Author: Rebecca Lea McCarthy
Publisher: McFarland
ISBN: 0786455802
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 271
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Book Description
The convents, asylums, and laundries that once comprised the Magdalene institutions are the subject of this work. Though originally half-way homes for prostitutes in the Middle Ages, these homes often became forced-labor institutions, particularly in Ireland. Examining the laundries within the context of a growing world capitalist economy, the work argues that the process of colonization, and of defining a national image, determined the nature and longevity of the Magdalene Laundries. This process developed differently in Ireland, where the last laundry closed in 1996. The book focuses on the devolution of the significance of Mary Magdalene as a metaphor for the organization: from an affluent, strong supporter of Jesus to a simple, fallen woman.
Author: James M. Smith
Publisher: University of Notre Dame Pess
ISBN: 0268182183
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
The Magdalen laundries were workhouses in which many Irish women and girls were effectively imprisoned because they were perceived to be a threat to the moral fiber of society. Mandated by the Irish state beginning in the eighteenth century, they were operated by various orders of the Catholic Church until the last laundry closed in 1996. A few years earlier, in 1993, an order of nuns in Dublin sold part of their Magdalen convent to a real estate developer. The remains of 155 inmates, buried in unmarked graves on the property, were exhumed, cremated, and buried elsewhere in a mass grave. This triggered a public scandal in Ireland and since then the Magdalen laundries have become an important issue in Irish culture, especially with the 2002 release of the film The Magdalene Sisters. Focusing on the ten Catholic Magdalen laundries operating between 1922 and 1996, Ireland's Magdalen Laundries and the Nation's Architecture of Containment offers the first history of women entering these institutions in the twentieth century. Because the religious orders have not opened their archival records, Smith argues that Ireland's Magdalen institutions continue to exist in the public mind primarily at the level of story (cultural representation and survivor testimony) rather than history (archival history and documentation). Addressed to academic and general readers alike, James M. Smith's book accomplishes three primary objectives. First, it connects what history we have of the Magdalen laundries to Ireland's “architecture of containment” that made undesirable segments of the female population such as illegitimate children, single mothers, and sexually promiscuous women literally invisible. Second, it critically evaluates cultural representations in drama and visual art of the laundries that have, over the past fifteen years, brought them significant attention in Irish culture. Finally, Smith challenges the nation—church, state, and society—to acknowledge its complicity in Ireland's Magdalen scandal and to offer redress for victims and survivors alike.
Author: V.S. Alexander
Publisher: Kensington
ISBN: 1496706129
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 305
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Book Description
Dublin, 1962. Within the gated grounds of the convent of The Sisters of the Holy Redemption lies one of the city’s Magdalen Laundries. Once places of refuge, the laundries have evolved into grim workhouses. Some inmates are “fallen” women—unwed mothers, prostitutes, or petty criminals. Most are ordinary girls whose only sin lies in being too pretty, too independent, or tempting the wrong man. Among them is sixteen-year-old Teagan Tiernan, sent by her family when her beauty provokes a lustful revelation from a young priest. Teagan soon befriends Nora Craven, a new arrival who thought nothing could be worse than living in a squalid tenement flat. Stripped of their freedom and dignity, the girls are given new names and denied contact with the outside world. The Mother Superior, Sister Anne, who has secrets of her own, inflicts cruel, dehumanizing punishments—but always in the name of love. Finally, Nora and Teagan find an ally in the reclusive Lea, who helps them endure—and plot an escape. But as they will discover, the outside world has dangers too, especially for young women with soiled reputations. Told with candor, compassion, and vivid historical detail, The Magdalen Girls is a masterfully written novel of life within the era’s notorious institutions—and an inspiring story of friendship, hope, and unyielding courage.
Author: Claire McGettrick
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 0755617509
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 248
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Book Description
Between 1922 and 1996, over 10,000 girls and women were imprisoned in Magdalene Laundries, including those considered 'promiscuous', a burden to their families or the state, those who had been sexually abused or raised in the care of the Church and State, and unmarried mothers. These girls and women were subjected to forced labour as well as psychological and physical maltreatment. Using the Irish State's own report into the Magdalene institutions, as well as testimonies from survivors and independent witnesses, this book gives a detailed account of life behind the high walls of Ireland's Magdalene institutions. The book offers an overview of the social, cultural and political contexts of institutional survivor activism, the Irish State's response culminating in the McAleese Report, and the formation of the Justice for Magdalenes campaign, a volunteer-run survivor advocacy group. Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries documents the ongoing work carried out by the Justice for Magdalenes group in advancing public knowledge and research into Magdalene Laundries, and how the Irish State continues to evade its responsibilities not just to survivors of the Magdalenes but also in providing a truthful account of what happened. Drawing from a variety of primary sources, this book reveals the fundamental flaws in the state's investigation and how the treatment of the burials, exhumation and cremation of former Magdalene women remains a deeply troubling issue today, emblematic of the system of torture and studious official neglect in which the Magdalene women lived their lives. The Authors are donating all royalties in the name of the women who were held in the Magdalenes to EPIC (Empowering People in Care).
