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Elizabeth Coppin during a visit to Áras an Úachtaráin in 2018. PA Images

'The door to her cell was bolted': Magdalene survivor takes case against Ireland to UN

Elizabeth Coppin’s complaint will be heard by the UN’s Committee Against Torture.

A 60-YEAR-OLD Irish woman who was born in a mother-and-baby home and was subsequently sent to three different Magdalene Laundries has taken a case to the UN’s Committee Against Torture arguing that the Irish state was “complicit in her arbitrary detention and mistreatment”.

Elizabeth Coppin’s complaint is to be heard by the committee which has given the Irish State four months to respond to further submissions on her case.

Coppin was detained by court order in an industrial school at the age of two. When she reached 14, the nuns in charge of the industrial school transferred her to St Vincent’s Magdalene Laundry in Peacock Lane, Cork. 

In her submission to the UN, Coppin “alleges that she was subjected to arbitrary detention, servitude and forced labour without pay for six days a week in all three of the Magdalene laundries and that the State party was complicit in her arbitrary detention and mistreatment”.

The submission adds: 

She was placed in a cell of approximately 6 square metres, which contained a small bed with one blanket, and a shelf with a jug and a basin for sanitation. The door to her cell was bolted, there were bars on the window and her lights were switched off every night at 9 pm. 

“At Saint Vincent’s, she was forbidden to speak and was generally deprived of human warmth and kindness. She lived in conditions of deliberate deprivation, with inadequate food and heating.”

Coppin alleges that Ireland has broken its obligations under the Convention against Torture by not investigating complaints into her treatment.  

In a published decision of the UN committee, Coppin says that gardaí “declined to act on the complaints she filed with them” and that, 

State party’s authorities did not open a criminal investigation into allegations of torture and ill-treatment at the Magdalen laundries ‘after the complainant filed a civil claim in the courts.

The State’s response to the complaint argued that the complaints raises issues relating to a period before Ireland adopted the Convention against Torture. It also argued that:

The laundries were not operated or owned by or on behalf of the State, and there was no statutory basis for either admitting or confining a person to a Magdalene laundry.

The Committee has not made a decision on the wider case but has said that Ireland must answer the allegations raised by Coppin and respond within four months.

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91 Comments
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    Mute Shakka1244
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    Feb 17th 2020, 4:39 PM

    I always find it disturbing the way “official” Ireland closes ranks against those that have been grievously wronged. Protect the status quo at any cost.

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    Mute Victor Feldman
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    Feb 17th 2020, 8:01 PM

    @Shakka1244: official Ireland! What about the Irish populace..!! How did they not know this was not happening?.. Why is this never addressed?
    As an Englishman living here it sounds very odd!
    Can somebody enlighten me.. Is there something I’m missing!!

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    Mute Edward Natali
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    Feb 17th 2020, 8:21 PM

    @Victor Feldman: Also as an Englishman living here. I think our own atrocities, both in Ireland and throughout the world, far out-weigh your apparent “outrage” at the Irish populace.

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    Mute Jaymes Moynihan
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    Feb 17th 2020, 8:47 PM

    @Victor Feldman: agreed!! There was many many families that sent their kids to these homes for getting pregnant out of wedlock. So they were sent to these hell holes, cause apparently it’s better than “having the neighbors gossiping”…so as guilty as the chruch, and the government are,….the families of these people are JUST AS GUILTY for not taking care of their kids!

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Feb 17th 2020, 8:48 PM

    @Shakka1244: Yes, indeed. Plus, by opposing any legal changes to make children safer in Ireland, they show us that it could happen again. It’s the usual way of bullies. They don’t value people.

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Feb 17th 2020, 9:27 PM

    @Victor Feldman: @Victor Feldman: Have you never read Dickens – Oliver Twist, for example?

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    Mute Lyndsay Rehn
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    Feb 18th 2020, 1:34 AM

    @Jaymes Moynihan: As a survivor let me correct you on your post. I like many other girls was NOT PREGNANT OR SENT VIA THE JUSTICE SYSTEM. My parents went to the child guidance services for help as they were worried and loving parents seeking professional help. I was a depressed teenager who took an overdose and it landed me in High Park and working in the laundries. So please don’t assume we were all pregnant and our parents didn’t care.

