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MARY MERRITT FIRST entered the High Park Magdalene Laundry in 1947, at the age of 16.
Born in a Dublin workhouse, she was put into the care of the Sisters of Mercy in Ballinasloe, Co Galway when she was two.
Mary (85) never met her mother, and has never found out who she was.
“To this day I don’t know who my mother is,” she told TheJournal.ie last week.
I’m 85 now, I’ll be 86 next month.
After 14 years in the orphanage in Ballinasloe, Mary (who was known as Mary O’Conor at that time) said she went out one night with four other girls and stole some apples from a nearby orchard.
“They came into me the next morning – on the 7th of January 1947 – and they said O’Conor get your clothes together, you’re going to a situation in Dublin,” said Mary.
Two nuns brought me down to Westmoreland Street Station, put on a train, sat each side of me, and brought me up to here.
“Here” was the Magdalene Laundry at High Park Convent in Drumcondra, Co Dublin.
Mary was to spend the next 14 years at High Park where she was given the name Attracta by the nuns.
She spent that time living in harsh conditions, dealing with psychological trauma and abuse and doing the endless amounts of laundry delivered from hotels and colleges around Dublin.
“We had a terrible time. We got up for mass at 6 o’clock in the morning,” she said.
“We went in and we had a bit of breakfast, a bit of porridge, we went from there down to the laundry and we worked in the laundry then until 12 o’clock.
“Then we had cabbage and potatoes for our dinner and we went back down to the laundry again and we worked there until half past six/seven o’clock.
And then they’d bring us in then we would have prayers and we would got to bed. And that was our day every day of the week for 14 years. I’ll never forget it.
Similar Laundries – centres run by the Catholic Church for so-called “fallen women” – existed in other locations in Dublin and Ireland for decades.
“Dreadful”
Mary spoke to TheJournal.ie in the chapel of the old laundry where she had lived over 60 years ago. She was a guest at the official opening of the High Park Family Hub – new group accommodation from Respond! Housing Association for homeless families.
Addressing a gathered crowd – which included Housing Minister Simon Coveney – Mary spoke of the hardships she endured while at the laundry and thanked people for changing the building into a place for families to live.
“I had a very difficult time here,” she said.
I was raped by a priest and sent to a Mother and Baby Home before being sent back here.
Mary has spoken previously of how she had become pregnant and had her child taken off her at the Mother and Baby Home. A Daily Mail article from 2014 details how she met with the daughter who was taken from her decades later.
Speaking to TheJournal.ie after her speech, Mary said the nuns didn’t usually physically abuse her while she was at the laundry, but they mentally broke her down.
“They use to cut my hair and if I did anything wrong they’d bring me down to a room,” she said.
“It was small and we used to call it the hole. They’d put me in it with nothing to eat and no windows.
Then they would cut my hair to the bone. And then they’d bring me up and make me apologise in front of the whole room, kiss the floor and apologise.
Mary also said that food was scarce and the portions small at the Laundry.
While she spoke to us, her husband Bill Merritt held her hand throughout, interrupting from time to time with his condemnation of what had happened to his wife early in her life.
A new life
Mary said she was finally released by the nuns in 1969, with no clue where she was supposed to go.
She was 31 and had lived in institutions for her entire life.
“The clothes I went in with of course at the age of 16 didn’t fit me so they gave me some bits of old rags I don’t know what they were, and I went out and I didn’t know what to do.” she said.
“I sat on Griffith Avenue on a seat and a woman came up to me – Mrs Cronin – and she came over, I’ll never forget it, and said ‘what’s wrong?’
And I said ‘they’ve just put me out of High Park and I have nowhere to go’.
Mrs Cronin – who Mary kept in touch with until her death three years ago – took her back to her house.
She brought me back to her house, she put me up, she gave me a bath, she gave me clothes, and she brought me down the next morning and said I’m going to get you a job somewhere and somewhere to live.
Mary got a job with Marlowe Dry Cleaners O’Connell Street. She moved into her own small flat and set about beginning a life outside of the institutions.
She eventually moved over the London to work in the cleaners over there, where she met her husband Bill.
