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PRESIDENT MICHAEL D Higgins told a group of Magdalene laundry survivors that Ireland failed them today – as Dublin honoured some of the women who survived the homes.
Around 220 women, now in their 80s were in Dublin today as part of the Dublin Honours Magdalenes event, which saw them attend events at Áras an Uachtarán and the Mansion House.
Magdalene Laundries were institutions run by the Catholic Church which took in so-called ‘fallen women’ and gave them manual labour to do. Many survivors said they were cruelly and brutally treated during their time there, with reports of women being beaten, put into solitary confinement, their hair cut, threatened, and verbally abused.
At the Áras, Higgins told the women that what happened to them was a continuing stain on the country.
The treatment of vulnerable citizens in our industrial and reformatory schools, in the Magdalene Laundries and in Mother and Baby Homes represents a deep stain on Ireland’s past, a stain we can only regard today with great shame, profound regret and horror. It is sobering to consider that many women were also victims of the cruel and degrading regimes of Industrial or Reformatory Schools before being referred to the Laundries, and so many were intimidated into a silence by the abuse of authority of one kind or another.
“Ireland failed you. When you were vulnerable and in need of the support of Irish society and its institutions, its authorities did not cherish you, protect you, respect your dignity or meet your needs and so many in the wider society colluded with their silence.
“As a society, those with responsibility pretended not to know or chose not to know. The denial of all of this continued for many, many years until one by one you, the victims and survivors of that time, began to come forward, began to tell your stories, began to force Irish society and institutions who had conferred an immunity on themselves to look you in the eye and listen to your personal histories.”
Higgins added his words to the 2013 apology by then Taoiseach Enda Kenny to the women.
Today we also mark a new and positive turn on the long journey from darkness to light that has been undertaken by you personally over so many years, and by Ireland as a nation in more recent times. We have moved from a time of disbelief, denial and even hostility towards your experiences, to a time where we acknowledge that we must deliver compassion, listening and a genuine and heartfelt will to hear, to share and to learn from your testimonies.
The women were also honoured at Dublin’s Mansion House this evening, with Justice Minister Charlie Flanagan telling them:
This State allowed you be incarcerated, and made to work in Magdalene Laundries. We had a duty of care, we had a job of inspection, and we failed. Indeed we even took on the role, in some cases, of referring agent. And in so doing… we let you down.
“So as I said, it is difficult to stand here representing the State, even though we have apologised. That apology, made by former Taoiseach Enda Kenny, and recalled by the Lord Mayor earlier, was heartfelt and sincere. And I know that in making it, we have acknowledged much of what you went through, and I know we have made efforts to make redress… but I also know that what happened to you cannot be undone.”
The women, their families and organisers arrived at the Mansion House this evening. They will be entertained by Christy Moore, Mary Byrne and Philomena Begley among others.
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He has a cheek to say society failed these inspirational women,it was the “PILLARS OF SOCIETY” that used and abused them that failed them.priests,nuns,politicians,garda.ordinary citizens lived in fear and were afraid to speak out,or they could lose their job,family or their own freedom.mickey D was in leinster house when this filth was going on.
@@mdmak33:
I don’t disagree with the gist of what you are trying to say but I think you cast your net too narrow with the pillars of society phrase.
My own father (87) only recently discovered he had an aunt who was sent away never to be heard from again for an “indiscretion”, they were, at the time almost bankrupt small farmers, far from pillars of society!!
The unpalatable fact is most of society felt more comfortable with this hidden away.
@@mdmak33: We need to remember and never forget that the No campaign (not No voters) in the Referendum to Repeal the 8th are hewn from this same inhumane dogma and ideology that brutalised Irish women for much of our history. As recently as the 70′s married Irish women had to kneel before a priest after Sunday Mass to ask for forgiveness after they had given birth to a child so they could become ‘clean’ again. This is the same end of the wedge the Iona Institute and the Pro-Life Campaign occupy, and they are subservient to the Roman Catholic Church. The Referendum may have passed, but these insidious organisations have not gone away.
@John McQuaid: Oh dear. There were enough faults in the past without having to make up new ones. The rite of “churching” was a prayer of blessing for the new mother, as well as an act of thanksgiving for the safe delivery of her baby. It had nothing to do with purification or forgiveness or making someone clean. The prayers are readily available online – you will find no mention of cleansing, forgiveness or sin in them.
@John McQuaid: what the f are you on about. I could come back and say most of the yes side group had more involvement in robbing these women of a life. FG/FF labour Stupid
@John McQuaid: Exactly this. For those No campaigners (agreed, not no voters) who said women should just keep their legs crossed, they are throwbacks to the judgemental society who pushed women into these Godawful places. And we must never forget and never allow them get a foothold again.
