A
TOTAL of 773 Limerick women were incarcerated in Magdalene laundry
institutions throughout the country since the formation of the State.
The
information came to light in the long-awaited McAleese Report that
confirmed a direct State in the workhouses operated by religious orders
affiliated to the Catholic Church.
The
inter-departmental inquiry, chaired by Senator Martin McAleese, shows
Limerick women and girls represented nearly 7 per cent of the national
total of 10,012 women kept in the ten laundries run by four religious congregations between 1922 and 1996.
The
Good Shepard nuns, a French order, operated a laundry at Clare Street /
Pennywell Road from 1858 until 1982. It had capacity for 120 women.
Speaking
on Limerick's Live 95, Catherine Lynch, who was a 'penitent' of the
Clare Street laundry for four years, said she was sent there by a priest
at the age of 14 because she was 'bold'.
"[The
nuns] were very strict. We worked hard. You slaved. You stood all day
ironing or at the rollers. If you escaped, your hair would be shaved as
punishment,"she said.
The main findings of Tuesday's report concluded that:
Over a quarter of the women who were held in the Magdalene laundries were sent in directly by the State.
The State gave lucrative laundry contracts to these institutions, which included the Limerick Army Barracks.
Half
of the girls and women incarcerated nationally were under the age of
23. The youngest entrant was nine and the eldest was 89.
40 per cent of the girls and women spent more than a year incarcerated in the Magdalene Laundry system.
'Penitents' had to endure a 'harsh and physically demanding' work environment and many suffered 'confusion and fear'.
The
report also found that 93 Limerick women died at the Good Shepard
laundry during the 60-year span and 15 of these deaths were not
registered properly.
Independent
councillor John Gilligan, who successfully campaigned to have the women
who died while in the care of Limerick's laundry commemorated at Mount
Saint Laurence cemetary, said he's embarrassed by the Government's
reaction.
"The
State must make a full apology on behalf of Irish society who allowed
these institutions to operate. It makes me sick that we are handing over
millions to bankers while we can't even offer these women a lousy
pension," he said.
In a statement, the Good Shepard Order said it 'sincerely regrets that women experienced hurt and hardship.'
"We
were part of the system and the culture of the time. We acted in good
faith providing a refuge. It saddens us deeply to hear that the time
spent with us, often as part of a wider difficult experience, has had
such a traumatic impact on the lives of these women,"
Laundry survivors were excluded from the State's €1 billion compensation scheme for the victims of abuse in industrial schools.
The former Good Shepard asylum is now home to the Limerick School of Art and Design.