheme, and that if anything, it's our
• 56:06
  Speaker 2: fault that children get sent there from like the reform
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: schools or the industrial schools, but like not the adult women,
• 56:14
  Speaker 2: Like that was n us. We didn't know about it,
• 56:17
  Speaker 2: which again is a weird stance to take when there
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: are court records stating that the Irish courts habitually sent
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: women and girls to the laundries as punishment for crimes. Eventually,
• 56:32
  Speaker 2: after mounting public pressure, a full investigation has started two
• 56:37
  Speaker 2: years later in twenty eleven, and two years after that
• 56:43
  Speaker 2: the mclice Report is released. After the twenty thirteen publication
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: of inquiry report there there was a lot that the
• 56:52
  Speaker 2: government couldn't do. It couldn't hide behind it anymore. So
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: it is presented to the United Nations Committee Against Torture,
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: who literally stated that the Magdalen Laundries the orders that
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: run it performed torture like the United Nations. So and
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: there was state collusion. Yeah, so you know, the government
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: couldn't really hide it anymore. And so finally, in twenty thirteen,
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: a formal apology is made by the then tisha Enda Kenny,
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: stating on behalf of the state, the government and our
• 57:38
  Speaker 2: citizens deeply regret and apologize unreservedly to all those women
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: for the heart that was done to them and for
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: any stigma they suffered as a result of the time
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: they spent in a Magdalen laundry. Here's the thing. A
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: public apology is good when it is effectively the bare
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: minimum of what needed to be there, and the tenious
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: amount of blame on the government, but like they didn't
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: fully accept how engrossed their role was, like how much
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: they were involved in this and how they perpetuated it
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: because they could. And like survivors, many survivors say it
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: wasn't good enough, it's not enough, and we have to
• 58:21
  Speaker 2: listen to what they say because they're the ones who
• 58:24
  Speaker 2: lived through this trauma and there were so many others
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: who didn't. And the maca Leese report it's only the
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: tip of the iceberg. It doesn't go into as much
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: of the horror and it's already like pointed out torture,
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: like it means there's so much worse that we will
• 58:45
  Speaker 2: probably never know, that will be buried from history from
• 58:51
  Speaker 2: the acknowledgement of what happened. But that being said, it
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: did lift the stigma, or at least some of it is.
• 59:00
  Speaker 2: I wants becoming more secular without that Catholic guilt weighing
• 59:07
  Speaker 2: down on everyone, forcing everyone to be a certain way
• 59:12
  Speaker 2: and to cover up shit like this, And like as
• 59:17
  Speaker 2: much as we want to blame the Catholic Church and
• 59:19
  Speaker 2: the government alone because they were major factors, and obviously,
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: but like people sent their families there on with mothers,
• 59:29
  Speaker 2: somebody who wasn't doing great, anyone who had a mental
• 59:34
  Speaker 2: deficiency of any kind. Women who were seen as less worthy.
• 59:40
  Speaker 2: I mean, these are victims who were seen as less
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: worthy for so long. Right, it's like the concept of
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: less dead, like average jaws. Families. People were involved, someone
• 59:56
  Speaker 2: knows something. The pressure of Catholicism ran so deep that
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 2: it made silence. It created the vacuum, and people don't
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 2: want to face the fact that they, in their own way,
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 2: allowed this to happen. They ignored someone's stories, they turned
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: a blind eye. Institutions like the laundries thrived on secrecy.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: It helped turn it through, but secrets they don't stay
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: down for long. So in twenty thirteen, the Irish Law
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: Reform Commission spoke to around about three hundred and forty
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 2: survivors about their needs and what they required. And one
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: of the things they discovered was that last laundry to
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: shut down in nineteen ninety six, it still had seventeen
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 2: women like under the care of that Order of the Nuns.
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: Now a lot of these women had lifelong trauma. They
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: had physical ilia like arthritis and other such issues. Or
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: they had additional needs, or they were just elderly. And
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: for these women, that's the only life they knew and
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: so they didn't want to leave the nuns like it's scary,
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: and so they stayed in the nuns' care. So later
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: on in that year, the Minister for Justice announced that
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: reparations were going to be paid. Survivors were to receive
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 2: somewhere between like eleven thousand euros and fifty thousand euros
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 2: in lump some along with like weekly installment payments. On
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 2: top of that, they would receive benefits like counseling, therapy,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 2: medical cards, so on and so forth. Now this is
• 1:01:44
  Speaker 2: all fine and well for the survivors that were still
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: in Ireland, but so many had just buggered off. They'd
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 2: fled to the UK, the US, Canada, just getting the
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 2: heck at adtch because they needed to escape. So this
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: makes tracking down survivors a pretty you know, difficult process.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: But this is also what helped keep the laundries going
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: for so long, because people can't tell their stories everyw'ere
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 2: not around one way or the other. But you know
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 2: the reparations and the compensation, and you know memorials and acknowledgments.
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 2: It's a start, and it's too easy to go, oh, well,
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: we said sorry, and then to hide it under the rug. No,
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: not even other little but especially when you consider the
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 2: Catholic Church still maintains it did nothing wrong. So the
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: church has absolutely refused, like not even a little bit,
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 2: is refusing to contribute any compensation, any reparations, you know,
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 2: none of the ones that responsible Sisters of Mercy Good
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 2: Shepherd says that to charity, sisters of our Lady of Charity, like, no,
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: they're not doing anything, and they are refusing not only
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: to the Irish government, but also from the UN Committee
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 2: Against Torture and the UN Committee on the Rights of
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: the Child. So like like right after this apology happens,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: this official apology by the Tasha, like once that goes in,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 2: like two nuns who have the audacity to go on
• 1:03:43
  Speaker 2: record anonymously, you know, they go on RT and they're
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: on the radio and they basically are asked, you know, apologize,
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: and they don't believe they should. And you're thinking that's bad.