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    Mute Lyndsay Rehn
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    Feb 18th 2020, 2:43 AM

    @Victor Feldman: The people did know but not in great detail. The power the Church had was so strong and people feared them in many ways.

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    Mute Dermot Killian
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    Feb 18th 2020, 1:55 PM

    @Victor Feldman: You are so right. How convenient it is to blame the Church and the Government but never raise the uncomfortable specter of personal or societies responsibility.
    The church in which you worship and your freely elected government reflect your society.
    One can never expect personal responsibility to be included in any discussion with respect to addressing the many maladies of life.
    No, shame must be shared by all and restitution and forgiveness sought.
    We are only on that journey.

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    Mute Jessica Torrano
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    Feb 21st 2020, 1:21 AM

    @Victor Feldman: England was the biggest responsible for slavery.
    Reduced the population of a country by 1/4.
    And so on…

    Very few people care, look at the border situation in USA right now…

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    Mute Elaine Stenson
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    Feb 21st 2020, 1:43 PM

    @Victor Feldman: They would have known and not cared. It’s the same today about people living in Direct Provision. It sounds awful when a case like this is written down in black and white but the reality is people would have thought that because of her mother’s single parent status, this is the reality she deserved. It’s a disgrace what happened but it was the mentality at the time.

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    Mute martin bolger
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    Feb 17th 2020, 4:50 PM

    This woman deserves to be heard and hugged by the nation

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    Mute Gill Dempsey
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    Feb 17th 2020, 6:27 PM

    @martin bolger: “hugged by the nation”…. Beautiful apt comment Martin.

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    Mute Gemma Murphy
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    Feb 17th 2020, 4:52 PM

    Fairplay to you Elizabeth!! What courage, sense of justice you are showing to others. Inspirational really! Wishing you every success with this.

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    Mute pat seery
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    Feb 17th 2020, 4:37 PM

    A very interesting case it will be watched by many

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    Mute Kárl
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    Feb 17th 2020, 4:53 PM

    I heard her disturbing interview on the Pat Kenny show this morning. Very disturbing indeed, what this so called Christian state of ours was complicit in. Good love her, she went through Hell at the hands of the nuns and the Irish state.

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    Mute David Stapleton
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    Feb 17th 2020, 5:35 PM

    @Kárl: I would argue that, looking at the whole of Christian history, that this is a very good example of Christian behavior.

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    Mute Damon16
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    Feb 17th 2020, 5:48 PM

    @David Stapleton: I would say its broader than that. Its a good example of the behavior of individuals who are under the sway of rigid orthodoxy. Orthodoxy can be religious in nature or secular i.e think of the atrocities of the soviet union, communist china and of the Nazis.

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    Mute Ananya Sharma
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    Feb 17th 2020, 6:55 PM

    @Damon16: But it wasn’t the behavior of individuals,it was institutional. The Religious orders and State were well aware what was going on.

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    Mute Damon16
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    Feb 17th 2020, 7:46 PM

    @Ananya Sharma: Institutions are abstractions. They can’t behave one way or the other. From the foundation of the state until very recently, a parochial dogmatic version of Catholicism held sway in Ireland. Individuals who imbibed and adhered to this orthodoxy carried out these crimes or were complicit in them. Some of them were sadists but what’s scary is that most weren’t (there aren’t that many sadists). People under-estimate how dangerous ideology and orthodoxy are. After the Berlin wall fell and the stasi files were opened, it became clear that a frighteningly large number of ordinary East Germans were informing to the STASIS on their neighbors, spouses, parents and friends.

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    Mute Tony Mullins
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    Feb 17th 2020, 5:04 PM

    Its about time that these nuns priests and in some cases judges were named ….the church has a lot to answer for …. staying silent is not the answer .

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    Mute Mark Gough
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    Feb 17th 2020, 5:26 PM

    @Tony Mullins: easy to just blame the religious. All politicians and many civil servants were full aware and authorised it

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    Mute Aidan
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    Feb 17th 2020, 6:07 PM

    @Mark Gough: name them too

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    Mute George Salter
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    Feb 17th 2020, 6:41 PM

    @Mark Gough: A significant amount of the general population were well aware, too. Abuse on this scale needs complicity from society, at least as far as looking away, to survive.

