A shame Ireland should never forget

Irish Current Affairs Blog of the Year 2018

Peter Mulryan at the grave his mother shares with other
women from the Magdalene Laundry in Galway City

For eight years now, they have gathered in a Galway graveyard.

  

They meet at the gates, exchange warm greetings, and then walk silently past the rows of graves to an area which has become familiar over recent years.

It used to be nigh on impossible to locate these particular graves. They bore no headstones and the women buried in these plots were the forgotten, “fallen” ones. They weren’t even given the dignity of having their names put on the headstones.

Hardly anybody knew they were even there and the casual observer walking through Bohermore would not have had a clue.

The Magdalene Laundry was very much part of the fabric of my native city from 1824 until it closed as a business in 1984. Older colleagues at work used to recall the vans circling the city, collecting the dirty laundry from the great and the good.

Nobody ever talked about the women who worked there or that this asylum, as it was also called, benefited from slave labour. It closed for good in 1996 and some of the inmates were too institutionalised to leave Forster Street and form out independent lives.

It was just minutes from the heart of the city. We used to walk past it on our way to Connacht rugby games at the Sportsground or appointments at City Hall and nobody ever seemed to ask about the women who were locked up inside.

Or why their lives were deemed so insignificant, so worthless, that they were buried together in unmarked graves.

A simple ceremony with flowers to honour the Magdalenes

Until 2012. Then a small group of women came together to determine that the lives of the women of the Magdalene Laundry were worthy of being remembered and honoured.

And so began a beautiful annual event which is remarkable because of its simplicity. Caroline Stanley sings a poignant song, a poem is offered, and those who survived the laundry or whose mothers were locked up inside are invited to say a few words.

It’s a pity more journalists don’t attend. If they did, they would witness the remarkable growing confidence of the survivors, the children of these women who are coming to terms with the horrors of their youthful lives.

Two years ago, the discovery of the bodies of babies just up the road in the Tuam Mother and Baby Home brought an added poignancy to the ceremony. The Magdalene Laundry in Galway, which locked up unmarried mothers and forced them to wash clothes for the great and the good, was the nearest one to Tuam.

Some of the mothers had given birth to the ‘Tuam Babies’ before being transferred into slave labour in the city.

Two years ago, on a cold, windy day, a man called Peter Mulryan brought us all to tears. His mother was locked up in that asylum and was so institutionalised that she did not want to leave after he tracked her down and introduced her to his new wife, Kathleen, in 1975.

Years later, Peter’s life was turned upside down again when he was told that he had a younger sister he never realised he had. That sister is one of the 796 ‘Tuam Babies’ and she could be buried in a septic tank in Tuam – or she could be walking around the streets of Boston or New York, totally oblivious to where she came from.

Because the bodies in Tuam have yet to be examined or identified, Peter hasn’t a clue. It would not be a huge shock to him or other family members if their siblings were adopted, illegally, to America at a time of great hardship in Ireland.

For Peter, the annual Flowers for Magdalenes ceremony in Galway is a hugely significant event. It has allowed him to find his voice and banished the shame which used to be associated with being the child of a single mum.

He is so grateful to the women who invited him, and others, to the simple ceremony and told them that their voices were worth listening to and that they were entitled to justice and the truth about what happened to their family members.

The terrible sense of shame which hung over women like his mother should never be forgotten, he says.

This year he was the guest speaker at the event and they had a microphone at the graveyard so that everyone could hear his words.

He recalled how survivors and their families used to “hang their heads in shame” because of the stigma attached to the 41 laundries across Ireland where at least 10,000 women and girls were held against their will.

“What the mothers went through in those places, it was horrible and unbelievable,” Mr Mulryan told the eighth annual Flowers for the Magdalenes event at Bohermore Cemetery.

“When I managed to get to meet my mother there in 1975, a woman who was 65 years old, she looked like she was 80 from all the years of working so hard, washing clothes. I’ll never forget how she had blisters all over her hands and how she was so shabbily dressed.

“Those women were forced to work for nothing, for whatever ‘sins’ they had committed. I will never forget how badly they were fed and how little respect they were shown in that institution.”

Mr Mulryan said that events such as the annual memorial in Galway, a simple ceremony featuring poetry and song, had given survivors and the children of the Magdalene Laundry women self-respect and allowed them to speak out for the first time.

