0:02

Elizabeth Coppin was 14 years old

0:04

when she was put in a cab and taken

0:06

to a place called Peacock Lane in

0:09

County Cork, Ireland. It

0:11

was March 1964.

0:13

Oh, Peacock

0:16

Lane. It was a very imposing

0:18

building. It was creepy and eerie.

0:22

Elizabeth had heard of Peacock Lane before

0:25

from a nun who worked at her school. I

0:28

knew it was a horrible place because when

0:30

we were young, she used to send a lot

0:32

of the girls there she didn't like. And

0:35

she used to say, do you want to go where

0:37

so-and-so? You'll be going where she went. But

0:40

they never told us where

0:42

this place was. It could have been hell.

0:45

Peacock Lane was managed by

0:47

an order of nuns called the Sisters

0:49

of Charity. Elizabeth

0:52

says there were bars on some of the windows.

0:55

She didn't know why she had

0:58

come to this place, only that she'd

1:00

been sent there to work. It

1:03

was a laundry business connected to a convent.

1:05

My job was in the wet part

1:08

of the laundries. The floor was constantly

1:10

in a puddle. It was

1:13

always wet. And

1:15

we had these big, massive industrial

1:17

washing machines that you open up from

1:20

the front. They were kind of circular,

1:22

but they were standing up high. And

1:24

you had to fill up these

1:26

with the dirty clothes.

1:29

Elizabeth

1:29

says she worked six days a week and

1:32

was told she would be paid, but

1:34

she said she never got any money.

1:37

This wasn't the first time that she was kept in an

1:39

institution. When

1:42

she was two years old, a court senator

1:44

lived in an industrial school run

1:46

by the Sisters of Mercy

1:48

because her stepfather had been abusive.

1:52

Elizabeth was raised in the school and

1:54

rarely saw her mother. She

1:57

remembers she was often kept from her sixth grade classes

1:59

to school. scrub the floors, chop

2:01

wood, or peel potatoes. That

2:04

year, she missed about 70 days of school.

2:08

Once she got to Peacock Lane,

2:10

Elizabeth didn't go to school at all. We

2:13

had cells, and we didn't

2:15

have toilets, we had pots, and

2:18

we were locked in from the outside.

2:21

There was a big, strong bolt

2:23

on the outside, and every night the nun had

2:25

to lock that, and you couldn't leave

2:27

it until the next morning, until the bell

2:30

went. She rang a bell in one hand

2:32

and opened the, slid

2:35

the doors back in the other.

2:37

I met the girl I befriended

2:39

there. Her cell was next to me. Her name was Patricia,

2:42

and like me, she came from an industrial

2:45

school as well. And

2:47

we were the same age, and she was sent

2:49

there, trafficked there as well, by the nuns in

2:51

her place. And

2:55

we used to stand up in the window at night. You

2:58

could only open your window maybe an inch or two,

3:01

and we used to stand up there when the

3:03

lights were out. The lights used to go over in pitch

3:05

dark. We'd be standing up there chatting

3:08

to each other about nothing. We were just

3:10

talking rubbish.

3:12

Elizabeth says sometimes they talked

3:14

about what they'd like to do when they got out, but

3:18

Elizabeth didn't know if she ever would.

3:21

She said she saw women working at Peacock Lane

3:24

who looked much older than her.

3:26

It seemed that they lived their entire lives

3:29

inside the laundry. There

3:31

was two cells away. She was next

3:33

door to Patricia, actually, and

3:35

there was this old, old lady. And I'm

3:37

not saying she was old because I

3:40

was a young girl, not quite 15, but

3:43

this lady was really, really old. Her

3:45

name was Bridie,

3:47

and she used to cry out every

3:49

night.

3:51

My baby, my baby, where's my baby?

3:54

They took my baby from me, and

3:57

I heard this every night.

3:59

And I didn't understand. It's

4:02

only affected me so bad when

4:05

I've had children of my own. Once,

4:10

Elizabeth tried to escape from Peacock Lane.

4:12

Saturday was the

4:14

day you were allowed to go upstairs

4:17

to wash your hair or have a bath if you wanted

4:19

to. So I pretended I was

4:21

going upstairs to wash my hair.