“Bill was in the Royal Marines and he came in to get a job in the cleaners,” she said.
And 50 years on we’re happily married.
The pair started a family and bought a chain of dry cleaning stores, before selling the business and retiring. Mary now spends time working for justice for other survivors like herself.
She has been compensated by the State for what happened to her, but said that she had never received an official apology from the Catholic Church
She said that the conversion of the old building into homeless accommodation for families in need was a positive step and that she was happy to see the building where she had suffered being put to good use.
She said she harboured no anger with the State now for what happened, but that she was still angry with the Church.
“I am angry with the church. I’m very angry with the church,” she said.
“The last time I was in a church was the day I got married.
“But I still believe in it, don’t get me wrong. And I still say my prayers at night… and I think keeping that bit of religion has helped me along the way.
And I still thank God for what I have today and for bringing me through what I went through.
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God bless Mrs. Cronin for being there and helping in 1969. She personified what that Church should be.
@Rathminder:
Correct!
More Christianity in Mrs. Cronin’s big toe than in many of the men and women of the cloth from that dark era, created by Ireland’s RC Church / State double act!
Just goes to show; one random act of kindness in life’s journey to a person in distress can have a profound effect on their long-term well being.
Great story also that Ms O’ Conor ended up running her own business along with her husband, in sector in which she was presented with first ever opportunity.
We should all be a Mrs Cronin every once in a while!
@Rory J Leonard: nothing Christian about the actions of Mrs. Cronin. She is an empathic human if the highest order. Sure you can pick one little part of Christianity (treat others like yourself) but it is Christianity which kept her prisoner. It falls me when people use this term as a good thing. The god of the new and Old Testament is a murdering psychopath who drowned a whole planet.(5
@Rory J Leonard: sad thing is some people are so used to abuse they’re unable to accept help.
@Rathminder: god should have been on time and stopped the abuse………..or did a belief in him lead to the abuse in the first place?
@Rory J Leonard: More HUMANITY in Mrs. Cronin’s big toe than in many of the men and women of the cloth from that dark era, created by Ireland’s RC Church / State double act!…………….With that bit of editing, I agree and she was the first light to shine in the darkness.
@John B: “treat others like yourself” or EMPATHY is far older than christianity and is the basis of Humanism.
The bit that got me was the humanity in the woman in who took her in. I don’t think it’s for us to judge this woman for her continued faith. Shouldn’t she get solace where she can. Hasn’t she had enough judgement in her life? It’s not like she’s hurting anyone. Perhaps she can see beyond the Catholic church’s institutions to the truer message of Christianity. That takes a pretty big person considering what she went to.
Religion is a lie. A social construct to mantain order through ideology.
@Eye_c_u: In YOUR opinion.
@CeannairBlue: Provide me with proof that any of the 3000 or so gods currently worshipped on this planet is real, and I’ll concede the point that religion is not a lie
CHARATIES ? Funded by department of Health HSE and public donations , tax back and breaks by being a charity .To care for people am I missing something ? Tuam Babies etc and over €1 billion value .
Two of the Catholic religious orders that have under-contributed to the redress scheme for survivors of institutional abuse own hospitals valued at nearly €1.1 billion.
The Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of Charity, which together own six hospitals in Dublin.
The two public hospitals and one private hospital owned by the Sisters of Charity through the St Vincent’s Healthcare Group are worth €434 million, according to documents filed at the Companies Registration Office.
Six Catholic hospitals in Dublin together worth over €1bn
via The Irish Times
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/social-affairs/six-catholic-hospitals-in-dublin-together-worth-over-1bn-1.3016475
@PVD: I read the Catholic Church owns one third of Western Europe.
@PVD:
I don’t think that putting the Sisters in a position where they would have to sell those hospitals would do anything to help the health service.
@Ciarán Masterson: well they would no longer be able to refuse women operations that the nuns see as contrary to the catholic ethos. I think that would be a significant positive for the health service and indeed for Irish women.
@Ciarán Masterson: As far as I am aware the land was originally given to the order. The magnificent new St. Vincent’s Hospital has been built entirely with funding from the state. Every aspect of the hospital is run, funded and provided by the state, via the HSE. The order contributes nothing financially, and only contributes the ethos to the hospital, with the order controlling the board and – as it says on their website – ensuring the hospital continues to be run with a Catholic ethos.