Author: Nathalie Sebbane
Publisher: Peter Lang Limited, International Academic Publishers
ISBN: 9781787075894
Category : Church work with prostitutes
Languages : en
Pages : 318
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Book Description
Since the publication of James Smith's groundbreaking book on the Magdalene laundries in 2007, many developments have made the issue even more topical. Even though the lack of access to archives and records of religious orders remains a major obstacle to writing a comprehensive history of the Magdalene laundries, the accessibility of witness testimony and the publication of the McAleese report in 2013 have opened up new avenues of research and methodology. Written from the perspective of a French academic using French theory, holocaust studies and memory studies to analyze an eminently Irish question, the present publication proposes to make an assessment of the way the issue has evolved from being a media story at the onset of the twenty-first century to becoming a subject worthy of historians' attention. If the McAleese report was a formative moment in anchoring the Magdalene laundries into the national narrative, this book will show how it also contributed to dis-remembering the laundries by offering a doctored and state-sponsored version of what really happened within the institutions and contributed to preventing proper memorialization. It will show how in the absence of official memorialization, cultural and activist memorial practices have emerged and developed to ensure that this particularly painful and infamous episode in the history of the nation state does not fall into oblivion.
Author: Miriam Haughton
Publisher: Manchester University Press
ISBN: 1526150794
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 168
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Book Description
This collection raises incisive questions about the links between the postcolonial carceral system, which thrived in Ireland after 1922, and larger questions of gender, sexuality, identity, class, race and religion. This kind of intersectional history is vital not only in looking back but, in looking forward, to identify the ways in which structural callousness still marks Irish society. Essays include historical analysis of the ways in which women and children were incarcerated in residential institutions, Ireland’s Direct Provision system, the policing of female bodily autonomy though legislation on prostitution and abortion, in addition to the legacies of the Magdalen laundries. This collection also considers how artistic practice and commemoration have acted as vital interventions in social attitudes and public knowledge, helping to create knowledge and re-shape social attitudes towards this history.
Author: Frances Finnegan
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
ISBN: 9780195174601
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 288
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Book Description
Frances Finnegan traces the history of the Magdalen Asylums in Ireland, homes founded in the 19th century for the detention of prostitutes undergoing reform, but which later received unwed mothers, wayward girls and the mentally retarded, all of them put to work as forced labour in church-run laundries.
Author: Serena Burdick
Publisher: Harlequin
ISBN: 1488050996
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 383
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Book Description
INSTANT INTERNATIONAL BESTSELLER A beautiful tale of hope, courage, and sisterhood—inspired by the real House of Mercy and the girls confined there for daring to break the rules. Growing up in New York City in the 1910s, Luella and Effie Tildon realize that even as wealthy young women, their freedoms come with limits. But when the sisters discover a shocking secret about their father, Luella, the brazen elder sister, becomes emboldened to do as she pleases. Her rebellion comes with consequences, and one morning Luella is mysteriously gone. Effie suspects her father has sent Luella to the House of Mercy and hatches a plan to get herself committed to save her sister. But she made a miscalculation, and with no one to believe her story, Effie’s own escape seems impossible—unless she can trust an enigmatic girl named Mable. As their fates entwine, Mable and Effie must rely on their tenuous friendship to survive. Home for Unwanted Girls meets The Dollhouse in this atmospheric, heartwarming story that explores not only the historical House of Mercy, but the lives—and secrets—of the girls who stayed there. “Burdick has spun a cautionary tale of struggle and survival, love and family — and above all, the strength of the heart, no matter how broken.” — New York Times Book Review “Burdick reveals the perils of being a woman in 1913 and exposes the truths of their varying social circles.” — Chicago Tribune
Author: Claire Keegan
Publisher: Grove Press
ISBN: 0802158757
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 79
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Book Description
**OPRAH'S BOOK CLUB PICK** NOW A MAJOR MOTION PICTURE STARRING CILLIAN MURPHY A New York Times Bestseller • Shortlisted for the 2022 Booker Prize • Winner of the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction One of the New York Times's 100 Best Books of the 21st Century "A hypnotic and electrifying Irish tale that transcends country, transcends time." —Lily King, New York Times bestselling author of Writers & Lovers Small Things Like These is award-winning author Claire Keegan's landmark new novel, a tale of one man's courage and a remarkable portrait of love and family It is 1985 in a small Irish town. During the weeks leading up to Christmas, Bill Furlong, a coal merchant and family man faces into his busiest season. Early one morning, while delivering an order to the local convent, Bill makes a discovery which forces him to confront both his past and the complicit silences of a town controlled by the church. An international bestseller, Small Things Like These is a deeply affecting story of hope, quiet heroism, and empathy from one of our most critically lauded and iconic writers.
Author: Rachel Dilworth
Publisher: Akron Series in Poetry (Paperb
ISBN: 9781931968614
Category : Poetry
Languages : en
Pages : 0
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Book Description
The poems of The Wild Rose Asylum give to the women of the Magdalen laundries a voice that sharpens the air. The testimonies rendered here are stark yet fiercely lyrical, bearing witness to generations of lost women and lost freedom.