@Larry Brindisi: Make up new ones? Ha ha! Get your head out of the sand, facts, the kryptonite of fundamentalists. Read on and wake up. Here’s one example of thousands Don’t misrepresent the older generation’s referendum vote
@David Clarke: Those political parties inserted the 8th in 1983. The Yes Campaign was run by civil groups, not political parties, that’s what the f I’m on about.
@Jeanette McDonald: Can you tell me which campaigners said that women should just keep their legs crossed? I followed the campaign closely, but I seem to have missed that episode. Would be grateful to get a reference for that.
@John McQuaid: do you think for one minute that the yes groups would of got the result they got without the political parties and the media jumping on the bandwagon. You just remember in a few years time and the poor women that are alive will be still fighting for justice. Nothing in this country happens with out government. Back then and now. And one more thing I can tell u now you won’t be happy when they bring out the now guide lines for abortion. But you’ll only go and blame the church.
@John McQuaid: You are relying on the (hostile?) recollections of somebody from more than 40 years ago. On the other hand, you could just read the prayers for the ceremony of “churching” yourself. It mentions none of these things that you say it does. I will certainly concede that it seems to have been perceived as some form of purification, but in fact that’s not what it was, and not what the prayers say. It was simply a rite of blessing and thanksgiving. These are the facts.
@Larry Brindisi: well here is my recollection from 50 years ago…my mother brought me to church ten miles away because the priest wouldn’t let her into the local church because she refused to be churched.
@David Clarke: Yes I 100% do, because politicians, posters and the media accounted for less than 10% of the given reason people voted Yes, 68% of people who voted Yes did so based on listening to women’s personal experiences. You clearly didn’t follow the results with any interest or analyse the exit polls.
@Larry Brindisi: I’m amazed you didn’t. It’s been thrown about on the journal, twitter and fb. I’m sure, like all decently minded people you condemn it.
@@mdmak33: the table linen mickey D used sipping his socialist champagne in Leinster house was washed by these women.
@Jeanette McDonald: I do condemn it. But I’d like some examples of actual No campaigners saying such things, rather than vague references to things that some random anonymous troll might have said online. Something from a leaflet, a blog post, a video, a tweet, a media interview from one of the groups campaigning. Thanks.
@mary conneely: I’m very sorry for your mother’s difficulties. But that really hasn’t anything to do with the ceremony of churching, and has more to do with an apparently uninformed and/or awkward priest, or perhaps a lapse of communication. It wasn’t compulsory to undergo churching, despite what the local priest might have communicated. Having said that, I’m not sure why someone would go to a church 10 miles away to avoid a simple prayer of thanksgiving and blessing after childbirth, but that was your mother’s right to do so.
@Larry Brindisi: Wow. Next you’ll be telling us no priests ever raped children. You’re a bone fide apologist.
@John McQuaid: will he?
@Larry Brindisi: tell that to any or all of women who weren’t let inside the door of a church until after they’d been ‘churched’.
@Larry Brindisi: it was said to a group of girls in Ennis town during the campaign. First time voters who said they were voting yes when asked by a love both canvasser. The actual comment was ‘if young ones like ye kept yer legs closed there’d be no need of abortion’. The campaigner shouted it as the girs walked away so It was witnessed by many passers by.
@Larry Brindisi: Oh it won’t be hard to find if you look Larry. Your comments smack of disbelief though. I’m not making vague references, it was blatant. Also this isn’t a tribunal, you’ll find people don’t need to give you chapter and verse. I’ve read those comments and responded to them, ive heard them on the street.
Keep tour eye on the ball though, Larry. Our women were treated appallingly by the Church and society under that same church’s thumb.
Nothing new Ireland still failing its citizens in 30 years time a different president will be apologising to the homeless of today and the people on hospital trollies and waiting lists. When are we going to get a government that has its citizens best interests at heart?
We need a new IRELAND.
@john kennedy: our government paid the church to take them in back then. Today they pay the likes of Peter McVerry so their hands are kept clean instead of sorting the problem. But we keep letting them away with it! Come election time the same crew will be pulling the strings and the fools will let them away with it. Poor fools, the lot of us.
@john kennedy: The families that left it to volunteer Catholic nuns to look after their daughters should be called out. The men who made these girls pregnant created the single parent girls who had nowhere else to go for help except to the charitable organisations that existed. Past beneficiaries of the Magadiline Homes were helped survive their pre existing difficulties and thanks is long overdue for the hundreds of hero nuns that stepped forward to help. We now have a multi billion Social Protection budget to help the modern wave of disowned destitute unmarried pregnant girls.