4:24

But instead, Elizabeth went to a cell where

4:26

she knew there was a window without bars and

4:28

jumped. She

4:31

said she hurt her ankle in the fall, but

4:33

she was still able to walk across town to a hospital.

4:36

She planned to ask for a job there.

4:40

Elizabeth remembers talking to the nun in charge

4:42

at the hospital. She said she told

4:44

the nun that she just ran away from the Peacock

4:47

Lane laundry. And

4:50

I walked into her office, the

4:52

parlor, and

4:54

there she was with two people dressed in,

4:57

I felt they were police. And she just

4:59

waved her hand and said, go

5:01

with them. But

5:05

she wasn't going back to Peacock Lane. I'm

5:10

Phoebe Judge. This is Criminal. So

5:21

traditionally, convents

5:24

operated laundries as

5:27

respites for women who were living

5:29

on the streets to come in, work

5:32

for their keep, and

5:34

they could leave again. So there were these

5:37

kind of places of asylum and refuge. Catherine

5:40

O'Donnell is a professor at University

5:42

College Dublin.

5:45

In 1897, a magazine

5:47

called The Lady of the House

5:49

published an article called The

5:51

Sisterhood of Sorrow. It

5:54

was about something called the Magdalene

5:56

Laundries. The

5:59

author wrote... There is no

6:01

branch of state service for which religious

6:03

communities are more fitted than

6:06

in the rescue of fallen women.

6:08

These women were often felt to

6:10

be girls and women who were at

6:13

risk of falling into sexual sin. So

6:16

they were the most poor and the most destitute

6:19

of girls and women. And the theology

6:22

was that they would atone

6:25

for sins, their mothers,

6:27

their communities. And by

6:30

doing the commercial laundry would kind of wash

6:32

away the stain of sin.

6:35

And what happened by the

6:38

end of the 19th century and at the

6:40

time that Ireland was getting its freedom from

6:42

the British Empire was that the ten

6:45

Magdalen laundries in what became the Republic

6:47

of Ireland became these very

6:49

carceral places. And

6:52

part of the move towards political

6:54

independence was to keep

6:57

proving to the British Empire that Ireland

7:00

now had, if you like,

7:02

a white enough, Anglo enough middle

7:06

class that could actually do home

7:08

rule. That we

7:10

could contain corral, coercively

7:14

confine these women and their children

7:17

so that they would not be a stain or a blight

7:19

on the progress that Ireland was making.

7:22

In 1922,

7:25

at the time of independence, there

7:28

were ten Magdalen laundries across Ireland. Women

7:32

and girls were referred to the laundries by industrial

7:35

and reformatory schools, social

7:37

workers,

7:38

and sometimes psychiatric hospitals.

7:41

There's also another group of young

7:44

girls and young women who were being sexually

7:46

abused in their communities or homes. And

7:49

rather than the perpetrators being prosecuted

7:52

and dealt with, the girls found themselves

7:54

in these Magdalen laundries.

7:56

The women did the laundry for all kinds of local

7:59

businesses.

7:59

including the Royal Dublin Hotel,

8:02

the Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club,

8:05

and the French, Argentinian, and

8:07

Canadian embassies.

8:09

They wore sheets for hospitals. Catherine

8:13

O'Donnell says the uniforms the

8:15

women wore made it easy to spot

8:17

them if they tried to leave.

8:20

And one of the things we know for

8:22

certain is that the Irish police force,

8:24

the Gardeis Chacana, were

8:27

instructed to go

8:29

after and arrest, detain

8:32

any girl or woman seen

8:35

in the vicinity who

8:37

was wearing a

8:40

uniform from one of those institutions.

8:42

Were they connected to the laundries in any

8:44

other way? I mean, they knew what was going

8:47

on inside.

