Just days ahead of the screening of ‘The Forgotten Maggies’, victim Maureen O’Sullivan speaks openly to Lynda Murphy about life in a New Ross Magdalene Laundry.
“I still wake up with nightmares,” she whispers, as she relives the horror that was her childhood.
“We wouldn’t be got of the bed in a gentle way in the morning, just dragged out. I went to bed with burnt hands, as you would often get working in the laundry, and they’d never so much as give me cream to sooth the pain. I’d go to bed with wet rags wrapped around them and used faint with tiredness because the pain was so bad I couldn’t sleep.”
For most of us, images of the Magdalene laundries are those we have seen in films or on television but for Maureen O’Sullivan (57) they exist in her dreams, in her waking hours, and she can never forget.
Maureen was separated from her family at just 12 years of age. Having a tough time at home, her mother sent her to St Aidan’s in Irishtown, New Ross thinking at least there she was guaranteed an education.
“My mother trusted them, they were nuns, everybody did, but it turned out to be worse than I was experiencing at home. I had a right to have an education and they denied me that. I never even saw my school books again once I went in there. I slept in St Aidan’s Industrial School but I was taken to the laundry to work. They were trying to deny that until recently but they tripped up and we caught them. The nuns apologised, they said sorry for all the pain they had caused and I got an apology from the Taoiseach. It was never about the money, it wasn’t much anyway, it was about being recognised. There was wrong doing here and it should be out in the open. These were people from my own religion, my own people. How could they do this?”
Traumatised by the experiences she endured, Maureen finds it difficult to move on.
“It’s always there,” she says. “I’ve had to deny my whole life. I had to make up lies, hoping they wouldn’t be checked. I lived a life of denial and made things very difficult with my daughter. I wasn’t the best mother back then. I slept on the streets in London, but finally found the strength to enrol in personal development courses and my life started to change.”
Despite what they put her through, Maureen doesn’t hate the nuns whose care she was under.
“I wouldn’t say I hate them, more pity them. I will never understand how they could be so cruel when they knew I didn’t have anyone to turn to. I will never be part of that church again but I wouldn’t lie about anything either.
“I never told my husband and he’s dead now, and I only told my children two years ago. They always knew there was something wrong but were obviously shocked. I’m now prepared to go to the bitter end with this and want to get the truth out there. I’m still being abused for coming out and telling my story but I’m hoping I’ve made the right decision. The abuse just goes on and on, it never stops.”