@Tom Molloy: Ah Tom, I know you don’t believe any of that deflection deep down. A valiant knight in defence of the His Majesty Pope Francis and his affluent State of The Vatican you are. Those families made the decision to abandon their daughters under the duress of Catholic dogma which ruled all. Those charitable nuns stole newborns from their mothers, often telling them they were stillbirths before selling them to the highest American bidder, ‘good married Catholic families’. And those men who walked away from Magdalene women and their own offspring, went on to get married and have their own families with the approval of the Parish Priest who knew well they had abandoned their child and the child’s mother. Your Church. Keep on Being Proud.
@Tom Molloy: “hero nuns” I’m stunned anyone would say that. I’ve not heard one of the survivors of these evil institutions refer to the nuns in a glowing way. The state society family and friends failed these women by delivering them to their captives who’s cruelty knew no bounds.
@Tom Molloy: “hero nuns” more like evil monsters who enslaved, abused, starved and humiliated hundreds of unfortunate woman among other inhumane acts. Shame on this country, i’m taken aback by your lack of empathy.
The first thing Pope should address in any speech here should be an apology on behalf of the church. As a nation we should insist on it an embarrass him into it.
@Tweed Cap: I agree….. I wonder will he? It makes this Families event a bit of a mockery….
@Sean Leonard:
Even if he doesn’t it won’t stop the thousands of docile dodo birds from turning up, cheering and gleefully waving their flags at him. I just can’t get my head around that.
@Tweed Cap: for some reason neither can I
@Tweed Cap: dodo birds? That’s not very nice.
@Tweed Cap: what good is apologies when they won’t pay their share of the redress scheme money? The Pope before him already apologised anyway. No point repeating the same oul waffle.
@Tweed Cap: The Church can do simpering apologies, and if it serves to draw a line they will happly weep tears of remorse in public, to avoid having their property and wealth seized they will sceam a carefully crafted script,
He was there when this was going on
@FlopFlipU: dead right, people like him although they probably hated the system in place by church and state they took full part in the running of the state.
@FlopFlipU: Yes. And so was every one of us over 60s. We looked on and did nothing. Like wartime Germany much?
Micheal D Higgins career in politics, starting with the Seanad from 1973 – 2011 a span of 38 years,
The last Magdalene laundry didn`t close until the mid 90`s , he was right in the thick of it and did absolutely nothing, he shouldn`t be shaking there hands and giving hugs, he should be profoundly apologising to each and every one of them personally AND on behalf of the state.
He is a part of it`s dark history.
@Pearse Mc Mullen:
Fully agree. To me he is a hypocrite. Next week he will be lauding the people who gave us freedom or should it be freedom for Rome Rule.
“Ireland has failed you” is a constantly recurring statement over the past 10 years, making up for a disgusting past and treatment of babies, children, women and men at the hands of the church. We are getting there, sooner we become a secular state the better.
@Stevie Doran: “We are getting there, sooner we become a secular state the better.”
By secular you mean civil laws on one side supplemented by the laws of nature on the other as a substitute for spiritual language (uplifting in poetry, art, music, nature and so on).
In researching how Irish society developed in respect to the vote a few weeks ago, it became clear just how dynamic and intricate all the relationships were and remain -
http://eprints.maynoothuniversity.ie/4000/1/M._Litt._Thesis.pdf
The utopia of a secular State is basically a product of the British education system and the ‘enlightenment’ promoted by academics. If people only knew the technical and historical foundations of what they aspire to they would never seek it as it is an ideology that wrecked havoc with the major sciences via ‘modeling’.
If you think clerics abused humanity and a small minority did, none of you have encountered academics and the secular fiction they sell to a population that knows no better.
@Gkell1: no, we have a unique, mediaeval church & state society, we as a country were never enlightened. By secular, I mean a ridding the Catholic Church and their toxic influence from our government. Doing this has zero bearing on the arts, literature, music & culture, which in fact have been repressed for so long, it would actually become our enlightenment, something I would very much look forward to.
@Gkell1:
In Ireland around 800 abusers of children were named, mostly members of the catholic church and mostly sexual abuse ( in addition to extreme violence and emotional abuse )
Anyone suffering from some kind of revisionism and wanting to make it “a few bad apples” thing, insignificant, would do well to read the documents freely available at
@Stevie Doran: “By secular, I mean a ridding the Catholic Church and their toxic influence from our government.”
Many of you have developed an ISIS-like view of Ireland’s history but if the Church is guilty of anything it is because it has stood by and watched the education swamped by British empiricism and the conviction that people live in their heads at the expense of the heart.