8:48

Yes, I think they certainly knew what was going

8:50

on. Some police say

8:53

that when they got a call

8:55

that there was an inmate escaped from a Magdal

8:57

laundry that the

9:00

older sergeant in the barracks would say, just

9:02

put on the kettle there and we'll have a cup of tea and

9:04

see if the poor girl can make it to the boat. So

9:07

yes, it does seem that at least some

9:09

of the police knew

9:11

very well what kind of institutions

9:14

these were. While middle

9:16

class Ireland for the most part remained kind

9:18

of blithely ignorant, presuming

9:22

that the nuns that had given them very good

9:25

convent education

9:27

were also being as kind to

9:29

the charges under their care in these other

9:31

kinds of institutions.

9:34

And there's a lot to say that

9:36

Irish people really didn't know the full extent

9:39

of the torture.

9:46

My name is Dicklin MacIntee. I'm

9:49

in Galwitt, the west of Ireland. I'm 69

9:51

years of age. I

9:55

was about 10

9:57

years of age when this whole

9:59

Magdal laundry was done. and scenario took

10:02

part. Tell me about

10:04

your parents, your mother and your father. My

10:07

parents were two working class people. We

10:10

never had an awful lot, but I mean, in the 60s

10:12

in Ireland, that

10:15

was the same for every household.

10:18

There was no such thing as more

10:20

than enough. But

10:22

both of them had to work, because

10:25

that's the way it was. Because my

10:27

dad's wage wasn't enough to keep the family going.

10:31

And that's how my mom got the job in the Magdalen

10:33

Laundry.

10:35

Declan is the youngest of three brothers.

10:39

The Galway Magdalen Laundry employed

10:41

outsiders who were allowed to come

10:43

and go and were paid for their work.

10:46

Declan's mother got a job in the linen room.

10:50

Here's Hugo, his middle brother. When

10:52

we were coming from school in the evenings,

10:55

we used to pass this Magdalen Laundry walking

10:57

home, because at the time it was before

10:59

buses. Now, when we were

11:02

passing the laundry, we'd be able to

11:04

see our mother through a window, which

11:07

was on the side of the street. Now,

11:09

this window had four bars on it,

11:11

as in jail-type bars. But

11:14

she could open the window, and we often stopped

11:17

talking to her. And over a period of time,

11:19

we started to talk to the girls also that

11:21

she worked with in the linen room.

11:23

Now, the reputation at the time was

11:25

if they had babies, they were thrown

11:28

into this place, right? It

11:30

was mainly based on all, if they had babies.

11:33

Here's Andy, the oldest brother. He

11:36

was around 12 at the time. I

11:38

know of a case where one young

11:40

girline was put in there because she was caught stealing

11:43

a loaf, because her family

11:45

had nothing on the table at home, and

11:48

that was the end of her.

11:50

The brothers got to know the girls and women who

11:52

worked with their mother. They used to make

11:54

little things out of this and they just readed a clot

11:57

they had from the linen. scapulars,

12:01

religious crosses, things. I'm sorry

12:03

we didn't keep them, but at the age we were, we were

12:05

in the slightest bit interested in them.

12:08

Sometimes, the brothers would sneak

12:10

into the laundry to visit. So

12:12

there was one friendly van

12:14

driver who used to put us into linen

12:16

baskets individually, lock

12:19

the linen baskets into the back of the van, reverse

12:21

into the linen room, take us out

12:24

and we'd be put into the linen room.

12:27

The brothers noticed that any time a door

12:29

was opened or closed, it had to be unlocked

12:32

and locked by a nun.

12:34

They noticed other things about how the women and

12:36

girls were treated. Well, I myself

12:39

saw the marks on the ladies

12:42

where they were beaten by the nuns. I

12:45

happened to know that in one, two

12:47

cases, the rosary

12:50

beads that the nuns would wear around their waist

12:53

which were made of wood

12:55

would have been used as an implement

12:57

with which to chastise

13:00

somebody and

13:02

leave marks or cuts. So

13:06

nobody had to sell us the idea about

13:09

what was going on. I could see it for myself.

13:13

They

13:13

were imprisoned and without

13:15

exception, every single lady in there was

13:17

under the impression that they were imprisoned.

13:21

Well, my mum was in the

13:23

midst of it and saw it every day. It

13:26

affected her. It upset her. And

13:29

she brought the stories home.

