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Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice

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Publisher:
, 2021
ISBN: 9780755617500
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Between 1922 and 1996, over 10,000 girls and women were imprisoned in Magdalene Laundries, including those considered 'promiscuous', a burden to their families or the state, those who had been sexually abused or raised in the care of the Church and State, and unmarried mothers. These girls and women were subjected to forced labour as well as psychological and physical maltreatment.

Using the Irish State's own report into the Magdalene institutions, as well as testimonies from survivors and independent witnesses, this book gives a detailed account of life behind the high walls of Ireland's Magdalene institutions. The book offers an overview of the social, cultural and political contexts of institutional survivor activism, the Irish State's response culminating in the McAleese Report, and the formation of the Justice for Magdalenes campaign, a volunteer-run survivor advocacy group.

Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries documents the ongoing work carried out by the Justice for Magdalenes group in advancing public knowledge and research into Magdalene Laundries, and how the Irish State continues to evade its responsibilities not just to survivors of the Magdalenes but also in providing a truthful account of what happened. Drawing from a variety of primary sources, this book reveals the fundamental flaws in the state's investigation and how the treatment of the burials, exhumation and cremation of former Magdalene women remains a deeply troubling issue today, emblematic of the system of torture and studious official neglect in which the Magdalene women lived their lives.

The Authors are donating all royalties in the name of the women who were held in the Magdalenes to EPIC (Empowering People in Care).

An important account of the development of the campaign for social justice around the Magdalene laundries in the Republic of Ireland.

Strong international interest in Ireland's Magdalene women due to continuing coverage of these issues by mainstream media, including documentaries and films, such as Philomena (2013) and The Magdalene Sisters (2002)
Details the work and positive impact of the Justice for Magdalenes campaign and the ongoing work of Justice for Magdalenes Research
Uses the Irish State's own report into the Magdalene Institutions as well as testimonies gathered by the authors from survivors and independent witnesses

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations
Foreword
Introduction
Chapter 1: Ireland's Magdalene Laundries and the Lives Lived There
Chapter 2: Survivors Begin to Be Heard
Chapter 3: Anatomy of a Campaign: The Strategies
Chapter 4: Anatomy of a Campaign: Developing a Human Rights and Justice Agenda
Chapter 5: Publication of the IDC Report: The Campaign Within the Campaign
Chapter 6: Never Tell, Never Acknowledge (…everyone knew, but no one said)
Chapter 7: Ex Gratia 'Redress'
Chapter 8: Bringing up the Dead: Burials and Land Deals at High Park
Chapter 9: Conclusion: Who Do We Want to Be?
Bibliography


In many ways, the book is a toolkit for any campaigner engaging with the political system. It exposes a political culture which can too often be frustrating, intransigent, and even cynical when faced with uncomfortable truths.

[A] significant, moving and powerful account ... The book is a model of social justice campaigning that uses academia, advocacy and activism.

Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice is rightly, lucidly and incisively critical of governmental investigations that have been inefficient and unethical. In short, this book is vital for anyhow interested in the historical arc of social policy in relation to pariah groups. It also highlights the enormous efforts of the JFMR and their continued struggle for justice.

This is a challenging and powerfully repetitive book replete with narrative detail. By far the most compelling elements are where the authors rely on survivor experience to propel their verdict of the insouciance and imprudence of the Irish government. The authors succeed in their ambition of restoring power to the survivors of Ireland's Magdalene Laundries.

Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice details the group's efforts to gain apologies to Magdalene survivors from both the Catholic Church and Irish state, financial redress and comprehensive health care for survivors, and access to church and state archives for survivors seeking their personal records.

This brave book is an archive of an unfinished movement, a survey of the continuing harms of so-called 'historical abuse', and a set of demands for law reform and political change. In places, it is also a love letter to those who survived Ireland's Magdalene laundries. In devastating detail, it shows how Irish politicians, professionals and members of religious orders have resisted demands that these women be recognised as victims of human rights abuse. More than a description of Justice for Magdalenes' campaigning and research, it is an important challenge to official histories and excuses that stubbornly carry undeserved weight in Irish public discourse.

