"YOU were classed as nothing, you were told you came from nothing and you would always go back to being nothing."
This was how Josephine Meade described her time in a Magdalene Laundry, in a documentary which airs on TG4 tonight.
Two years after it was originally launched at the Galway Film Fleadh in 2009, The Forgotten Maggies is the only Irish-made documentary which tackles the plight of those incarcerated in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries.
Following 15 legal changes to the documentary, it examines the experiences of Maureen Sullivan (Carlow), Kathleen Legg (Tipperary), Mary Condon (Waterford), Josephine Meade (Cork), Mary Collins (Cork), Mary Smyth (Dublin), Maureen Taylor (Dublin) and Mary King (Longford), who come together for the first time to reveal their suffering while resident in the laundries.
The documentary highlights the shocking treatment of the women at the hands of the religious orders who ran the laundries as well as exposing how the Church and state colluded by admitting the women to work in the laundries against their will and for no pay.
The programme also looks at what happened to the women when they left the laundries and what happened to those who died within their confines.
A grave digger who worked in the one of the laundries describes how the woman who had the misfortune to die in the laundries were merely forgotten about.
"They were forgotten about, just completely forgotten about. Just stuck in a hole and that’s it, finished," he said.
The documentary describes how none of the women imagined they would be kept as prisoners, against their will and forced into slave labour.
One of those incarcerated in a laundry, Marina Gambold described how even her own family could not recognise her when they came to look for her.
"My brother didn’t know me when he came to look for me... I was skin and bone, skin and bone I was."
Josephine Meade outlined that even questioning the laundries and where people had gone was something that was not tolerated.
Mary Smyth perhaps best sums up the impact of the laundries on the woman forced to work in them when she describes how they were robbed of a lifetime of opportunity.
"Who gives these people the right to take people’s lives away? Who gives these people, the Church and state the power?.. they took my mother’s life, they took my own life, they took the children I should have had."
The Forgotten Maggies will be aired tonight on TG4 at 9.30pm.
Two years after it was originally launched at the Galway Film Fleadh in 2009, The Forgotten Maggies is the only Irish-made documentary which tackles the plight of those incarcerated in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries.
Following 15 legal changes to the documentary, it examines the experiences of Maureen Sullivan (Carlow), Kathleen Legg (Tipperary), Mary Condon (Waterford), Josephine Meade (Cork), Mary Collins (Cork), Mary Smyth (Dublin), Maureen Taylor (Dublin) and Mary King (Longford), who come together for the first time to reveal their suffering while resident in the laundries.
The documentary highlights the shocking treatment of the women at the hands of the religious orders who ran the laundries as well as exposing how the Church and state colluded by admitting the women to work in the laundries against their will and for no pay.
The programme also looks at what happened to the women when they left the laundries and what happened to those who died within their confines.
A grave digger who worked in the one of the laundries describes how the woman who had the misfortune to die in the laundries were merely forgotten about.
"They were forgotten about, just completely forgotten about. Just stuck in a hole and that’s it, finished," he said.
The documentary describes how none of the women imagined they would be kept as prisoners, against their will and forced into slave labour.
One of those incarcerated in a laundry, Marina Gambold described how even her own family could not recognise her when they came to look for her.
"My brother didn’t know me when he came to look for me... I was skin and bone, skin and bone I was."
Josephine Meade outlined that even questioning the laundries and where people had gone was something that was not tolerated.
Mary Smyth perhaps best sums up the impact of the laundries on the woman forced to work in them when she describes how they were robbed of a lifetime of opportunity.
"Who gives these people the right to take people’s lives away? Who gives these people, the Church and state the power?.. they took my mother’s life, they took my own life, they took the children I should have had."
The Forgotten Maggies will be aired tonight on TG4 at 9.30pm.