In an Ireland in which the only colours were black and white, when even the sunshine seemed a distant grey, hope was a rare commodity. And for those who were robbed of their innocence by circumstance and robbed of their freedom by a lack of compassion, days like this week must have seemed a million years away. When life seems on the verge of beating you down, you fall back on family, friends, beliefs, and authority figures.
To be rejected and betrayed by all four is a nightmare from which ten thousand young Irish women must have felt they would never awaken. When these young women found themselves within the walls of the Magdalene Laundries, not many of them knew exactly why they were there. It was not a prison, but it had four walls through which it was impossible to pass. It was not paid employment, because there was no pay and no pension. And so they were led to believe that it was some form of moral punishment for a perceived wrong they had done. And lest they got any notions about the rights of this wrong, they were subjected to emotional abuse to strip them of their pride, their dignity, and of their right to call themselves decent Irish women.
The story of the Magdalene Laundry is not something that is looked upon with pride by any community, even here in Galway where it is only in the last decade that there has been any semi-official acceptance that what went on was callous, conceived, co-ordinated, and concealed.
And into these institutions these naive, frightened, girls were placed, knowing that their stories may never be told. They could not have foreseen an Ireland where their masters would be despised, where the role of those who bullied them would lie in tatters after decades of abuse. They could not foresee an Ireland that would go the extra mile to hear their story, to look out for the most vulnerable.
Official Ireland was never kind to these women. Its intricate web of power was what landed them inside the walls, but over the decades we have seen the great evil that existed in Official Ireland, through systematic child abuse and corruption, strip away the facade of the Old Country.
We would love to think that the new Official Ireland cares more, that it would not permit the likes to happen again, but every day new abuses are being perpetrated in this country.
In this country we have no difficulty in rewarding with pensions those who have robbed this State, whose inaction led to the mess we are in. We have no problems paying off county councillors to give up their seats. No problems paying off politicians who have had years of service looking after themselves. Yet, there is the breathtaking astonishment that the Government cannot apologise even in principle with the people who were enslaved by the State and the religious orders.
Being leader of the country is about more than covering your backside legally. There are times when gut feeling and emotion should allow you to empathise with people who have been robbed. It is ironic that with the ‘right-on’ people tripping over themselves to get tickets for the European premiere of Lincoln in our capital city some weeks ago, we cannot find it in our hearts to say sorry to those who were our own slaves. Our hearts go out to those who spent time in this city and who felt less than full citizens, who were made to feel small, dirty, evil. Shame on those in this city who perpetuated this myth, who turned these women into victims. We hope that the Government can find it in its heart to divert some of the largesse of the pension culture to help those whose lives were irretrievably damaged by the actions of their predecessors.
