by CLAIRE MCCORMACK
When I interviewed two Irish nuns in February it was the first time any member of religious orders that ran the abusive Magdalene Laundries spoke publically. Yet, months later, reconciliation with victims appears to be far off.
DUBLIN (WOMENSENEWS)– The sit-down interview took place over two nights, behind the walls of the convent where they both live.
On the first night, Sister B opened the gates and directed me to her apartment where Sister A was waiting. I didn’t meet any other members of their religious order as I walked through the convent.
As I positioned my Dictaphone for my story for The God Slot, a program on Ireland’s National Public Service Broadcaster, RTÉ Radio 1, the nuns looked at the recording equipment with suspicion. But they didn’t back out.
It was Feb. 11, almost a week after the publication of the McAleese Report, a damning publication linking the Irish State with the incarceration of over 2,500 women between 1922 and 1996 and failing to supervise their care. In reality this number is likely to be much higher but many records did not survive.
I was there so that Irish nuns, for the first time, could comment on a long-simmering scandal over subject matter that has drawn high-profile attention, including the 2002 movie The Magdalene Sisters.
The interview was agreed to on the condition the nuns or their order was not identified because they feared the backlash that would follow if their names became public.
In return for anonymity, the nuns spoke frankly and openly about what they believed has become a “one-sided anti-Catholic forum” about the Magdalene Laundries in the Irish media. During our conversation, both stated that they had nothing personally or directly to do with the orders involved in the scandal. Nothing directly or personally, they emphasized.
They also made clear that they strongly believed the religious orders that operated the laundries had done nothing untoward and perhaps even should be commended.
‘Apologize for What?’
“Apologize for what?” demanded Sister A, her voice choked with emotion. “Apologize for providing a service? We provided a free service for the country . . . All the orders involved saw a need in society and they tried to respond to it in the best way that they could and there was a terrible need for a lot of those women because they were on the street, with no social welfare and starving. We provided shelters for them. It was the ‘no welfare state’ [a term often used to describe the Ireland of that era] and we are looking with today eyes at a totally different era.”
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