13:32

One night, their mother came home more

13:34

upset than usual. Well,

13:36

it was a conversation around the table and

13:38

she was talking about something happened,

13:41

one of the girls and one of

13:43

the nurses, she saw her

13:45

giving her a slap for nothing, you know, and she

13:48

just came home and she was fuming at

13:50

the total unchristian treatment

13:53

they were receiving.

13:54

And at this stage, myself and Andy had discussed

13:57

and said, Jesus, there's something wrong here. These

13:59

girls did not They did nothing

14:01

illegal to anybody. Why

14:03

are they in there?

14:05

I think it's down to me. No,

14:07

I'm not 100% sure. It might have been my brother Hugo.

14:10

I'm not quite sure. But

14:12

one of us suggested, why don't

14:14

we see, can we do something about getting them

14:16

out?

14:18

And

14:20

straight away both parents says, don't

14:22

be thinking like that. That's crazy. When

14:25

I get arrested, the

14:28

feeling was generally, these

14:31

people were prisoners and

14:33

the laundry

14:36

was managed by the local bishop who,

14:39

being the boss of the Catholic Church in Galway,

14:42

would have had sway over the local police

14:44

force also at that time. So

14:47

people were very scared of the bishop

14:50

and they were very scared of the police.

14:53

You know, even thinking about it was

14:56

the wrong thing to do. Their

14:59

mother kept going into work and

15:01

the brothers kept bringing it up. The

15:04

more we discussed it, the more it

15:06

seemed we might be able to pull it off.

15:11

We'll be right back. Hi,

15:24

I'm Neil Aptel, editor-in-chief of The Verge and host

15:26

of Decoder, a podcast about big ideas

15:28

and other problems. Recently

15:31

I spoke with Chris Best, the CEO

15:33

of Substack, about competing with Twitter with its

15:35

new Notes feature. And apparently going

15:38

head-to-head with Elon Musk is

15:41

not half as difficult as answering questions

15:43

about content moderation. You have to figure out, should

15:46

we allow overt racism on Substack nights? You have

15:48

to figure that out. No, I'm not going to engage

15:50

in speculation, you know, specific,

15:54

would you allow this or that

15:55

content question? You know this is a very bad response to this question,

15:57

right? You're

16:00

aware that you've blundered into this. You

16:03

should just say no. And I'm wondering

16:05

what's keeping you from just saying no. I

16:07

have a blanket. I don't think it's useful

16:09

to get into like, would you allow this or that thing

16:12

on sub-stack? That whole episode

16:15

of Decoder is up now. It's really interesting.

16:17

You can get it in Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or

16:19

wherever you listen to podcasts.

16:22

When

16:23

you think about dinner, you're not necessarily

16:26

thinking about how to save the planet. But this

16:28

Earth Day, you can. Gastropod is here

16:30

for you with stories about why composting

16:32

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16:54

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16:56

based meats all they're cracked up to be? If you're

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hungry for food focused Earth Day

17:01

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get your podcasts.

17:07

It was around 1963 when

17:09

the Mac and T brothers had the idea to help

17:11

women escape from the Galway Magdalene Laundry.

17:15

They were around 10, 11 and 12 years old.

17:18

After talking more about the idea every night

17:21

at dinner,

17:22

the family came up with a plan.

17:24

My mother at 6pm every evening,

17:27

she could get the keys of the back

17:29

gate while the old lady went for her tea.

17:32

The Galway Laundry was in the middle of

17:34

town, which meant you

17:36

wouldn't have to run very far out the back gate

17:39

to get to a nearby road. The

17:41

plan just seemed to come together. Like

17:44

my dad had a van from the company. He was with

17:46

J.R. Porter and Sons. And

17:49

the plan was put into position and we all

17:51

had a role to play. It became a bit, I

17:53

suppose for someone like me, it became a bit

17:55

of an exciting escapade.

17:59

It was dark and that

18:02

was the plan, that it be dark. It

18:04

actually was raining which helped.

