The truth must out

Maureen Sullivan was exploited and denied a decent education during her years in the Magdalene laundries. She tells Joy Orpen that she hopes the culture of denial that characterised previous investigations is finally gone

‘Future generations need to know what we went through, so nothing like this can ever happen again.” These are the heartfelt words of Maureen Sullivan, who, as a child, was forced to labour in the Magdalene laundries. She was speaking following a triumphant couple of days last month, when over 220 women, all victims of the laundries and certain industrial schools, were brought together in Dublin in full public recognition of the many cruel injustices they had endured over decades.

At Aras an Uachtarain, President Michael D Higgins talked about the “deep stain” on Ireland’s past. “I apologise to you, survivors of the Magdalene regime,” he said, his voice quivering. It was one of the most moving moments of Maureen’s life. Finally, after years of denials by the authorities, her stories, and those of other women like her, were finally given credence.

“All I ever knew was meanness, unkindness, lies, cover-ups, deceits and cruelty. That’s the world I grew up in,” she explains. She was just a child when she was cruelly taken away from all she knew. Her ‘crime’ was to be born in the wrong place, Ireland; at the wrong time, 1952; some months after her biological father had succumbed to tuberculosis.

Aged just 19, Maureen’s mother was a widow with three children. She soon remarried and went on to have many more offspring. Sadly, Maureen did not get on with her stepfather; she says he abused her. Eventually, she told the nuns at her school in Carlow. The parish priest was then consulted. “He said I should be sent away so I would get a good education,” explains Maureen, who was then 12 years old.

Her mother, thinking this would be a reasonable solution, packed a small case for her daughter, bought her a new pencil case (a luxury in those days), and sent her on her way. Maureen never saw that pencil case again; far more damning, and unknown to her mother, she never received any further education.

Maureen was taken to New Ross, where she was shown around a commercial laundry, which mystified her. What had a place like that to do with her? She was then shown her sleeping quarters at St Aidan’s, an industrial school nearby. The final indignity was having her name changed to Frances.

Maureen quickly learned that she had landed in hell on earth. “I was up so early in the morning, the other girls [my age] were still asleep, and when I came back, I was warned not to speak to them,” she recalls. From morning until night, she toiled in the industrial laundry, hauling water-laden sheets through steaming hot cauldrons.

She was so small, they had to make steps so she could reach the machines. And even though the washing came from commercial as well as State-run institutions, the women (and girls) received no pay. They were not allowed to talk to each other at work, or when they gathered at mealtimes to eat their meagre rations.

During ‘recreation’ they made rosary beads and Aran jumpers, and on their ‘days off ’, they cleaned the convent. They were never given any clue as to when they might be released. Many became institutionalised, and many lost all hope. Maureen feared she would never get out alive.

It’s hard to imagine what it must have been like for a 12-year-old girl enduring this miserable regime. Institutions such as the laundry at New Ross were inspected occasionally. When that happened, Maureen was hidden, bundled into an underground tunnel.

After two years, she was moved to Athy. “I’ll never forget the unbearable loneliness, the sense of isolation and injustice, the unfairness,” says Maureen. She was then moved to a school for the blind in Dublin. Finally, she was out of the insufferable laundries and tasked with cleaning instead.

When she was 16, her shoes hurt so much, she asked the Reverend Mother why she had never been paid for her hard work. After all, if she had a wage, she could buy shoes. She was immediately given a one-way ticket back to Carlow. But her stepfather had warned her never to darken his door again, so she went to England instead.

“When you apply for a job, you are asked about your education,” says Maureen. “You can’t say ‘Magdalene laundry’ — that’s not a school.” In time, she married and had two children. She now lives in Carlow and works for northerner Arnie Stevenson, the founder of Irish Skincare, which manufactures sun protection products.

Over the years, Arnie and his wife have supported Maureen fully. Arnie was there when Maureen had a meeting with a nun, who, although she had not been at New Ross when Maureen was there, did have access to files. When Arnie asked why Maureen had not been sent to school or allowed to play with the other girls her age at St Aidan’s, he says the response he got was along the lines of, “Would you want your child playing with someone who had been abused?”

Arnie says the nun then apologised, and said none of that should have happened. And yet, it would seem an innocent child was being doubly punished for someone else’s behaviour.

“They don’t want to know about abused children in this country,” says Maureen, with tears in her eyes. However, she did get some comfort from the fact that finally, there was acknowledgement that she wasn’t imagining what had happened at St Aidan’s.

As to the Restorative Justice Scheme (RJS), some years back, Maureen, like others, did get some compensation for her

“When you apply for a job you are asked about your education, you can’t say ‘Magdalene laundry’ — that’s not a school”