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    Mute John R
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    Feb 17th 2020, 7:27 PM

    @Tony Mullins: None of this could have happened without the complicity and collusion of very large numbers of people in Ireland. A harsh, unforgiving and judgemental society oppressed by shame and fear of sex and intimacy. If we are getting into the blame game there are many who should look in the mirror before they point fingers. And that includes a very large number of Irish people who shamefully acquiesced and supported oppressive policies of this nature. So many people are happy to ignore their own role and point fingers at everyone else. Apparently they had “no choice” which does a disservice to people who spoke out against this form of repression and the nature of Irish society. When sufficient numbers of people did so this system literally collapsed.

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    Mute Charliegrl80
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    Feb 17th 2020, 7:46 PM

    @John R: well said John, as a survivor of the irish “concentration camps” industrial/religious we had lay people that sat at the head table with the nuns and ate all the best foods while we sat there starving on slop, these lay people then went home to their families while we had to sleep on prison beds, or in locked dungeons after a beating or two and had to use toilets overflowing with other people’s you know what!

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    Mute Victor Feldman
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    Feb 17th 2020, 8:07 PM

    @Mark Gough: were not the general Irish populace also aware of it as well as the industrial. Schools!!. Why is this never addressed?

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Feb 17th 2020, 9:01 PM

    @Victor Feldman: Other children knew of it. They had no power to change things. A friend of mine remembers playing in a match against a team of other lads in an industrial school. The word went around at half time that if team x lost, they would be badly beaten (again) by their PE teacher. The lads were horrified and let them win, carefully, discreetly.

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    Mute Ann Reddin
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    Feb 18th 2020, 3:06 AM

    @Tony Mullins: “…the church has a lot to answer for”. Only because the state turned a blind eye. They knew exactly what was going on in religious institutions and industrial schools. This lady is taking the STATE to court, not the church. Had the “State” done their job, and respected that part of the constitution that refers to all children being treated equally, then this would not have happened. I have no doubt that some young women were there, because the local politicians son got them pregnant and they didn’t want a scandal.
    The State was complicit in these despicable and evil crimes, and needs to face up to that fact.

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    Mute Gordon Comstock
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    Feb 17th 2020, 4:49 PM

    Why would any 2 year old under any circumstances be sent to an industrial school by court order?!

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    Mute Babs McMahon
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    Feb 17th 2020, 6:14 PM

    @Gordon Comstock: if she was orphaned or if the child warden found her on the street.. parents may not have been able to take care of her.. who knows but the disturbing fact was it was allowed to happen.. xx

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    Mute Paul Jude Redmond
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    Feb 17th 2020, 6:35 PM

    @Gordon Comstock: because she was illegitimate

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    Mute David Stapleton
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    Feb 17th 2020, 5:33 PM

    Nice comment by the state, that they hadn’t adopted the convention against torture at that time. I am sure that nazi Germany could have used the same argument. It rightly didn’t work for them and it shouldn’t work for Ireland.

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    Mute Marianne
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    Feb 17th 2020, 4:56 PM

    The goverment should deal with this ladies case they knew children were being imprisoned all along

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    Mute Bramley Hawthorne
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    Feb 17th 2020, 5:53 PM

    Have the religious orders been asked to pay up yet? No, of course not.

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    Mute Paul Jude Redmond
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    Feb 17th 2020, 6:37 PM

    @Bramley Hawthorne: they’ve been asked and simply refused. The government said okay and walked away

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    Mute Charliegrl80
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    Feb 17th 2020, 7:53 PM

    @Paul Jude Redmond: the government signed and indemnity deal with the religious orders so not one of them could be prosecuted by any survivor and this also protected them from paying only the original sum!

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    Mute Victor Feldman
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    Feb 17th 2020, 8:09 PM

    @Bramley Hawthorne: have Irish people been asked to address it!!!!! Did they not know it was happening?