18:07

Their mother got the keys, as planned, and

18:10

helped the women slip out the back gate with their

18:12

bags. My mum

18:14

locked the door after them from the inside. I

18:17

was outside the gate to meet them and

18:19

I brought them to the gate of the church, where

18:22

Hugo, my brother was.

18:25

We ran like hell with the four

18:27

women to the gates

18:29

of St. Patrick's Church, where I was

18:31

waiting. I took two, he took two, and

18:33

we ran up a lane behind the church

18:36

up to another section of the city,

18:38

which is only about 50 yards. The longest

18:40

run of our lives, because we were terrified at this

18:42

stage. Terrified we might meet a priest

18:44

or a policeman.

18:47

The girls were terrified to hold it onto our hands.

18:51

No talk, just running. My

18:55

father was waiting at the top,

18:57

opened the doors, my other brother, Dexon, was

18:59

ready with the doors open, we jumped in, on the ground,

19:01

shut the doors, gone.

19:04

It was just a 10 or 15 minute drive

19:06

back to their house, but they had

19:08

to go past the very front of

19:10

the Magdalen Laundry.

19:12

And silence until we actually

19:14

had to pass the Magdalen Laundry going home in

19:17

the van. And

19:19

what was it like when you got the girls, the women

19:21

inside the door of your house safe?

19:24

What did you all do?

19:25

Well, we all started laughing,

19:28

because we'd pulled it off. We

19:31

knew that there could be repercussions, we

19:33

knew

19:34

or thought that we'd broken the law,

19:36

and we assumed that

19:38

by morning, the police

19:40

would be out looking everywhere for these girls.

19:43

But that didn't happen. Their

19:47

mother went back to work the next day, as

19:50

usual. There was no panic,

19:52

there was nothing on the radio, nothing in the media

19:54

or the newspapers. And

19:57

we couldn't figure this out at all.

19:59

The girls were noticed to be absent. The

20:02

nuns,

20:03

I would gather, had a meeting about it the

20:05

next day. Nothing

20:07

was said to anybody,

20:09

to my mom or anybody there. The

20:12

working day went off as if nothing had happened whatsoever.

20:15

The girls are now safe in our house.

20:18

We're

20:18

all up in the bedrooms because we had to all sleep

20:20

in the one room

20:21

because there were so many of us.

20:24

And

20:25

we talked all night. We talked about

20:27

why they were in there. They told us a lot of

20:29

their stories. They told us about

20:31

the sadness, about their wishes

20:34

and life that they never had the chance to do.

20:38

Declan remembers that the women hoped to

20:40

leave Ireland altogether and go to

20:42

England. They started

20:44

trying to make connections with relatives or

20:46

friends there. Did your neighbors

20:49

know what was going on at your house, what you were

20:51

doing? Yes, some of them did.

20:54

Some of them did because the girls wouldn't put their head

20:56

out the door. But in the end, they used

20:58

to be sitting out in the back garden so the

21:00

immediate neighbors knew what was going on and they

21:02

helped.

21:03

Like I remember Willie Welch who was a

21:06

great gardener. When he knew we had the girls in

21:08

the house, he dropped down some potatoes and some

21:10

vegetables. And some

21:12

of the girls were only in their 1920s,

21:15

maybe mid-20s. Some

21:18

of them would be smoking. And

21:20

she, the next door, used to always bring in a couple

21:22

of fags for them. And the

21:24

neighbors were very good like that, you know?

21:27

The brothers say they were all in the house together

21:29

for about five or six weeks. And

21:32

then the women and girls were ready to leave

21:34

by train. We couldn't bring them

21:37

down to the main train

21:39

station and go over because the guards were actually

21:41

watching us. Low key but they were

21:43

watching us.

21:44

So their father drove them outside of town to

21:46

another train station. From

21:49

there, they would be on their way to England. Well,

21:51

what did surprise me, I often wondered

21:53

as I got older, and I never asked

21:55

them actually, but I should have. We

21:58

didn't have any money.

21:59

And

22:00

yet my dad was able to give them the money

22:02

to go to England. And to this

22:04

day, I don't know where he got us.

22:07

There was no uproar. There was nothing

22:09

on the news. There was nothing on the, which

22:12

made us say, there's something awful wrong here.

