This story was hard to write. Hard to type, even. I had to unclench my fists a few times.
Twenty years ago, shock washed over Ireland. After the Catholic Church sold a parcel of a North Dublin convent’s grounds to a commercial developer, and the construction dig began, 155 bodies were discovered in unmarked graves. The place had been a Magdalene asylum for “wayward girls.” Apparently, inmates who met an early end had been buried in secret — many without a death certificate, without notification of parents or other family, and all without the dignity of even the simplest grave marker.
Initially conceived as rehabilitation centers for prostitutes, the Magdalene asylums — also known as the Magdalene Laundries for the “women’s work” slave labor expected of the residents — eventually grew into houses of horror. The girls, some not even teens, were forced to work seven days a week without pay. The short-term treatment intended by the founders eventually gave way to long-term incarceration. Though conditions varied from one asylum to the next, a strict code of silence was in place for most of the day throughout the Magdalene system. Long prayer sessions were mandatory.
Worse, for over a hundred years, beatings and sexual abuse are thought to have been endemic.
Continue reading my piece over at the Friendly Atheist.
“The Magdalene Sisters” is an excellent movie about this institution. Hard to watch needless to say, but excellent.
I know. I recommended it at the bottom of the article! 😉
I hear about all these abuses, and I wonder why a victim or even a relative of a victim hasn’t gone berzerk and committed mayhem on Catholic clergy and property. Did the church pick its victims so well that they knew there wouldn’t be reprisals?
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