The state pays the full-time salaries of five and part-time salaries of three Catholic chaplains to minister to Catholic patients – why is that?
Is it not time for the state to buy out any interest that this order has in the running of one of our major hospitals?
We learn also that the new National Maternity Hospital, to be built by the state at huge expense on a new site, will still have the archbishop as its automatic chairperson – an anachronism that goes back to some law from the 1930s. That is just not OK any more.
@Paul Fahey:
And I suppose you think secular administrators are better at running hospitals?
By the way, the termination of an ectopic pregnancy is not an abortion because it involves removing – not killing – the foetus (The death of the foetus in that scenario is incidental, not intentional, i.e. the principle of double effect). Therefore, nuns would not object to it.
Furthermore, the treatment for sepsis is the use of antibiotics, not abortion.
@Little Diddy No:
The Archbishop is only a figurehead – there’s no evidence that he’ll have a significant level of influence on the running of the new hospital.
@Ciarán Masterson: I would prefer the NHS or BUPA yes, but then I feel there is no place for omnipotent beings in medicine, especially those who refuse to stop childhood cancers. If you are so sure of God and his greatness why do you even need a hospital when surely it is all about prayer and to rely on science and medicine surely you are going against God’s will.
@Ciarán Masterson: most of the hospital’s they own are private wouldn’t you know!
@Ciarán Masterson: it’ll do plenty for their pockets tho!
@Ciarán Masterson: what cave do u live in?
@Ciarán Masterson: Just take them over lock stock and barrell.
@PVD: €1.5 bill ‘Redress’ – that’s charity.
30,000 claimants, no verification required – just tell a good story of Hard Times.
We’re not a priest ridden society – we’re ridden by do-gooders and lawyers
@Paul Fahey: There wasn’t much science around until recently. If you had cancer – you would pray.
Isn’t this kidnapping? False imprisonment? Who’s going to prison for this? Who is being disgraced?
@Martin Byrne: sounds like slavery to me. How do you compensate for 31 years? Where were her human rights? And still no apology for the Church surprise surprise. Don’t judge her too much about still believing I think that’s probably what got her through that hell!
@Deborah Behan: *from
@Deborah Behan: I know Mary is looking for her church to apologise, but that is down to her and whatever faith she has kept to get her through, but it shouldn’t be what we should look for. We need a clear acknowledgement that the Catholic Church engaged in industrial slavery, false imprisonment and torture as well as child and baby trafficking. We do not need the church involved in anyway in this, anymore than we would all any kidnapper or paedophile to run an investigation into their crimes. The Gardai are not competent to do this, so we should establish a UN task to investigate and convict any individuals and organisations responsible for this. There is still too much pussy footing around these sadistic cult.
@Martin Byrne:
Mary is 85 years old. Therefore, those who did wrong to her died long ago.
@Ciarán Masterson: what about the ladies in the homes up to and including the 1990′s? What about the babies dumped in Tuam in the 1960′s, many of those may still be alive. What about the profits these organisations made off of the suffering of thousands of young women?
And hopefully spent their last years suffering and in fear of hell.
@Paul Fahey:
The manner in which the bodies in Tuam were buried was horrendous but it is a moral issue, not a legal one.
@Ciarán Masterson: The point about the Tuam babies is that the Tuam concentration camp had one of the highest death rates in young children in all the church run imprisonment centres. The bodies of these children, many of whom died of starvation, were then secretly buried, with the obvious intent of concealing these crimes against humanity. This occurred with the collusion of the Irish state, and to date, there has been no proper investigation of the matter.
@Ciarán Masterson: stop condoning torture for the love of god
@Ciarán Masterson: where do you get your info from its a moral AND legal issue you can’t bury body anywhere
We really need a national enquiry into abuse,to finally expose the depths and darkness of abuse,we have created a class system of abuse,he/she who shouts loudest gets heard,meanwhile people who were abused at home have nobody to tell there story,the constant drip drip of stories is so damaging to people who have survived abuse, we should as a nation say “we knew but didn’t listen” and hear these stories ,so we can move forward and heal,from listening we can learn and create a future with less abuse,we owe it to the future children to do as much as possible to enable healing.