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    Mute Lyndsay Rehn
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    Feb 18th 2020, 1:39 AM

    @Bramley Hawthorne: They have consistently refused.

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    Mute Aidan murphy
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    Feb 17th 2020, 6:11 PM

    We should never forget what religion was like when they had power

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    Mute Brian Egleston
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    Feb 17th 2020, 5:42 PM

    This is just one example of how the Irish State interpreted and applied its principles of ” Irish Freedom “. ” .

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    Mute Al Fresco
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    Feb 17th 2020, 4:57 PM

    Shameful, I hope she gets some form of compensation out of this,

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    Mute Dino
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    Feb 17th 2020, 11:10 PM

    @Al Fresco: You do realise all the compensation will be paid out of taxes which will have to be levied on ordinary workers who had nothing to do with these acts?

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    Mute Lyndsay Rehn
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    Feb 18th 2020, 1:49 AM

    @Dino: Are you suggesting we just simple forget what was done to us and how it has and still does affect us. Not one Nun has every been charged. If I hit a person or buried a dead body in my garden. I would be charged and find myself in prison. We want access to the files and we want the truth. Nuns sold children that is criminal and slavery if you look up the Oxford Dictionary. The only difference between the death camps of WW11 and the Magdalen Laundries is they lack of a GAS CHAMBER. AS A SURVIVOR I KNOW WHAT IT WAS LIKE AND I WANT ANSWERS

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    Mute Dino
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    Feb 18th 2020, 8:46 AM

    @Lyndsay Rehn: Answers are fully within your rights I would agree but why go after the government then? It looks like a further cash grab than looking for answers.

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    Mute Al Fresco
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    Feb 18th 2020, 10:07 AM

    @Dino: doesn’t seem to be any shortage of money in this country, look at the huge amounts we pay our politicians, a close look at their exaggerated travel expenses would probably uncover more than enough to take care of something like this, maybe get rid of the Seanad and use the money we pay them for something useful.

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    Mute Lyndsay Rehn
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    Feb 18th 2020, 1:06 PM

    @Dino: Because the government holds the Documents and the Religious Orders won’t hand over theirs claiming privacy. So there was no other way but go to the UN to ask for help and our Constitutional Rights be respected. We need the truth and deserve it. The Government in not implementing the Quirke Report in full is actually abuse of survivors by denying them the services and medical cards they agreed to do.

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    Mute Robert O’H
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    Feb 17th 2020, 6:33 PM

    The Catholic Church has cast a long, dark shadow over this country

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    Mute Eugene Comaskey
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    Feb 17th 2020, 5:55 PM

    Hopefully, this Lady will have her day and finally expose this awful scandal. This was a terrible period in Ireland, people being treated so badly by these Religious Orders.

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    Mute Paul Atreides
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    Feb 17th 2020, 7:02 PM

    They were different times. Different standards to today.
    My grandmother lived in a one room tenement with her family into the 1960’s. That doesn’t happen now. Shouldn’t have happened but it did.
    The alternative would have been out on the streets the same as these unfortunate mothers and babies that had no where else to go because their families had disowned them.

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    Mute Robert Dungan
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    Feb 17th 2020, 7:59 PM

    @Paul Atreides: A voice of reason in a sea of vitriol.

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    Mute Dino
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    Feb 17th 2020, 11:11 PM

    @Paul Atreides: Thanks for some sane words putting this in context.

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    Mute Ananya Sharma
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    Feb 17th 2020, 11:40 PM

    @Paul Atreides: The laundries were active as recently as 1996,can hardly be described as different times.

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    Mute Lyndsay Rehn
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    Feb 18th 2020, 2:21 AM

    @Paul Atreides: Paul it is still happening. Children are still being abuse by the State. Being forced to live in hotel rooms which is stunting their ability to walk, swallow food and speech delays. Families sleeping on the streets or tents and wait in line for food at the Bank of Ireland.. Not all of us were pregnant either so please get your facts correct. Very little has changed really in how this state treat children, as for the agency supposed to care for children its not fit for purpose and children are being placed in foster home and being abused.