22:14

When we did what we have to do and getting four girls

22:16

out and there's no word, there's nothing.

22:19

That's what made us stronger. And then eventually we

22:21

said to ma'am, if that's the case, we'll do

22:23

it again. So they did.

22:26

We became a little bit more professional. I'd

22:29

say we would have had the second crew. I'd

22:33

say we would have had them three

22:36

to four weeks because we were making contacts

22:38

with family and friends and the

22:40

girls that got out in the first run were

22:42

making contacts in England for

22:45

the other girls. Hopefully that would be

22:47

coming after them.

22:49

The Macintee family orchestrated four

22:52

different escapes for 15

22:54

women and girls.

22:59

Now, after the four times, somebody reported

23:01

man, somebody, the usual

23:03

betrayal, somewhere. They

23:05

discovered that it was my mother.

23:08

I don't know how they discovered this, that

23:10

it was my mother who was responsible for organizing

23:12

the escape of the girls. And

23:15

one day, I think a registered

23:17

letter came to the house and my mother wrote in the letter

23:19

and it was her

23:21

wages.

23:23

And I know it's saying that she wasn't required

23:25

anymore. The whole

23:27

family was home when the letter came and

23:30

the brothers remember that when their mother

23:32

opened it, she laughed. At

23:35

the time, it was the time when the tins came out with

23:37

Guinness, right? The

23:39

first tin of Guinness ever saw. And

23:42

they opened the tin of Guinness and never forget

23:45

it destroyed the ceiling,

23:46

you know, the gas. With all

23:48

the laughing they were doing, they shook

23:51

us. When they opened it,

23:53

the Guinness pulled it straight up and hit the ceiling, which

23:55

I thought was hilarious.

23:57

It's funny, you and your brothers

23:59

are all talking. talking about how much you were laughing

24:02

once the girls got in the house for the first time or once

24:04

your mother got fired. What do you think that was about?

24:08

So most people maybe wouldn't be laughing.

24:10

I think it was just

24:12

the comfort of knowing that we did what we said we were

24:14

going to do. In other words, the whole

24:17

thing was now finished. The ordeal

24:19

was over. And that was

24:21

that.

24:23

And obviously they couldn't do anything

24:25

to us.

24:26

But it had its hard thing

24:28

because that means my mother wasn't working.

24:33

And financially we were

24:35

affected for a good while because of it. Why

24:38

do you think your parents did this? I mean, they

24:41

were putting you

24:43

all at risk. They jeopardized your

24:45

mother's job. I mean, why

24:47

did they feel the need to get involved?

24:50

Because they were good people. And they saw,

24:53

like my mother was the type of person that if she saw something

24:55

wrong, she

24:57

wouldn't go launching a crusade. She

24:59

just do what she could about it.

25:05

Hugo says that after their mother was fired, more

25:08

women and girls snuck out of the laundry on their own

25:11

and showed up at their house.

25:13

They'd heard it was a safe place. There

25:17

were others who helped too. Catherine

25:19

O'Donnell from University College

25:21

Dublin told us that Galway

25:24

was full of people who secretly kept

25:26

women and girls in their houses.

25:30

But still, the

25:31

laundry stayed open until 1984. In 2022, Andy, Hugo

25:33

and Declan found

25:37

out that their

25:41

mother, Ina Macintee, would

25:43

be given the Freedom of Galway City

25:46

Award, Galway's highest

25:48

honor.

25:49

We went down to City Hall in Galway and the mayor

25:52

said, I'd just like to inform you where to meet

25:54

the City Council and we want to honor

25:56

your mother with the Freedom of Galway City. And

25:58

all I could do was start crying.

26:00

I was so happy. For

26:04

my mother, unfortunately my mum and

26:06

dad died 37, I think it was 37 years

26:08

ago, within a week of each other. And it's

26:11

a shame that they weren't here to receive the honour themselves,

26:14

but it was the proudest moment of my

26:16

life after my children were born.