@David Dineen: We’ve had enough inquiries, we need tough justice now and to expel them from our country.
@Stephen murphy:
“…expel them from out country”.
Ah, so you want to follow the example of Mao and Castro?
Charming(!)
@Ciarán Masterson: I think the state needs to act to get rid of the influence of the church in our state and key state services. It is not what you expect from a healthy modern democracy.
Get rid of slavers and abusers? Who wouldn’t, unless you have no issue with the slavery and abuse meted out by the catholic church – a foreign institution, loyal to Rome, not Ireland.
@Little Diddy No:
The Irish Catholic hierarchy has many flaws but it never told to women to wear niqabs or hijabs or have people executed (That’s Iran’s and Saudi Arabia’s thing).
@Ciarán Masterson: The RCC just locked them away and abused them, and used them as slave labour, while reaping the profits from their suffering, I have no time for Church apologists like you, wake up and start living in the 21st century, or crawl back into the pope’s arse from where you came.
@Ciarán Masterson: You are a fool.
@Ciarán Masterson: it used psychological torture mainly instead!
@DaisyChainsaw: Expel them to the Vatican like was done to Jimmy Gralton in “Jimmys Hall” when he was deported to the US.
I hope Mrs Cronin had a lovely life. Such a beautiful thing to do. Real charity and decency shown to a stranger, unlike god’s chosen brides and princes.
Irelands very own holocaust and not one person being investigated. Brainwashed Gombeen corrupt self serving society. The revolt for change is coming gombeens just need some time of work .
The Irish nation should take the nuns, and Rome to court they are a cult, the nuns and religious orders that are with us today should pay for the way poor children were looked down upon and afraid of these satanic , yes I say evil, savage people treated their fellow man, buillies of the highest degree, These evil people support a cult, they are brainwashed I still can’t believe we still send our children to schools and churches that are responsible for such damage to families and what was worse the parents bought into this and where are the men who raped some of these ladies, they should have been hung for the crimes, We make men around the world accountable for war crimes so come on Ireland let’s put som ewrongs to right . We are all guilty if we don’t fix this,
@Carrie Cassidy: i agree in principal but the people who sanctioned this are all dead. The Catholic church and the Vatican have had centuries to figure out how to cover their arses. The first documented case of a peadophilic priest dates back to the fourth century, that’s 1,600yrs practice covering up atrocities. In 1968 Ratzinger wrote the book on how to cover up church abuses. He established a policy of non-cooperation with civil authorities and for this crime and other services to the church he was later voted Pope. But the church will pay, congregations will keep falling as the next generation wants nothing to do with these hypocritical abusers of the innocent.
@Paul Ahern: However, the state has plenty of leverage insofar as all of these religious orders could not continue without the largesse of the preferential access they have to massive state funding.
If they will not co-operate in coughing up at least half of the 1.5 state bailout for redress to victims of their orders’ abuse, the state should cut all funding to them until they do.
@Little Diddy No: they’re both in it up to their ears & who suffers as a result of all the pussyfooting around?
As a catholic I have to admit I’m ashamed of those that are supposed to represent God on this world. I see them no better than ISIS using religion as an excuse to do unspeakable things to innocent children.
Seriously considering this – http://www.catholicdoors.com/faq/qu286.htm
@B9xiRspG: why don’t you acknowledge that you want to be a Christian? The only difference between a Catholic and a Christian isn’t the silly things like virgins and bread, but solely given power to organisations to do this. Be very clear – if you are a fully fledged Catholic today and continue to find them, you are just as guilty as the nuns who thought they were just being good Catholics.
@Gulliver Foyle: I’m far from a Catholic these days but I also don’t want them to count me as one because I’m still on the books.
@B9xiRspG: good for you! I’ve thought about this, and I have no issue with them having me or anyone else on some book somewhere. I will never need their permission to not be a member, and never ask. If any report uses a churches records ahead of a census or analysis, then it is simply wrong and invalid. PS: I have also contributed to charities that have facilitated abortions for women in need, and apparently I should be auto excommunicated, but I never got my telegraph from god with confirmation of it, so I’d just leave in your own conscience and be happy with that!