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    Mute Lorraine Mac Rory
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    Feb 20th 2020, 12:44 AM

    @Paul Atreides: Wow…. I’ve never heard anyone imply these mother and baby homes and industrial schools were actually saving children from homelessness. You realise many were forcibly removed from families by the Church/State under the guise of “helping” them (for example, a girl with mental health issues or disapproved-of behaviours) or because the family was considered unsuitable by the Church (widowed father for example). Babies born in these homes were sold, neglected to death or raised to work as slaves in the homes. The Church was NOT compassionately providing for neglected children. I just can’t believe your comment…..

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    Mute Tom Tony Byrne
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    Feb 17th 2020, 7:07 PM

    I am amazed that in spite of all the verifiable evidence of the wrongs carried out by both the religious orders and government agencies regarding these laundries, not one single person has faced the courts. It is to our eternal shame that this situation carried on for so long.

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    Mute Victor Feldman
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    Feb 17th 2020, 8:21 PM

    @Tom Tony Byrne: did Irish people then just stand idly by.. Didn’t they send their bed sheets to be laundered by the nuns slave labour.. Why does the media here never address this point.. I was in a children’s home in England and we were treated brilliantly..

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    Mute herbie
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    Feb 17th 2020, 8:44 PM

    @Victor Feldman: English and proud, good man yourself. Wasn’t there some English pedophile who had his own TV show, presented on Tops of the Pops, had his own nightclub, regularly assaulted sick children on his hospital visits? What did you do about him? Surely you knew?

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    Mute Seamus Mac
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    Feb 17th 2020, 10:49 PM

    @Victor Feldman: interestingly a lot of these homes were formerly workhouses setup under british rule.

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    Mute Ann Reddin
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    Feb 18th 2020, 3:14 AM

    @herbie: There were a lot more, than one BBC presenter, that abused children. And we won’t mention the Kincora boys home and the politicians that abused them.

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    Mute NotMyPresident
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    Feb 17th 2020, 6:33 PM

    One heehaw back in the 80s had the best description of the demonic troika of ffg/rcc.
    An Irish solution to an Irish problem

    This type of abusive, predatory behaviour on the part of the penguins, dog collars & sleazy politicians all in bed with each other, covering up each other’s crimes, predates leo, heehaw & cosgrove.

    This torture, perpetrated by rcc was allowed by ffg. Encouraged even in an effort to keep us, what did the devil deV say “dancing at the crossroads” in a continuous state of fear and loathing. Fear of them & loathing (supercilious condescending attitude) of the ‘fallen’.

    They, and by that I mean the state & rcc need to pay & pay so that rcc is as bankrupted financially as they are morally.

    We need our own Remembrance Museum to the plight of all victims of ffg/rcc.

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    Mute John R
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    Feb 17th 2020, 7:34 PM

    @NotMyPresident: Nope. They were all at it! Every single institution in the State and every political party and grassroots organisation. It would be wonderful if we could point the finger at the few but the fact was these views were held by the majority of the people in Ireland. In some respects when I look at many vituperative social media posts today I wonder how much we have changed or really evolved besides being so “right on”. There are occasions when I think that the change we have experienced is only skin deep and that the herd could easily stampede to the dark side again if circumstances were right. I hope I’m wrong. But to avoid acknowledging that most people supported what was happening or actively averted their gaze is to make the possibility of a reoccurrence more likely.

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    Mute Robert Dungan
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    Feb 17th 2020, 7:58 PM

    @NotMyPresident: nonsense.

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    Mute Victor Feldman
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    Feb 17th 2020, 8:14 PM

    @John R: brilliant John.. But why is this issue addressed in the media here. Why do young Irish people not question the attitude of former generations.!

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    Mute Lorraine Mac Rory
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    Feb 20th 2020, 12:54 AM

    @John R: The typical Irish person had no idea of the horrors in those institutions. They trusted and feared the Church in equal measure. When told the “care” of the nuns was the best place for their child they had little alternative. Those who objected even had children forcibly removed by the State. It was a time when doctors, priests and nuns were to be obeyed, listened to and believed.

