A Dublin Magdalene Laundry: Donnybrook and Church-State Power in Ireland
Ebook
Towards the end of the 20th century, the decades of abuse and neglect perpetrated in Ireland's comprehensive carceral network began finally to be exposed. The mistreatment endured by children and others on the margins of Irish society, notably women, in these orphanages, reformatory schools, industrial schools, psychiatric hospitals, County Homes, Mother and Baby Homes, adoption agencies and Magdalene Laundries now attracts increasing investigation and scholarship. Bringing together contributions from leading experts across a broad range of disciplines, including history, philosophy, law, archaeology, criminology, accounting and architecture, this book offers a comprehensive exploration of the Magdalene system through a close study of Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry in Dublin.
To date, the Justice for Magdalenes Research group has recorded the names of 315 women and girls who died at Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry.
By focusing on this one institution-on its ethos, development, operation and built environment, and the lives of the girls and women held there-this book reveals the underlying framework of Ireland's wider system of institutionalisation. The analysis includes a focus on the privatisation and commodification of public welfare, reproductive injustice, institutionalised misogyny, class prejudice, the visibility of supposedly 'hidden' institutions and the role of oral testimony in reconstructing history. In undertaking such a close study, the authors uncover truths missing from the state's own investigations; shed new light on how these brutal institutions came to have such a powerful presence in Irish society, and highlight the significance of their continuing impact on modern Ireland.
An in-depth examination of the history and legacy of the Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry.
First academic book to focus on one specific Magdalene laundry
A wide range of contributors ranging from disciplines across Law, Sociology, History and Politics
Strong and ongoing interest in uncovering the history and campaigns for justice around the Magdalene laundries
Introduction – Mark Coen, Katherine O'Donnell, Maeve O'Rourke
Political, Cultural and Social Contexts of Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry
1. The Religious Sisters of Charity: Origins, Development and Controversies, Mark Coen Donnybrook
2. Magdalene Asylum and the Priorities of a Nation: A History of Respectability, Lindsey Earner-Byrne
3. 'Cheap in the End': A History of Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry, Mark Coen
4. 'Magdalene' Testimony from the Donnybrook Laundry, Katherine O'Donnell
Social, Commercial and Legal Significance of Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry
5. Designing Donnybrook: Conceiving Ireland's 'Architecture of Containment', Chris Hamill
6. 'Benefactors and Friends': Charitable Bequests, Reparation and the Donnybrook Laundry, Máiréad Enright
7. Accounting at the Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry, Brid Murphy and Martin Quinn
8. 'Women of Evil Life': Donnybrook Magdalene and the Criminal Justice System, Lynsey Black
Heritage and Memory
9. Contemporary Archaeology and Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry: Working with the Material Remnants of an Institutionalised Recent Past, Laura McAtackney
10. The Material Evidence of Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry
(i) Museum Display and Interpretation as an act of Social Justice, Brenda Malone
(ii) Archival Legacies, Barry Houlihan
11. Guerrilla Archive: Donnybrook and the Magdalene Names Project, Claire McGettrick
One of the remarkable achievements of this book is the amount of detail that the writers managed to gather without access to the archives of the Religious Sisters of Charity […] through [the writers'] work, the voice of survivors of the institution is given the prominence and respect it deserves
- Title: A Dublin Magdalene Laundry: Donnybrook and Church-State Power in Ireland
- Authors: Katherine O’Donnell, Maeve O'Rourke, Mark Coen
- Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
- Print Publication Date: 2023
- Logos Release Date: 2024
- Language: English
- Resources: 1
- Format: Digital › Ebook
- ISBNs: 9781350279063, 9781350279049, 1350279048, 1350279064
- Resource ID: LLS:9781350279063
- Resource Type: Monograph
- Metadata Last Updated: 2024-04-11T00:31:49Z
Mark Coen is a Lecturer in Law at University College Dublin, Ireland. His historical research has been published in the American Journal of Legal History and the Law and History Review. He is the sole editor of The Offences Against the State Act at 80: A Model Counter-Terrorism Act? (Hart, 2021).
Katherine O'Donnell is Professor, History of Ideas, at UCD School of Philosophy University College Dublin, Ireland, and is a member of the Justice for Magdalenes Research group. She is also co-author of Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice (Bloomsbury/I.B. Tauris, 2021).
Maeve O'Rourke is Assistant Professor of Human Rights at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, School of Law, University of Galway, Ireland, and a member of the Justice for Magdalenes Research group. She is also co-author of Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice (Bloomsbury/I.B. Tauris, 2021).