The 2025 memorial for the women of the former Galway Magdalene Laundry will be celebrated on Sunday September 7 at Bohermore Cemetery, Galway. All are welcome to meet in a spirit of solemnity and respect at 2pm at the cemetery gates to pay tribute to the Galway Magdalenes. Speakers at the event include Catherine Connolly TD.
Many of the women and girls incarcerated in the Magdalene Laundry system were anonymous - their names were changed or they were recorded simply as a numbered inmate. Unfortunately, records compiled by the Sisters of Mercy religious order who ran the Galway laundry are incomplete, while some were destroyed by fire. Many of those who died behind the laundry walls remain anonymous in death.
Concerted efforts for justice by survivors of Magdalene Laundries, along with families and campaigners, led to recognition being afforded to the women. The State made an official apology in 2013.
When the first Galway Flowers Memorial was held in 2012, the women lay in unnamed mass graves in the area once known as the paupers’ section. Since then, headstones with names and dates of death have been erected. This year, Galway City Council awarded a CAIRDE grant to the Flowers group who organise the yearly event.
“We can never give the deceased Galway Magdalene Laundry women the compensation or recompense that they truly deserve,” a spokeswoman for the group. “We can however give them public recognition at the annual Flowers Memorial, honouring the women by reading aloud their names and laying flowers on the graves where they rest,” she concluded.