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    Mute brian oconnell
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    Feb 17th 2020, 7:05 PM

    I hope she succeeds in getting a just hearing

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    Mute Paul Riordan
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    Feb 17th 2020, 5:10 PM

    Everything should be revealed about these filthy hell holes and and any surviving sc. mbags brought to justice.

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    Mute Greg Daniel
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    Feb 17th 2020, 6:41 PM

    Ms Coppin has received financial compensation from the Magdalene and Industrial school schemes. There appears that there is more ‘redress’ to be pursued and the UN look like they agree.

    Applying modern day standards to historical behaviours will always be difficult. Even applying modern day standards we adhere to towards some other countries today would be a challenge. The UN don’t seem to bother about this though.

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Feb 17th 2020, 6:55 PM

    @Greg Daniel: They were essentially in loco parentis and they starved them and beat them.
    It really doesn’t take “modern standards” to see how warped this was. They had a regular income in order to provide for the children in their “care”. Yet they took that money and chose to deprive the children of everything that matters in life.

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    Mute Greg Daniel
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    Feb 17th 2020, 7:19 PM

    @Fiona Fitzgerald: I don’t disagree. I would just have thought organisations like Boko Haram and their treatment of young women today might be of more interest to the UN.

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    Mute Dell
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    Feb 17th 2020, 11:54 PM

    @Greg Daniel: so they can’t look at both? Or is it that 18 years of systematic abuse just isn’t meaty enough to warrant looking at in your opinion? What price have you decided should be put on that?

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    Mute Lyndsay Rehn
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    Feb 18th 2020, 2:06 AM

    @Greg Daniel: As a survivor I’m appalled at your post. Some of the women spent all their lives not ever being told they could have walked out at 21yrs. You have absolutely no grasp of the damage they did to us. We want the truth and access to files. You can never heal without first getting the truth. That means the whole truth not just our own personal experiences. Who knew what etc etc. And who sign off on false passports to allow the nuns sell children to America questions questions and we need ANSWERS AND TRUTH

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    Mute Fiona Fitzgerald
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    Feb 17th 2020, 6:48 PM

    Good for her. It’s unbelievable how much of this has been covered up and ignored. They all deserved far better. To think of what these children, and teenagers, were put through.

    I was only reading about her childhood in the NY Times. She has great courage to follow up on this. I’m certain that thousands of people are desperately trying to forget how much of their youth was stolen from them by abusive bullies.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/world/europe/elizabeth-coppin-magdalene-laundries-abuse-ireland.html

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    Mute Aaron Ahmed
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    Feb 17th 2020, 7:27 PM

    Elizabeth Coppin’s complaint:
    “[She] was detained by court order in an industrial school at the age of two. When she reached 14, the nuns in charge of the industrial school transferred her to St Vincent’s Magdalene Laundry”

    The State’s response:
    “The laundries were not operated or owned by or on behalf of the State, and there was no statutory basis for either admitting or confining a person to a Magdalene laundry.”

    See! The state placed her fate in the hands of the industrial school system… what the system did with her after that is not their problem… makes perfect sense.

    Oops the clock just struck thirteen, time for bed!

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    Mute Lyndsay Rehn
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    Feb 18th 2020, 2:36 AM

    Can I suggest before another person makes the comment that we were all pregnant and that’s why were were there, people please do a little bit of reading of the papers written by the Justice for Magdalens papers by Dr Maeve O’Rourke, Clare Mc Getterick Mari Steed and Dr Catherine Mc Donnell. You will see how difficult Elizabeths battle has been against this State and how every block was put in her way.

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    Mute Jaymes Moynihan
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    Feb 17th 2020, 8:48 PM

    The families of these people are just as guilty as anybody. Makes me sick.