26:19

And there's a plaque every day I pass

26:21

it on the wall beside the Magdalen

26:23

laundry, which is there in honour of my mother. And

26:26

I bless this ever and every time

26:28

I won't pass it, because I know

26:31

she sees us and I know

26:33

she's happy.

26:39

We'll be right back.

26:55

In November 1966, after

26:58

Elizabeth Coppen had tried to escape Peacock

27:00

Lane and was caught,

27:03

she was moved to a different laundry.

27:05

This one was called The Good Shepherd

27:08

at Sunday's Well.

27:10

When she got there, they gave her

27:12

a new name. None of us had

27:14

our own names. I was called Ender.

27:17

Your hair was cut short. You

27:19

didn't wear your own clothes.

27:21

The work was the same. She says

27:24

she wasn't allowed to leave, but

27:26

she slept in a dorm instead of a cell, and

27:29

they had working toilets.

27:31

Elizabeth would answer to her new name.

27:33

She hated it, because

27:36

it was the name of the nun who took her to

27:38

her first laundry when she was 14. So

27:42

she says she got in trouble a lot, she was seen to

27:44

be difficult, and eventually

27:47

was moved to a third laundry called Waterford. Waterford

27:51

was

27:53

different. She liked the nun who was in

27:55

charge, and once a month a priest would come

27:58

and host a dinner.

27:59

a party for the women and girls, a

28:02

disco party. She

28:05

says it was her first experience of happiness.

28:10

Soon after she got there, she asked the sister

28:12

in charge a question. And

28:14

I said to her, if I do 12 months

28:17

good in here, will you

28:20

get me a job? And

28:22

she said, yes, I will. And

28:24

I forgot myself. And I went, what,

28:26

you mean it? You mean it? You're only just

28:29

saying that, aren't you? Blah, blah, you know. And

28:31

she said, my God, I said I would.

28:33

What have they done to you? And then

28:35

everything spilled out and spilled

28:38

out. And

28:40

she said, no, you, as you say, if you

28:43

do 12 months good here,

28:44

I will promise you. And she did.

28:48

Elizabeth says that a year later, the

28:50

sister in charge set her up with a cleaning

28:52

job at a hospital. It was

28:55

April 1968 when she was finally

28:57

allowed to leave.

28:59

She'd spent a total of four years inside

29:02

the Magdalene laundries.

29:05

Her new job paid.

29:07

And after about a year, Elizabeth saved

29:09

enough money to move to England.

29:12

She went back to school.

29:14

She met her husband, Peter, and had two

29:16

children.

29:17

She worked as a nurse and a teacher. It

29:21

took her a long time to go back to

29:24

Ireland. I didn't

29:26

know I was in the Magdalene laundries until

29:29

I was, oh, in

29:32

the 90s.

29:34

I was in my 40s. In 1993,

29:38

the Sisters of Our Lady

29:40

of Charity sold off a portion

29:42

of their land that included a graveyard.

29:46

As part of the sale, the Order of Nuns

29:48

applied to have 133 bodies exhumed from the property.

29:55

But 155 women were

29:57

discovered to be buried there.

29:59

Many didn't have death certificates, and

30:03

some women weren't even identified by their

30:05

own names.

30:07

The Irish Times reported they were instead

30:10

listed by religious names, like

30:12

Magdalene of Lords or Magdalene

30:15

of St. Teresa.

30:17

The discovery made headlines. Joni

30:21

Mitchell, who had read about the women,

30:23

wrote a song in response called

30:26

The Magdalene Laundries.

30:29

Why do they call this heartless

30:32

place Our Lady of Charity?

30:36

Oh, Charity.

30:41

The Irish government would later

30:44

say that between 1922 and 1996, over 10,000

30:49

women and girls spent some amount

30:51

of time in a Magdalene laundry.

30:56

Catherine O'Donnell has spent years collecting

30:58

some of these women's stories. She's

31:01

a member of Justice for Magdalene's research,

31:04

an organization looking into the history

31:06

of the Magdalene Laundries.

31:08

We don't have very good information

31:11

or statistics on

31:13

lengths of stay, largely

31:15

because the religious orders

31:18

have refused to release their records. But

31:21

one of the ways in which we have found to do

31:23

census on the Magdalene

31:25

Laundries is to go to electoral

31:27

rolls.

