Mayor Colette Connolly is delighted Patricia Burke Brogan and Ena McEntee will be awarded Freedom of Galway City.
Last week Mayor Connolly brought forward the proposal to a policy and procedures meeting where councillors agreed a recommendation to full council. The motion was passed unanimously with Patricia Burke Brogan and Ena McEntee’s efforts helping others in need in the Magadelene Laundry in Forster Street recognised.
Ms Burke Brogan [pictured below], a former postulant nun, wrote the award-winning play Eclipsed, set in a magdalene laundry during the 1960s. It first premiered in 1992 and helped shine a light on the conditions the women were forced to live in.
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Ms McEntee, who worked in the city’s Magdalene laundry, and her family, helped women escape from the institution.
“It is fitting to award the highest honour this city could give on Patricia Burke Brogan and Ena McEntee for their work with the Magadelene Laundry,” Mayor Connolly said at Monday’s meeting. It is fitting that these ordinary women be acknowledged. There have been 30 awards to date since 1939, the last given to Mayor Marty Walsh in 2018.”
Mayor Connolly highlighted the work and care shown by Patricia Burke Brogan and Ena McEntee.
“It is particularly poignant that two women at great personal cost and loss went out of their way to help women in the Magadelene Laundry,” Mayor Connolly added. “I think they are richly deserving, it is a great honour. I’m delighted, we as Galwegians, can honour these fellow citizens for their work.”