The history of the Catholic Church runs parallel with Christianity but it doesn’t represent that balance of head and heart by which individuals identify as being Christians and spiritual. Many people now stress they as spiritual as distinct from religious due to the failings of the denominational structure nevertheless the religious community still does tend to the homeless and the addicted in society even in the most hostile atmosphere.
Your secular utopia offers nothing as it doesn’t recognise the spiritual/inspirational side of humanity but when it really comes down to it, what you believe is a solid scientific foundation is really a bunch of voodoo merchants destroying the relationship between astronomy and terrestrial sciences. Of course secularists never question what they are taught and that is the rub, they are more liable to the influences of the academics than people listening to priests once a week ever were.
@Stevie Doran: to b
@Brian Higgins: Let’s have a look at what you stand for outside the Catholic Church seeing that a section of Irish society is developing an ISIS type view of history in trying to eradicate Christianity for a secular society.
Not a single one of you have an idea how locked-in your convictions are by being unable to reason through the most basic facts of existence. Now that is what I call abuse of a different kind.
@Nadaline Webster: to be fair, we were once enlightened. The brehon legal system was extraordinary for its time. In the 5th century, St Patrick removed all the laws from it that didn’t fit with catholic principles of the time. In 1100’s, Pope Adrian IV gave England permission to invade Ireland to enforce Catholic doctrine and English laws wiping out Brehon law completely. The Catholic Church has more to answer for than people imagine. If they had not considered that they had the right to do this, would the famine ever have happened? What would our society look like today if our exceptionally enlightened, progressive and effective legal system had remained?
@Nadaline Webster: The saying ‘more Irish than the Irish’ comes from the Brehon laws but the change-over to English common law didn’t come until the flight of the earls around the time the Pope and Galileo were in disagreement -
Dumping the famine on the Catholic Church is a new one seeing that British academic policy in the 19th century was based on population control via Malthus.
http://www.encyclopedia69.com/eng/d/malthusian-population-theory/malthusian-population-theory.htm
The Darwin/Wallace breeding notion was founded on Malthus and extended to all biology via the ‘scientific method’. Trying to rewrite history is all the rage in Ireland today and even the attempt to diminish history in education as people who control the past control the future as seen in the use of Irish history presently.
@Gkell1: ok time for bed
@Gkell1: all the twaddle in the world doesn’t change facts and no one is rewriting history. The facts stand. We had an enlightened progressive society beyond its time. The church came and didn’t like it. They sought to change it. When it didn’t change fast enough, they gave permission to a monarch loyal to them to invade. That monarch and subsequent generations did enormous harm to this country alongside generations of the church. That harm includes the famine. If a bunch of hooligans lays waste to your family and home, they are responsible for their actions….but so is the guy who held the door open and shouted “go get them, boys”.
@Nadaline Webster: Enlightened, progressive and effective legal system my arse, Have you any idea at all about the type of savagery that the native chieftains were allowed to inflict on their own serfs and the murderous and continuous warfare that they conducted on their own neighbouring clans? You badly need to study history and not propaganda!
@John Mc Donagh: absolutely those were savage times – everywhere. Nonetheless it stands that the Brehon legal system was extraordinary for its time and very progressive and enlightened thinking compared to other legal systems of the time. I never claimed it was a perfect utopia
@Nadaline Webster: they were savage times here as well in the twentieth century. Ireland was a third world country with no welfare state to speak of. The church was given too much power & responsibly by weak politicians & an inept civil service.
@John Mc Donagh: Surely it’s on historical record that there was no death penalty, under Brehon law? It was a civil system rather than a punitive one.
John Charles McQuiad has a lot to answer too….. It was almost autocratic the hold the church had on society….. I remember passing these homes when I was going to school, and people spoke in low voices when the places were referred to. The Movie “The Magdalen Sisters” by Peter Mullen summed it all up. Those women will be scarred by this until they die.
@Sean Leonard: John Charles —–The cleric who forbade Tampons!
@Sean Leonard: why don’t you confront him directly? He has appeared on this comment section many times.
Watching Prime Time on RTE now, utterly heartbreaking for the women and their families…
The State still denying legal responsibility and the church of which the state is complicit with in this horrific crime against women, still won’t release the medical and full birth records for the women…
No memorials to the women who lived and died and still survived the workhouses/lauderies…
Church assets should be seized to pay for the health and well being of the women and their children..
@Dotty Dunleary:
State is responsible for upholding the civil law not the church. What is Dev’s legacy on this issue. The British cannot be blamed.