He first spoke publicly about his own experience of finding out he had a younger sister he had never met, who is now known as one of the 796 ‘Tuam Babies’, at the Galway event two years ago.

Calling out the names of the Magdalenes in Galway

“Events like this have given us survivors a new lease of life and we can now hold our heads high,” he said. “The Church and State looked down on us for decades, but it’s great to see that the wheel has turned, that ceremonies like this can show us and our mothers the respect they were denied during their lifetimes.”

Mr Mulryan said that he recently began speaking about the Tuam Mother and Baby Home in schools throughout Co Galway and felt it was important to educate the younger generation about Ireland’s shameful past in terms of how it treated its women.

One of the organisers, Ann Irwin, said it was great that the event in the graveyard gave the survivors a voice and noted that they have only had the confidence to speak out over the past two to three years.

“The idea is to remember the women with the respect which was denied to them when they were alive. There are people who come here every year who have a direct connection with the Magdalene Laundry. It gives them a great sense of solidarity to put flowers on the shared graves,” she told The Irish Times. 

“We have been doing this since 2012. The survivors did not speak in the first few years, because of the sense of shame. We really encourage people to speak. They can feel the solidarity. The faces are becoming familiar now, because the same people come here every year.”

Afterwards, Mr Mulryan called on the Irish Government to respect the wishes of the survivors of the Tuam Home by carrying out a full exhumation of the site, analysing DNA samples, and giving the children dignified burials.

“The State and the Church still have not come out with an apology to us. We are entitled to a full public apology. They are making no effort whatsoever to offer us an apology,” he said.

“They are holding up everything that should be done. They need to do a proper investigation, get a DNA done, and give those children a dignified burial. In my opinion, they are afraid of taking DNA samples because it will show up so much stuff, that the children died of starvation, neglect, or stress. They are continuing to put obstacles in our way.”

--  * Ciaran Tierney won the Irish Current Affairs and Politics Blog of the Year award in October. Find him on Facebook  or Twitter here. Visit his website here - CiaranTierney.com. A former newspaper journalist, he is seeking new opportunities in a digital world. 

At least I've woken up

http://ciarantierney.com

When the politicians started colluding with the bankers and the developers, I did not speak out.

When they went into a frenzy, an "orgy of greed", I did not speak out.

When they locked themselves in a tent at the Galway Races, flying over our heads in helicopters and laughing at the peasants outside, I did not speak out.

When the bank manager persuaded the family member to buy a property he could not afford, I did not speak out. (Sure, everyone told us it was the "smart time to buy".)

When the economy collapsed, because of those bankers and developers, I did not speak out.

When faceless bondholders were prioritised over ordinary people, I did not speak out.

When my nation lost its sovereignty, and the ECB and IMF came to town, I did not speak out. (I was watching from Nicaragua, where people seemed to have a better idea of what was happening than the people back home.)

When almost an entire generation moved to Canada and Australia, just as most of mine moved to London or America in the late 1980s and early 1990s, I did not speak out.

When the Government imposed a Universal Social Charge, I did not speak out.

When it added a Local Property Tax, I did not speak out.

When my pay was cut, I did not speak out.

Carrying the coffin of Irish Water

When young people were asked to work for €50 a week, I did not speak out. (The cynical among us called it ScamBridge, not JobBridge.)

When I saw old people lying on trolleys in a dangerously overcrowded Emergency Department, I did not speak out.

When it took me six months to get over a procedure which should have taken six weeks - because of the state of my local public hospital - I did not speak out.

Sitting in long queues, day after day, it was clear that fear was a motivating factor. Who wants to complain out loud, when a loved-one is waiting on a list for life-saving treatment?

When a single mum was thrown in prison because she could not afford a TV licence, I did not speak out.

When none of the bankers, developers or politicians who caused the crash seemed to face any punishment, I did not speak out.

When bankers started evicting ordinary, decent people from their homes, I have to admit I did not speak out.

When a bank which is 99.8% State owned asked for a third of the workers at my firm to be let go, I did not speak out.

When the TV news and the newspapers seemed to ignore the despair all around me, I did not speak out.

When the videos circulating on YouTube and Facebook never seemed to appear on the TV, I did not speak out.

When Irish Water was set up and the senior executives decided they were worth €200,000 per year, I did not speak out.

When others pointed out that Irish people already pay for their water, well, I agreed with them but I did not speak out.

When the people at the top of Irish Water decided to award all the plum jobs to their best friends, I did not speak out.