The campaign for justice for the girls and women incarcerated in Magdalene laundries is one of the greatest acts of truth-telling in the recent history of Ireland. The walls of institutional denial have had to be demolished slowly and painfully, brick by brick. The experiences of those most involved in this task, so vividly detailed in this vital book, tell us so much, not just about a history that was shamefully obscured, but about the imperative for every society to really know itself. In helping the survivors to reclaim their dignity, this indispensable book also helps the rest of us to reclaim the true meaning of shared citizenship and common humanity.

It is impossible to describe the toxic fog of shame, distortion and indifference these writers worked through so the truth of the Magdalen Laundries could be seen in a proper light. No one wanted to know. They are my heroes.

Claire McGettrick is an Irish Research Council postgraduate scholar at the School of Sociology at University College Dublin, Ireland. Her research interests focus on adoption, so-called historical abuses, and related injustices in twentieth-century Ireland. She is cofounder of Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) and Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA). She jointly coordinates the multi-award-winning CLANN project with Dr Maeve O'Rourke, as well as the Magdalene Names Project (MNP), which has recorded the details of over 1,900 women who lived and died in Ireland's Magdalen laundries.

Katherine O'Donnell is Associate Professor, History of Ideas, UCD School of Philosophy, Ireland, and has published widely on the history of sexuality and gender and the intellectual history of eighteenth-century Ireland. She has been principal investigator on a number of funded research projects, including gathering an archival and oral history of the Magdalen institutions funded by the Irish Research Council. Her teaching awards include the UCD President's Gold Medal for Teaching Excellence and the British Universities' Learning On-Screen Award. She has gained academic honours, including a Fulbright Fellowship and the University of California, Berkeley, Chancellor's Prize for Prose. As a member of Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR), she has shared in activist honours, including the Irish Labour Party's Thirst for Justice Award.

Maeve O'Rourke is lecturer in human-rights law at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway, and a graduate of University College Dublin, Harvard Law School, and Birmingham Law School, University of Birmingham. She is also a barrister (England and Wales) and attorney-at-law (New York). Since 2009 she has provided pro bono legal assistance to Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) and is currently co-director of the CLANN project, an evidence-gathering and advocacy collaboration between JFMR, Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA), and Hogan Lovells International, LLP. She was named UK Family Law Pro Bono Lawyer of the Year in 2013.

James M Smith is an associate professor in the English department at Boston College. He has published articles in Signs, The Journal of the History of Sexuality, Éire-Ireland, and ELH. His book, Ireland's Magdalen Laundries and the Nation's Architecture of Containment (Notre Dame UP), was published in 2007 and was awarded the Donald Murphy Prize for Distinguished First Book by the American Conference for Irish Studies. With Maria Luddy, he coedited a double special issue of Éire-Ireland (Spring/Summer 2009) and the collection Children, Childhood, and Irish Society: 1500 to the Present (Four Courts Press, 2014). He recently coedited a double special issue of Éire-Ireland (Spring/Summer 2020) and the essay collection REDRESS: Ireland and Justice in Transition (forthcoming) on Transitional Justice and institutional abuse in Ireland. He is a member of the advocacy group Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR).

Mari Steed was one of more than 2,000 children exported from Ireland to the United States, and was born in the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home in Cork, where she also endured being part of the vaccine trials. Mari's mother spent time in a Magdalen laundry. She serves as U.S. coordinator with the Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA). In 2003 Mari cofounded Justice for Magdalens/Research (JFMR), an advocacy organisation that successfully campaigned for a state apology and restorative justice for survivors of Ireland's Magdalen laundries. She currently serves on the group's executive committee. She also serves as vice-president on the executive committee of U.S. adoptee-rights organisation Bastard Nation.

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