This article is from page 2 of the 2014-06-10 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 2 JPG
A CLARE woman and former novice nun has further lifted the lid on the hor rors faced by women in the Magdalene laundry industrial institutions.
Kildysart woman Patricia BurkeBrogan, who was one of the first people to highlight the plight of the Irish women forced to serve in the Magdalene laundries, will this week publish a memoir which detailing her time with the Sisters of Mercy.
Burke-Brogan was forced to oversee the work of more than 100 women who were forced to work in a laundry in Galway.
Her experiences with these women led to her leaving the Sisters of Mercy, and writing the short story ‘Sun Flowers’, which was the first artistic work details the life of women in the laundry.
In her memoir, which is entitled ‘With Grykes and Turloughs’, she describes first entering the laundry.
“She [the Mother Superior] opens another heavy double-locked door. A deafening noise hits us. We’re in a room with huge machines from which steam is hissing. Prison bar patterns the roof-windows. The greasy walls are sweating. There is a stench of soiled clothing. Bleach fumes sting my throat, I gasp for air,” she recalls.
“Gradually I see that the room is full of women: elderly women, middle-aged women, and young girls all seem to merge with the gray of the womb-like washing machines.”
When the 21-year-old Burke-Brogan challenged the Mother Superior about the imprisonment of the women, who were held behind two sets of locked doors, she was told that the imprisonment was to “protect them from their own passions” and that “no one wants” the women in the outside world.
The book also describes a strike at the laundry, which took place short- ly after Burke-Brogan’s arrival.
“At a signal from the two ringleaders, all of the women except from the white-capped consecrated penitents, sit down on the flagstone floor. Some hold baby cloths in their hands and rock back and forth as they sing lullabies,” she remembers.
“Suddenly, three of the consecrated penitents join the mothers on the floor. To and fro, to and fro. Mothers grieve their babies.”
‘With Grykes and Turloughs is published by Wordonthestreet Publishing and contains a forward written by President of Ireland, Michael D Higgins.