Magdalenes – Maggies – and a hidden past in isolation – Ireland wanted to forget, but the dead don’t always stay buried. One woman made it her mission to unearth the truth. “The Forgotten Maggies” is the title of a shocking new documentary by 22-year-old Irish filmmaker Steven O’Riordan, that tells the stories of four women whose live were marked by their forced placement in Ireland’s Magdalene laundries.
The laundries, known as the Magdalene asylums, were first opened in the 18thcentury and they retained the explotative and often needlessly cruel atmosphere of the workhouses of an earlier time until the last one was finally closed in Ireland in 1996.
Their inmates were Irish societies so-called “fallen women,” who had most often been sent there under the guise of rehabilitation, although it quickly became clear that they would become indentured servants, or more precisely, unpaid slaves.
Although they usually came from poor familes, with no one to take their part, the truth is these women were sent away for a bewildering array of reasons, but with one end in sight: to get them off the public streets, and to literally lock them away where no one could ever see them.
Some of the women had become pregnant without getting married, some had seemed too opinionated, some had entered prostituition, some were simply considered much too attractive to far too many men and some had been surrendered for adoption as children and had simply graduated to the launderies through neglect.
The one thing all the women shared in common was that they were considered threatening to the fundamentalist Catholic state of the era. Monitored day and night by nuns who would punish them for the slightest infraction, they were deprived of all contact with the outside world: they had no TV, they weren’t allowed to read a book or a newspaper and they were hidden away from most visitors to the premises.
The focus of O’Riordan’s heartbreaking film is on four women, Kathleen Legg, Maureen O’Sullivan, Mary King and Mary Collins – each of whom tell harrowing tales of abuse and how its legacy has blighted their lives. Their anger only intensifies in the face of official disavowals from the clergy and government agencies. Even in 2009, in the face of mounting evidence to the contrary, the Irish government Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe claimed that the laundries were privately owned and operated, outside the responsibility of the State.
But how could this have happened in Ireland, O’Riordan wonders? How could so many women have become unseen, unpaid slaves? Didn’t anyone notice they’d gone missing? Didn’t anyone care? Wasn’t their plight worth recording and lamenting?
O’Riordan points his finger firmly at the Irish church, but he glosses over the culpability of the Irish people. It’s clear from the public records that the Irish Church and State operated a decades-long Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell policy concerning these women’s fates that could only have operated with one final element: the tacit assistance of the Irish people.
It is to be hoped that O’Riordan will also vigorously pursue that missing strand in the already proposed follow up to his hard hitting documentary.
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VIDEOS
Ireland: The forgotten Angels of Tuam (France)
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Directed and Produced by Steven O’Riordan with Ger Boland co-producing, The forgotten Maggies focuses on the human rights aspect surrounding the Magdalene Laundries, including testimonies from women and an exploration of the High Park exhumation where 155 Magdalene women were exhumed in 1993.
It was filmed in locations all over Ireland and the UK from 2006-2009 including Carlow, Wexford, Dublin, Kildare, Cork, Limerick, London and Bournemouth. Editing on the documentary was completed by Ger Boland. Having been originally launched at the 2009 Galway Film Fleadh, the documentary has undergone several changes due to legal reasons. This documentary is the only Irish made film on the subject matter. It also screened internationally at The Cantor Film Centre in New York in October 2009 and subsequently went on limited Cinema release throughout Ireland.
‘The Forgotten Maggies’ shed new light on the how and why innocent girls ended up in these institutions working against their will, as well as aiming to challenge the Irish Government and question the States role with regard these institutions. This documentary gave the women political recognition leading the way for the Official state apology in 2013
The Irish Times said of the documentary “The Forgotten Maggies was an opportunity to “rectify” in some small way, the wrong that was visited upon these women over many years” with the Irish Independent saying “It took the persistence of documentary maker Steven O’Riordan and his team to secure justice.”
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The Forgotten Maggies Official Trailer
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Imagine if you were abducted and held prisoner against your will: if your possessions were taken, your hair was cut; you were forced to wear a uniform and answer to a new name. For women like Gabrielle O’Gorman who were sent to the Magdalene Institutions in Ireland, this was a reality. Gabrielle tells her story, and revisits the now-derelict Institution she was sent to as a teenager.This film, made by Nick Carew, was funded by the University of Kent, and completed with the help of the Women’s Studies Centre at University College Dublin who led an Irish Research Council project on the Magdalene Institutions.
ONAFHANKLIK 