Preserve the site of shame

DUBLIN City Council is negotiating with a Japanese hotel chain to sell the last surviving Magdalene laundry in public ownership and is due to make a decision today whether to approve a 350-bed hotel on this sacred site on Sean McDermott Street.

While a vaguely outlined memorial garden to commemorate the Magdalene laundry run by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity would be included in the proposed project, a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity would be lost if this development goes ahead as has been proposed.

Dublin City Council coffers would benefit by a proposed selling price of €14.5m but no amount of money could ever measure the pain, abuse and injustice inflicted on those young Irish women whose lives were irreparably damaged in this hellish institution.

The total site should be preserved as a site of conscience and education for present and future generations as a permanent reminder of how an avowedly Christian Ireland could degenerate into a brutish society where at least 11,000 young women were ostracised, marginalised and treated as non-human beings as late as 1996.

It would be a further blot on the Irish moral landscape if we allowed the temptation of greasy money to eradicate the historical memory of a grave injustice inflicted on our sisters who are due proper remembrance. Brendan Butler Malahide, Co Dublin