Random Facts About Irish Laundries Tortured Women And Separated Families (12 items)

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  (#2) They Operated For 231 Years & Only Closed In 1996

  The sordid history of laundries is an extraordinarily long one; the first Irish institution,  founded by philanthropist Lady Arabella Denny, opened in 1765. Known as Magdalene Asylums (after the "redeemed" Biblical prostitute Mary Magdalene), the homes purported to be sanctuaries for "fallen" women... i.e., unwed mothers, abused girls, girls who had been cast out by their families, and your run-of-the-mill freethinking feminists who were too eccentric, original, and "troublesome" to fit into the strictures of their communities. 

  Incredibly, the laundries continued to operate, in various stages of utilitarian bleakness (at best) and cruelty (at worst) until 1996. It's been estimated that over 30,000 women passed through the asylums, some staying a month and some remaining for a lifetime. Even that seems to be a conservative figure, though, when you consider that the time period in question spans over two centuries.
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  (#4) Thousands Of Women Died Of "Negligent Homicide"

  Many of the deaths that occurred at Irish laundries (which mostly came about through medical negligence) were not reported, according to sources citing 2013's groundbreaking McAleese Report. Though the asylums officially recorded 879 deaths, a group called "Justice for Magdalenes" interviewed survivors and "collected testimonies about death and burials, gravestones, electoral registers, exhumation orders, and newspaper archives." Eventually, from all of this research, they determined the number of un-reported deaths to be closer to 1,663... though this figure remains both controversial and denied by the powers that be.
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  (#9) There Were Laundries In Five Countries (Including The US)

  Ireland's Magdalene Asylums may be the world's most notorious laundries, but they were by no means its only ones. According to reports, at least five countries maintained similar institutions.

  The Magdalene Laundries in Australia lasted from the early 1800s to the 1960s, while England - perhaps ahead of its time - had reportedly banned the slave-labor factory model by 1901. The US and Canada's Laundries basically ran throughout the 1800s, and many described them as being more akin to girl's schools than workhouses.

  In other words, not all Magdalene Asylums were the same abysmal snakepits. The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions, as the saying goes, and some religious orders did appear to treat their wards far better than others.
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  (#1) Women Were Beaten & Demoralized

  To be sure, the horror stories of Magdalene laundry survivors are legion. One former inmate, Marina Gambold, told the BBC that: 

  "One day I broke a cup, and the nun said, 'I'll teach you to be careful'. She got a thick string, and she tied it round my neck for three days and three nights, and I had to eat off the floor every morning. Then I had to get down on my knees, and I had to say, 'I beg almighty God's pardon, Our Lady's pardon, my companion's pardon for the bad example I have shown." 

  Another survivor, Kathleen Legg, now 80, remembers: 

  "Every morning you would wake to the sound of a bell. You operated like a robot, and you did not dare question a nun. We bathed once a week, and I remember the lice from our hair used to float around the top of the water, so if you were one of the last ones to get washed, it was horrific."

  Ex-Magdalene Lauren Sullivan told The Scotsman that: "I had my hair chopped off and my name changed, and when I was put into that Magdalene laundry all I remember was the door being locked. They beat, punched and tortured me."

  Of course, few things are that black and white, and there are a few stragglers who claim that they were treated wonderfully. That doesn't change the fact that the majority of the stories are bloodcurdling, however, and many more of them can be read in James Smith's award-winning Ireland's Magdalen Laundries and the Nation's Architecture of Containment.
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  (#3) Mass Graves Were Discovered On Convent Grounds

  In 1993, a mass grave was found on land owned by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge in Dublin. Inside were the remains of hundreds of "penitents" who had once been inmates at High Park, the largest laundry in Ireland. The final body count was 155.

  All the corpses were cremated and reinterred in a different cemetery, but most of the deaths had not even been officially logged or certified, so it wasn't possible to notify relatives or provide closure of any kind. The general consensus, though, was that the bodies represented women or girls who had been neglected to death, mistreated to death, or some combination of both.
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  (#12) The Last Operating Laundry Drew Controversy In 2017

  In 2017, disagreement erupted in Dublin over the potential sale of the last Magdalene laundry. The laundry – which closed in 1996 – is the battleground of competing interests. On one side, stand developers who stand to gain a sizeable profit from leveling the structure and developing something new. On the other, folks advocate for a standstill on development until the grounds can be thoroughly searched for graves. Some also believe the site should be turned into a memorial and educational center that documents the long-suppressed history of the laundries.

  As of March 2017, the Dublin City Council had put a stay on development.

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