Compassion a myth in Clare

■ It was great to witness the events surrounding the special reception for women who worked in the Magdalene Laundries and the two-day event in Dublin. Society needs to take responsibility for institutional abuse.

However, “respectable” Ireland is still actively resistant to the truth that has (and continues) to emerge through commissions of inquiry.

In 2011 a marble statue (of a mother, baby and nun) was erected on the gable-end of the former Industrial School in Ennis with the inscription: ‘In appreciation to the Sisters of Mercy in Ennis since 1854.’ There is no mention that this was the site of the local Industrial School.

A laundry also operated from the same site run by the Sisters of Mercy (who are named in both the Ryan and McAleese reports).

In 2015, Ennis Municipal District felt confident enough to rename a road that ran through this same site (Friars walked as Bóthar na Trócaire) in honour of the same order. Trócaire is meant to mean compassion.

I can’t understand, given all we know from recent reports/commissions, how this deliberate white-washing could happen in the town. These representations in Clare are an attempt to maintain the “charitable” myth for an order who profited while those women and children suffered in their care. Brian McMahon

Cork Institute of Technology, Bishopstown