Ireland failed you says a politician neatly side stepping the politicians responsibility…..
Waiting for a comment from
Alphonsus Cullinan Bishop of Waterford and Lismore on this sin and injustice and, to whom those responsible go to for forgiveness.
Their families failed them more than anyone else.
@Frank Daly Snr: Most families in fairness had no choice because they were under the thumb of the local parish priest and his minions. Back in the day it would have taken a very brave person to go against the parish priest.
@Kerry Blake: your so right… I remember my grandmother saying that she was afraid to cross the local parish priest in case a curse was put on her ….she was scared stiff of him.
@Kerry Blake:
It was also the local sargent, school principal and TD. It was the principle – if you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours.
@Sean Leonard:
Agreed,my late mother often spoke of the time priests in her area would walk the roads looking for unmarried/unaccompanied couples,and heaven help them if caught,the Irish Taliban,so delighted that their time has gone.
The President has a short memory he was in Government when it was well known what was going on in these places now all of a sudden Ireland failed them he and all his cronies.
@Donal Carey:
Looking forward to a presidential election. He is one great waffler.
Are we (Ireland) unique in how we treated these vulnerable women – passing responsibility for their care to the Church and leaving them behind closed doors as if they (and the ‘problems’ they represented) didn’t exist? How did other staunchly catholic states treat women who, for example, got pregnant outside of marriage? Did they banish their women to instituitions also?
I was appalled recently to read that the last laundry only closed in 1996 – its so much easier to think it was really ages and ages ago…makes it seem almost like this all happened in another land.
So lovely to see the crowds cheering for these survivors today and I hope that this event brings some comfort and peace to the women.
The damage religion in general and the Catholic Church in particular has done to this country is immeasurable!
@Martin Horan:
People knew about these places but didn’t have the balls to speak out
The people were just as guilty for doing nothing
@Martin Horan: Both the religious orders involved and the state were complicit in this..
@Denis White: Agreed……All it takes for evil to triumph etc. However, the power of the Church was boundless in this State and had one man or woman stood up to the Church, I can only imagine the reaction.
Don’t be fooled by all the apologies. Civil servants are still denying that any wrong was done to international investigation panels. This is a corrupt little country.
@Brian harris: And they are using the McAlesse report to back up their claim. The report says no physical harm, profits etc were made…..
Right…free labour, subsidised by the State, slave labour conditions, captive market etc. All run by orders well used to managing large organisations
That report was a whitewash and another slap in the face for these women. Our society had a dysfunctional relationship with children, women and the poor. And nearly all aspects of society played its part.
Another stain in our ROTTEN history
Ireland failed you says the man who was at the heart of the political system from 1973 to 2011 what a hypocrite
I wonder how many people in Dun Laoghaire know rhat the current HSE offices beside St Michaels hospital ((fhe ones with no ready public access) was a Magdelene Laundry,
You can log onto the 1901 and 1911 census and read the names ages and occupations. It is somber reading local names.. Im sure that can be replicated accross the country,
It is chilling to see nuns drving out of the HSE compond in 2018 as I did last week, an unbroken chain…
Don’t forget Irish society put these girls behind bars. The church simply provided the framework on which the state was built and the nuns were the warders of the Magdalene prisons.
Pity the President is referred to as ‘Higgins’ in the article.
The State since 1922 under the influence of the Catholic Church has neglected generation after generation of Irish who had to emigrate to make a decent living and
then denies them the citizens’ right to vote. It is easy reviewing history and as in the Magdallen tragedy, trying to make amends to those still alive. The longer it drags on the fewer have to be compensated.
It is more challenging to change the antiquated voting laws and permit citizens living abroad to vote. We spruik our adoption of EC human rights and equity standards but we
shun the inequity and unfairness of the diaspora vote issue like the plague.
“Ah shar if you are not in the Parish and under the influence of the PP, you cant vote!”
“We let you down” , is that the best flanagan could offer … How about what was done to you was cruel and unusual punishment caused be a national reverence to the church which was bordering on criminal insanity … if i was in his shoes id be looking to seize the assets of that vile institution, their , palaces , art , gold and giving every penny to those women , the children the sold and the children the allowed be systematically raped and beaten by their priests & nuns … If an everpresent all powerful all loving God couldnt prevent what was done to those women and kids by his own servents , then it’s either a criminal or a lie.
The world wont change much untill the baby boomers pass and time heals old wounds from their mistakes.. This is the world I hope my grandchildren inherit.. if I ever have any.. Here’s hoping
What a rotten legacy Dev left when he allowed the Church so much input into our constitution. Sadly you can still see this misguided reverence by FF TDS in the last referendum.
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