What a true survivor. To have this great success in marriage and in business against all ithe odds.. Despite all the terrible deeds committed to her . ..Mary Merrit you are an inspiration to everyone who has suffered.
For me religion and the belief in it is a mental illness. I look forward to the day when it doesn’t exist. It is after all total nonsense and just stories. It’s the lord of the rings of its age, 2000 year old stories written hundreds of years after the reported events! Just stories people.
These places were essentially concentration camps for women. These ladies were the victims of atrocities perpetrated by the Catholic Church under the noses of a spineless, gutless, morally corrupt government. It actually makes me feel sick to think about it.
I don’t believe these people were doing gods work, I believe these people have a law of their own. They are not merciful, loving caring, they think they can treat people how they like. They apologise in some cases, actions speaks louder than words, those of them that still excist are of the same mind and soul of the evil pedophiles, rapist, and evil monsters that couldn’t care for human life, or the hurt stowed upon others while they hid behind the name of the Lord and the doors of the church.
@Seán Lynch: I think it’s that guy that runs concerts in Slane castle…
The church seem to love abusing, be it beating kids up in schools, throwing dead babies in septic tanks or the mistreatment of women, how they treat homosexuals. Etc
sisters of mercy my ass, they wouldnt know the meaning of the word “mercy” should be strung up .
Evil beyond belief. If there is a place called hell all of these vicious nuns are hopefully there suffering the same torture they put these poor innocents through.
With further pain staking research and investigation into mother and baby home and other institutions likely to unearth even more of our hidden past I have a suggestion as to how the government could help to ensure that we don’t ever forget, or repeat, that harrowing legacy.
It could intervene, as matter of urgency, to acquire the last remaining Magdalene Laundry in the State, the one at donnybrook, County Dublin. This is largely intact with much of the paraphernalia of the building still, chillingly, on display: the dormitories, the hand woven baskets, the holy statues that looked down on the women as they slaved, the big basins, and the grim industrial machinery that the inmates operated there for decades.
Whether it served as a museum or as a memorial to past wrongs, I believe the State should move speedily to preserve this last poignant and powerful link with the Hidden Ireland. Especially given that this same Irish State was so shamefully implicated in the horrors of Magdalene Laundries and other abusive institutions.
At the very least the building must be viewed as an intrinsic part of our heritage and social history, albeit one that some of us may not wish to be reminded of.
The preserved Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry could then be visited by present and future generations of Irish people, so that we never forget what was done to those innocent women, and to the thousands of boys and girls who suffered behind the high walls of industrial schools. The building could become Ireland’s very own Warning From History.
@John Fitzgerald: God bless your innocence. We live in a very sheltered corner of the world if the Magdalen laundries are our main badge of victimhood.
The Magdalen laundries and mother & baby homes will quoted in future as an example of mass hysteria amount the keyboard class.
The fact is they were both established because they were necessary. It would be lovely to think at a pregnant daughter would be loved and cherished and all those other ridiculous lovey-dovey sentiments, but the fact was the opposite.
The reason was the Famine. There were no more teenage marriages and sub-division of holdings. The economic imperatives enforced celibacy an the majority of any family. The eldest son got the farm and married a daughter from another farm. The others remained single.
The church preached mightily against the temptations of the flesh etc to make that bearable, if nothing else – they were experiencing the same longings themselves
The first Magdalen homes were established by Protestant ladies to “save poor girls from destruction” meaning living as a beggar-prostitute.
The Catholic nuns emerged in Ireland in the early 1800′s. They were volunteers who worked for nothing in education, etc etc including Magdalen homes and Mother & baby homes. The whole ethos of welfare in those days was not to make it an attractive lifestyle – so it was going to be a strict regime to discourage a return visit.
The idea that 1.5 billion has been shelled out on ‘Redress’ at a time when the country is close to a 100 bill in debt is the biggest scandal in all of this. We could have built the new Childrens Hospital with it.
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