When there were huge question marks about how the contract was awarded to install the water metres, I did not speak out.

When people in Roscommon could not even drink their water, I did not speak out.

When protesters were hauled from their beds in 7am dawn raids, I did not speak out.

When the 'Public Order Act' was invoked against people who objected to a private company installing water metres right outside their homes, I did not speak out.

When people were arrested just for standing on footpaths, I did not speak out. 

But, when the water metres arrived, and I finally decided to go and join a protest march, I became a subversive, labelled as a member of the “Sinister Fringe”. 

When I met 100,000 others who felt like me, I was told it was an attack on democracy. That we were undermining everything people should hold sacred about Irish life.

Some people might say it's too late . . . but I’m suddenly quite glad that, at long last, at least I’ve woken up!


For journalism work, social media strategies, content writing, 'ghost' blogging, or public relations, contact Ciaran at ciaran@ciarantierney.com

A scandal of our own era

How strangely fitting it was that in the week in which our Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, was lobbying on behalf of the undocumented Irish in America an exhibition quietly came to a close in Galway which should put most of our generation to shame. 

As the Irish and the Americans toasted the shamrock, and Taoiseach Kenny made impassioned pleas for the ‘illegals' who are trapped in the USA, it felt strange to witness the last day of an exhibition which challenged the narrative of the Irish as endless victims.

The exhibition, Asylum Archive, ran at the Galway Arts Centre for five weeks. While I don’t know how many people visited over that period, it felt like a stark contrast from the St Patrick’s Day festivities to explore it in the presence of less than half a dozen attendees on Friday afternoon.

Artist Ukase Nedeljkovic examined the direct provision system which has condemned many people in Ireland to years of virtual imprisonment.

He didn't show their faces, but he captured their despair.

As I walked around the exhibition, it got me to thinking that direct provision is a scandal of our own time.

When I was younger, I used to wonder how my parents’ generation could go about their business while women were locked up in Magdalene Laundries and children imprisoned in loathsome industrial schools in towns and cities across Ireland.

Ah, but sure that was a different Ireland, and nobody dared to question the Catholic Church in those days.

Well, in the 21^st century it is awful to think that a form of Apartheid exists in this country, even if for most people it’s “out of sight, out of mind”.

Photo: FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Not in the part of Galway I grew up in, though. In recent months, as I’ve recovered from surgery, I have spent a lot of time in the street where I grew up.

Day after day, I have seen a group of about 15 children and two adults make their way along the road. Lucky them, you might think, walking to and from school with such a large group of friends.

Until you learn that they are walking together for a reason. They are all residents of the direct provision centre in Salthill and their daily walk takes them right past a school in a more affluent part of the city. It’s a form of segregation.

The exhibition was heart-breaking. It captured the frustrations of people who cannot work, who live off a tiny allowance, who are stuck in a ‘limbo’ for months and years, cut off from the rest of Irish society.

Many of these asylum seekers suffer from depression, as they wait anxiously to see if they will be deported or allowed to stay.

It doesn't tell us much about the lives and families they left behind. But it makes it clear that they don't fit in with any cozy depiction of 21st century Ireland.

The Taoiseach apologised for the wrongs caused to the victims of the Magdalene Laundries, and rightly so, but his Government has condemned almost 5,000 people to a system which virtually imprisons them for months and even years.

People who left awful lives in their native countries behind don’t have any rights because they don’t have Irish citizenship, just as the undocumented Irish who stayed on ‘illegally’ in America have no rights and are afraid to come home.

They spend day after day in hostels, unable to work, unable to plan for any kind of future in this country.

A harrowing audio told the story of a woman who was deported via Dublin Airport while she was ill.

In another audio clip, Fiona from South Africa said she found the whole system “quite disturbing”. But the system felt familiar, she said, because she grew up under Apartheid.

The system has been described as a form of racism, amid claims that nobody would tolerate it if Irish people were treated the same way as some of the asylum seekers.

The exhibition told a story of a hidden Ireland many of us never get to see, a long way from the leprechaun hats at the parades in town centres or the bowls of shamrock being handed out to the great and the good in the White House on St Patrick’s Day. 

It got me thinking. 

In years to come, will we look back on the direct provision system as a great scandal of our time? Just as young people today cannot believe that single mothers were locked up for years in the Magdalene Laundries.

And nobody did anything about it, because that's just the way things were done.