General Chat

I'm not sure that there's a book, but the film script was written by Peter Mullan.

Hi OC 'Moral imbecile' Yes that was the term I was looking for. My understanding at the time was that there was older woman in all the institutions comitted for having babies out of wedlock. Imagine it,they were not mad when they got there but after a lifetime had become completely able to function. Too awful to contemplate Regards Tania

Does any one know who was the Author of the book please June..

They were allowed to keept the women in the Laundries for years after their babies were born because, in Southern Ireland anyway, religion is above the Law. Any woman in S.Ireland, let alone an unmarried pregnant woman, had very very few legal rights, and there was no-one who would dare to challenge the authority of the Church. Why can the Nuns not be called to book? Because - many girls were entered under a fictitious name and therefore no records exist. My friend was in the Laundry, at Highgate in North London in the early 60s. She told me that she was given a false name - the Nuns told her that this was to avoid further shame being reflected on her poor family, and also to ensure that when she eventually left the Laundry, she could leave her sinful past behind and no-one could possibly ever know she had been there. This was God's Blessing on his Sinners - and she had to pray for his great mercy towards her, for letting her do this. Of course, God's Great Mercy aside, it also means that no written trace of her ever being there exists. My friend was released after the birth of her baby, because her husband turned up and magnanamously forgave her for conceiving this child outside her marriage....but he could not accept the child and my friend gave her daughter up for adoption. Once all the papers were safely signed, her husband laughed in her face, and took off back to Italy, taking their two year old son back with him. It took my friend two years to get the boy back and she only managed that because she is an intelligent woman and knew what to do. She is traumatised still, more than 40 years later. OC

I have seen it before....truly heartbreaking, What OC said about that old lady in the asylum was so very sad, Caz xxx

According to the writer, this was a work of fiction based on fact. Not that that demeans the story in any way. People often think that priests and nuns are somehow better than average folk because they have a 'calling from God'. The fact is that many entered the religious life because there was no economic alternative and/or it was a family 'trade' in much the same way as one sees families of any job of work, and the clergy are for the most part, just people like the rest of us - some good, some bad, and mostly indifferent. Religion has a good side as well as a bad and I don't hold anything against anyone just on the basis that they practice any particular faith, but I do prefer to refer to myself as a 'recovering Catholic' rather than a lapsed one - and please, before anyone takes offence, this is a term that was bestowed upon me by a most devout Catholic relative, albeit one with a sense of humour. What happened in the name of religions has been outrageous over the years and ruined many lives. Think too of the children who were sent to Canada and Australia from religious-order-run children's homes, small children sent to abusive homes in foreign countires even when they had living parents who simply could not look after them for some reason. The lies those children and their parents were told were unconscienable - but that's another story.

Yes I know what you mean. I'm still searching for descendants of my dad's brother and sister. He was born in 1920 after a gap of 11 years between his sister. When he was alive he said he knew nothing about her or his brother who was born in 1904; seemed very loathe to talk about them. Oh all that missing info that I never asked when he was alive.! Sylvx

Yes Sylvia I often wonder why she was there and why she had missing years she never got her age right. She told everyone she ran away when she was 15 but she was 19 but couldn't read or write. So that may account for it. From what I have been told there was a some conflict with her parents but my Aunty went to see the family some 30 years or more later and he thinks Granny went with her so they must have made up. I often wonder why she couldn't read and write as according to census etc. the rest of the children could. Oh I wonder what she could tell us I was only a baby when she died. Germaine x

Your family story is truly amazing Germaine!! Sylvx

Snow White and Sandy how my heart goes out to you. I too used to say when I saw programmes like this it made me ashamed of my religion ( I too am lapsed Catholic) My Mum told me my Granny was in a convent in Irleand ( I have no idea why she was there) My cousins here knew she ran away from Ireland to USA but a cousin in Ireland was certain I was mistaken till I showed her the Ellis Island entry which stated where she was from and how her sister had paid her fare. But she ran away to her sister in USA in 1897. She then came to live here in UK. Here she had a child out of wedlock but fostered this child though she was very much the part of family .My Mum being born at the foster families home even after Granny had married. I do often wonder if she had been put there because a child was involved and if so what happened to this child. She stayed with her faith though but didn't marry in the church all her children were brought up RC. I do think that some of these priests and nuns used to Church as a cover for there evil ways all were not like that. Also think a lot was covered up because the church didn't want the publicity so I think the ones that kept quiet were as bad. May I tell you a little tale of one of my Mum's cousins . He joined a monestry as a Monk one day a beggar went to the gate and he gave him some old food. Oh did he get into bother being told that food should have been for the pigs and not to feed the beggars. Needless to say he left the brotherhood though did stay with his faith. Germaine x

What I cant understand is why could they keep them there after their babies was born ?

...and you just keep thinking like that Snow White.... Love and light Sylvx

I'm a male and it tore me up - have to ask where were the fathers sent or did the Catholic Church think they were all virgin births? Abusing priests and these institutions and the world still fights for their 'religions' it beggars belief.

Very brave Snow White. How I agree with you Sandie. One of my mother's sisters got a pregnant in 1944 - had to have the baby adopted - 'what would the priest/neighbours/family say.....' Good Catholic family? huh.... gives food for thought. Sylvx

I've seen something like this before, Hubby is catholic of Irish descent and i remember his mum saying how cruel the nuns were went she went to school,unshoed, in the early 1900.s in Ireland Hubby went to convent school in the 1930/40.s in North London & the nuns were still at it then ,he was terrified of em

How I agree with you Aileen re organised religions. Having been baptised and brought up a Catholic until my late teens (when I rebelled) I look back now and see it (not only Catholicism either) as a form of brainwashing which, as you say, goes on from the cradle to the grave. Free will doesn't come into it. Sylvx

These laundries were initially set up in the 1880s mainly for prostitutes. I think it was between the 1960s and until the last one was closed down in 1996 that about 30,000 girls/women were sent there and subjected to what really was cruel slave labour. Many never escaped and became so institutionalised that they ended their days in these hell holes because they couldn't cope with the real world. Wasn't it when one of these places was sold off to a development company that they unearthed the corpses of about 130 women in a mass grave who were never even given a Christian buriel. Another reason for the demise of these hell holes in Ireland especially was the invention of the washing machine! Beggars belief. I don't believe in religions where they have you from the cradle to the grave and every aspect of your life is ruled by what interpretation is put on them by another human being. Aileen xxx

Hi Aileen,Ive seen it . Its such a terrible story and made worse by the fact that its true. My friend was put into a similar place(In Ireland) the stories she told me were horrific. to say these people were of god is unbelievable,evil,evil people! Roxanne xx

Yes I did. I read the book a while ago.... dreadful - and people sometimes wonder why I'm a lapsed Catholic... Sylvx

Its a case of 'Mans inhumanity to man'( substitute woman for man )