The funeral takes place tomorrow in the city of the celebrated artist, playwright, novelist and poet, Patricia Burke Brogan who passed away in Castlegar Nursing Home earlier this week.
Ms Burke Brogan’s play Eclipsed, which premiered thirty years ago in Galway, highlighted her experiences as a young nun working alongside residents in the former Magdelene laundry at Forster Street in Galway, and brought the horrific exploitative reality of life in the laundries to a wide audience.
Earlier this year, Ms Burke Brogan was awarded the Freedom of Galway City for the work she did in shedding light on a dark aspect of Irish life, and in particular on how women were treated over the last century. Both she and the late Ena McEntee were awarded the honour for their work in protecting and assisting the residents. A plaque was unveiled to honour the two women close to the site where the laundry was located.
Ms Burke Brogan left the Sisters of Mercy having witnessed the immense suffering of the Magdalene women first-hand.
Eclipsed was first performed in 1992 by the dynamic Punchbag Theatre Company who produced it, with a cast of eight women.
Audiences flocked to it, as it exposed the harsh imprisonment of women for breaking strict moral codes by having a baby without being married. These women worked without pay in laundries, with the collusion of church, state and families.
The play stirred up controversy and Ms Burke Brogan received hate mail, but it attracted significant audiences. Coming in the middle of the X-Case and close to the resignation of Bishop Eamon Casey, it was powerful and pivotal, and shocking for audiences who had been unaware of the laundries.
Born in Kildysart, southwest Co Clare, she left with her family when she was aged two and her Garda sergeant father was transferred to Moylough, Co Galway. Ms Burke Brogan grew up surrounded by books and music and began reading and “scribbling” at a young age. Her interest in art, music and writing was lifelong.
Her 2014 book, Memoir with Grykes and Turloughs, includes her period as a novice, and her decision against becoming a nun. She instead highlighted the plight of the women in the laundry through writing. President Michael D Higgins wrote the forew0rd to the memoir, noting that her play had “changed everything”, and that its faithfulness to the characters and the hidden stories “could almost not have had another author”.
At her conferral with an honorary degree by NUI Galway in 2014, the university’s Prof Patrick Lonergan said Patricia Burke Brogan was proof that “the lone individual can make a difference”.
Her archive — a remarkable collection of her literary papers, some personal letters and photos, her artworks, and ephemera from productions of her works — is located at University of Galway.
Her husband Eddie Brogan predeceased her, as did her sister Philomena and brother Brendan, a priest. She is survived by her family, including her sisters Claire and Teresa, nephew, grandnephews and grandnieces.
She will be buried in Bohermore Cemetery tomorrow Friday after mass in St Augustine’s Church in Galway city.