31:29

The nuns registered the women in the Magdalene

31:31

Laundries as voters.

31:33

Catherine O'Donnell says her colleague,

31:36

Claire MacGettrick, has been going through those

31:38

records. And it seems from the two

31:41

Magdalene Laundries that out of the 10 that

31:44

Claire has looked at in detail,

31:47

just about half of the girls and women never

31:49

left. So they were there for life. They

31:51

were put to hard work for

31:54

all of their life.

31:57

At least 879 women.

31:59

died in the Magdalen Laundries.

32:02

In cemeteries across Ireland, you

32:04

can find headstones with some of their names.

32:08

In St. Finbar Cemetery in Cork, 72

32:12

names are inscribed on just one stone.

32:15

Why do you think these institutions could have

32:17

gone on for so long?

32:20

In short, these institutions

32:23

lasted for a long time because Ireland was such

32:25

a poor country for so long. And

32:27

the Church had educated

32:30

us to obey and revere.

32:33

We didn't know how to

32:35

question our critique because

32:37

they

32:38

taught us not to do that.

32:43

So there was a stranglehold, if you

32:45

like, an economic stranglehold, but also

32:47

a stranglehold of an

32:51

Orwellian stranglehold. We didn't

32:53

have the vocabulary. It was literally unthinkable

32:56

for many of us to

32:59

criticize and critique the

33:02

Almighty Church.

33:04

In 2013, the Irish

33:06

government published a report investigating

33:09

its own involvement in the Magdalen Laundries.

33:13

They estimate that about a fourth of the women

33:15

since the laundries were sent by

33:17

the state.

33:20

They reported the average age of women who arrived

33:22

in the laundries was 23. The

33:25

youngest was nine years old.

33:28

Soon after the report was published, the

33:30

Prime Minister of Ireland gave a speech in Parliament.

33:34

Survivors of the Magdalen Laundries watched

33:37

him from the gallery.

33:39

He said, As a society

33:42

for many years, we failed you. We

33:44

forgot you.

33:46

This is a national shame.

33:49

He formally apologized to the women.

33:52

And because they're

33:54

just lovely women, they rose to their feet

33:57

and they clapped and thanked him.

33:59

And then it was an extraordinary moment

34:02

when the entire chamber

34:05

stood to applaud and

34:07

thank the women in the galleries.

34:10

The government later announced it would pay each

34:12

survivor up to 100,000 euros and in some cases

34:16

provide medical support like

34:18

home help and counseling.

34:21

But recently

34:23

many of the women who accepted payments

34:25

said they haven't been given the medical care they were

34:28

promised.

34:29

Oh, what does justice look

34:31

like when you have that level of trauma and suffering?

34:35

I think there can never be enough justice.

34:41

In Dublin, the building that was

34:43

the last Magdalene Laundry still stands.

34:46

It's huge. A

34:49

few years ago someone tried to buy it to convert

34:51

it into a 350-room hotel. But

34:55

in March of 2022, the government

34:58

approved new plans for the building, a

35:01

remembrance center. The

35:04

original structure will stay preserved and

35:07

the center will hold an archive. Witnessed

35:11

testimony and institutional records

35:13

from the Magdalene Laundries will be unsealed.

35:17

It will be the first time many of the women

35:20

will be able to see the records, proof

35:24

of what happened to them. Criminalists

35:37

created by Lauren Spore and me, Nadia

35:40

Wilson is our senior producer, Katie Bishop

35:42

is our supervising producer. Our

35:44

producers are Susannah Roberson, Jackie

35:47

Sajiko, Lily Clark, Lena Silison,

35:49

and Megan Kenein. Our technical

35:51

director is Rob Byers, engineering

35:54

by Russ Henry. Julian

35:56

Alexander makes original illustrations for

35:58

each episode of Criminal.

35:59

You can see them at thisiscriminal.com.

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36:10

Or also on YouTube at youtube.com

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36:16

is recorded in the studios of North Carolina

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36:28

I'm Phoebe Judge. This

36:30

is Criminal.