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 2: Well as bad as it is, it gets worse. So
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: after this report, after this you know, apology, the nuns
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: say that this is a one sided anti Catholic forum,
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: and they have no remorse whatsoever for the acts committed
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: by any of these religious orders in the past. And
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: when they're asked if you know they should apologize, the
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 2: response is, and I quote apologize for what, apologize for
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: providing a service. We provided a free service for the country.
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 2: And all of the shame of the era is being
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: dumped on their religious orders. The sins of society are
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: being placed on us. Now, this may shock you, but
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 2: that's not how you deal with blame. Like it's not accountability.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: You need to have accountability if you do something wrong.
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 2: You need to be able to turn around and go,
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 2: I did something wrong. It's not It's not hard, especially
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 2: if you're super into Jesus. He's all forgiving. Have you
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 2: considered asking him for repentance? Maybe not? Three heill mirrors
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 2: and their father perhaps m So Bill Donahue of the
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 2: US Catholic League. What an absolute bastard. He says that
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: no one was imprisoned, no one was forced against their
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 2: will to state, no one you know, was forced to
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 2: perform slave labor. Cool, show me their paylips, bitch, show
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 2: me their payslips. Show me like, imagine imagine having the
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 2: goal to go, hey, you know these children that we
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 2: imprisoned and wouldn't allow to leave without you know, a
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 2: man taking them. Oh, the ones we dumped on the streets,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 2: remember them? Oh no, No, we didn't force them to
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 2: do anything. We didn't make them chant about how they
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: were nothing like, we didn't tear every strip of confidence
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: from them or make them, you know, do so much
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: horrific labor that their entire body started to seize up.
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 2: What an absolute preck what an absolute cock wombo. But yeah, yeah,
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: the survivors, surprisingly or unsurprisingly weren't too keen on that,
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 2: Like they can't grasp like this opinion by these religious
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 2: women and obviously to ked McGee over there. And yet
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 2: again the Catholic Church, the religious orders were able to
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 2: just brush this aside, sweep it under the rug, and
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: not even take accountability, not even apologize. Like it's twenty
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 2: twenty four and a decade ago. Ten years ago, there
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: were six hundred living survivors of the laundries after COVID
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: and everything else that's happened. It's unsurprising that that number
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 2: is probably a lot smaller now, and those people still
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 2: still don't have an apology. The church still hasn't taken
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 2: accountability for what they did. And I know some people
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 2: are afraid to criticize, you know, large organizations like this.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 2: I'm not. I will drag you and I will call
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 2: you out for all your shit because these women deserved better.
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 2: We know at least ten thousand women went through those
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 2: doors at least, and we currently or at least did
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 2: have six hundred people left. Six hundred women. Which I'm
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 2: not a math person. Maths is not great, but even
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 2: I know that's a tiny fucking amount. So after digging
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 2: through all this research and reading you know, survivor testimonies
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 2: and victim accounts, and considering the social claim of the time,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: like were these nuns, like were they truly believing that
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: what they were doing was good? That they were representatives
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 2: of Jesus of God? That these women deserve to be punished,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: That they were doing God's work by a living suffering,
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: like Mother Teresa said, suffering brings people goes to Jesus,
• 1:08:56
  Speaker 2: you know, was this what they were doing? Were they
• 1:08:59
  Speaker 2: victim of a patriarchy which conditioned them into a situation
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 2: where anyone who filled with outside the bounds of you know,
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 2: the Catholic ideal of what a woman should be, you know,
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: deserved to go through this level of treatment like or
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 2: where they you know, abusing the rules of society in
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: order to be you know, sadistic. Where they deliberately hurting
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 2: people because they could, because it was an option, because
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: they had hate and venomin side them to the point
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: that the suffering of others brought them joy. Where are
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 2: they in a pack mentality like Milgrim's experiment, where they
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: just following orders, or where they just fucking cunts. At
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: the end of the day, this is not just a
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: ripple effect. This is a tidal wave of generational tru
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: and survivors and their descendants and anyone connected. They are
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 2: going to struggle to overcome. And it's our job, all
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: of us listening, all of us talking, to keep talking
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: about it, to keep bringing it up. And this is
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: the part I was going to talk to you about.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: My message. At the end, I could say this is
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: the end of the story. It's not not if we
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 2: don't let it. If you can share this episode, not
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: just because I want the shares or whatever, you know,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 2: download it. If you download it actually goes up in
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 2: the charts, and it means more people see it. It
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 2: means more people hear this story. It means more access
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: to finding out about these women, these girls who suffered,
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 2: And it means making sure this does not happen again.
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: Even if you don't want to share the episode, grand
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 2: no worries, but the content. Talk about it, talk about
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 2: the laundries, talk about the collusion, talk about the survivors.
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: We have to keep the story present. We can't let
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 2: it be swept under the rug. We have to keep
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: talking about it. By keeping it there, it stops it
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 2: going away. We cannot let it happen again. It is
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: International Women's Day. Let's fight for women's rights. Okay, And
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 2: with this, I am going to bid you good night
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: adios or of where is my friends? Bye bye