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    Mute terricorrigan
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    Feb 17th 2020, 8:51 PM

    Absolutely…handed over…

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    Mute Lyndsay Rehn
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    Feb 18th 2020, 9:02 AM

    The Mc Aleese paper’s and all other relevant documents held by the government should be released to Dr Maeve O’Rourke immediately. The full implementation of the Quirke Report needs to happen as the medical card for example is not the one we were promised so the Abuse continues of survivors is very much still going on. The home care for the now very elderly women is not what we were promised. Forcing women to sign away their Constitutional Rights to Justice is another breech of our Human Right as well. We cannot even begin to heal and recover whilst still being Abused. Truth and Reconciliation can never happen for as long as this Abuse is going on. Oh and another thing not all of us were pregnant either nor were we all not loved by our parents. Some of our parents went to child guidance clinics and we advised by the professionals that this is in their child’s best interests as it was in my case. Doctors were Gods and you did what they said because as a parent you trusted them and sure Nuns and Religious Orders were good godlike people. You all know different now thanks to the survivors speaking out which I can assure you all is not easy for us to do.

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    Mute Gigi
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    Feb 17th 2020, 7:39 PM

    Evil nuns

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    Mute Robert Dungan
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    Feb 17th 2020, 8:00 PM

    @Gigi: 99% were good people.Go read a book.Educate yourself.

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    Mute Dell
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    Feb 17th 2020, 11:44 PM

    @Robert Dungan: you have that percentage the wrong way around. 99% were either sadists or turned a blind eye to their peers sadistic behaviour. There’s always someone like you on here trying to downplay the appalling behaviour of these people. You ought to be ashamed of yourself.

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    Mute Lyndsay Rehn
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    Feb 18th 2020, 2:11 AM

    @Robert Dungan: AS A SURVIVOR CAN I RESPECTFULLY SUGGEST YOU HAVE NOT A FIRST CLASS CLUE WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. A PRECIOUS FEW WERE KIND.

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    Mute Ann Reddin
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    Feb 18th 2020, 3:07 AM

    @Robert Dungan: You obviously weren’t taught by the nuns or Christian Brothers, and their penchant for sadistic punishments.

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    Mute Robert Dungan
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    Feb 17th 2020, 7:54 PM

    Christians screw up.Jesus was betrayed by his closest apostles.We’re all sinners.

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    Mute Dell
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    Feb 17th 2020, 11:50 PM

    @Robert Dungan: 18 years of systematic abuse and that’s your twopence worth? I’d say you should have kept it to yourself but it’s good for people to be reminded of the kind of attitude Christians really have towards victims of clerical abuse. And you lot wonder why people do not want to have anything to do with you or your church.

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    Mute Daniel Dunne
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    Feb 17th 2020, 11:55 PM

    @Robert Dungan: They were not within an asses roar of being Christians with what they did to her. The ones defending what they did are almost as bad as the ones criticising the whole Christian faith.
    Families actively pushed their weirdos and misfits into the clergy and convents, they then pushed their “fallen” daughters and their child into their clutches. It was one big disaster waiting to happen after years of poverty imposed by the British. The only thing left in extreme poverty was pride. The Catholic Church’s currency was pride and shame.

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    Feb 17th 2020, 11:56 PM

    It’s a world apart from the Ireland of today and today’s youth would want to respect the fact that despite all of these atrocities, the education and health care provided by the Catholic Church when the state hadn’t a red cent gave much of the population tools to make what this country is today, warts and all.

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    Mute Dell
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    Feb 18th 2020, 5:04 AM

    @Daniel Dunne: they were paid by the state to provide education. No one, young or old, needs to have the lie that they did it without compensation or payment drilled into them. The state had enough red cents to pay them and they were handsomely paid. A nun or priest never suffered from malnourishment in this country, yet those in their care often did.

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    Mute Jimmy Carroll
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    Feb 18th 2020, 8:43 AM

    Terrible carry on ,had she been born in our time her mam could have had her aborted

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    Mute Lyndsay Rehn
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    Feb 18th 2020, 9:26 AM

    @Jimmy Carroll: The Mother and Baby Homes are a different issue. Can I as a survivor respectfully correct you. We were mostly children and not pregnant many like Elizabeth were under age to even conceive so please read the article in full and the many papers written by the Justice for Magdalen Research to fully understand the issues.

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    Mute Dell
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    Feb 18th 2020, 9:28 AM

    @Jimmy Carroll: Maybe do a little research on basic biology and abortion. “had she been born in our time” she then would not have been aborted as born babies aren’t aborted. Excusing slavery and abuse because you don’t agree with abortion doesn’t paint you in a great light.

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