Henry McDonald

Magdalene-LaundriesThe Irish State has finally said sorry to 10,000 women and girls incarcerated in Catholic Church-run laundries where they were treated as virtual slaves.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny was forced into issuing a fulsome apology on Tuesday evening to those held in the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland.
The apology in the Dáil (Irish parliament) came about two weeks after a damning 1,000-plus page report was released detailing the way women and girls were maltreated inside the nun-controlled laundries.

3 thoughts on “Henry McDonald

  1. shinichi Post author

    Ireland apologises for ‘slave labour’ at Magdalene Laundries

    Taoiseach Enda Kenny forced into finally saying sorry for ‘the hurt and trauma’ caused to up to 10,000 Magdalene women

    by Henry McDonald in Dublin

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/feb/19/ireland-apologises-slave-labour-magdalene-laundries

    The Irish State has finally said sorry to 10,000 women and girls incarcerated in Catholic Church-run laundries where they were treated as virtual slaves.

    Taoiseach Enda Kenny was forced into issuing a fulsome apology on Tuesday evening to those held in the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland.

    The apology in the Dáil (Irish parliament) came about two weeks after a damning 1,000-plus page report was released detailing the way women and girls were maltreated inside the nun-controlled laundries.

    Survivors groups were enfuriated when the Irish premier initially declined a fortnight ago to explicitly apologise for the state’s role in sending women and girls into the Magdalene Laundries, sometimes simply for coming from broken homes or being unmarried mothers.

    In a powerful speech to a packed Dáil Eireann, Kenny made some amends for what many view as a major error of judgment on the day the report was released.

    At the end of his address, Kenny appeared to break down briefly, choking back tears as he quoted a Magdalene woman’s song to him during a meeting recently.

    The Taoiseach said what happened to the Magdalene women had “cast a long shadow over Irish life, over our sense of who we are”.

    He said he “deeply regretted and apologised” for the hurt and trauma inflicted upon those sent to the Magdalene Laundries.

    Apologising to the women and girls of the Magdalene Laundries, he told parliament that they deserved “the compassion and recognision for which they have fought for so long, deservedly so deeply.”

    He said he hoped “it would help us make amends in the state’s role in the hurt of these extraordinary women.”

    Kenny also announced a governnment-funded memorial to remember the 10,000 Magdalene women.

    As Kenny made his announcement, former residents of the Magdalene institutions held a vigil outside the gates of the Irish parliament in Dublin’s Kildare Street where they lit candles in memory of all those sent to the laundries.

    The apology was accompanied by the announcement of a fresh compensation package for around 800 women still alive who were held in the laundries across Ireland. A senior Irish judge would be appointed to oversee how the survivors are looked after.

    The compensation deal will include counselling services, healthcare and individual payments, which Dublin hopes can be implemented without the involvement of lawyers and hefty legal bills.

    Amnesty International accused the Fine Gael-Labour government of ignoring women exploited in laundries that operated across the border in Northern Ireland.

    The report, headed by Senator Martin McAleese, found that the Irish State was complicit in sending girls and women to the laundries where they received no pay. However, the McAleese report did not cover Magdalene Laundries run in Northern Ireland up until the 1980s.

    Patrick Corrigan, Amnesty’s director in Northern Ireland said: “Magdalene Laundries operated in Northern Ireland into the 1980s. I have spoken with women survivors of these institutions who now fear being left behind, with no inquiry in place – north or south – into their suffering.

    “It is clear that any new inquiry announced by the Irish government will only investigate abuses in the Republic of Ireland, while the Historic Institutional Abuse Inquiry in Northern Ireland will only investigate abuse suffered by children, rather than by the many grown women who were held in Magdalene Laundries.”

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  2. shinichi Post author

    「なにもしなかったから、謝罪する必要はない」というのは論理的に正しい。

    ただ、「なにもしなかったのが悪いのだ」と言われてしまえば、返す言葉はない。

    結局は、国家を代表する人が、「なにもしてこなかった」ことを、涙ながらに謝罪した。

    政治家は、人気のためなら、謝罪もすれば、涙も流す。それはそれでいい。

    でも、本当に悪いのは誰だろう。政治家ではない。国家でもない。そう、国民だ。

    政治家を選んだのも、国家を作ってきたのも、国民だ。押し付けられたわけではない。

    そもそも、そんな施設の存在を許してきたのも、国民ではないか。

    そして、メディア。どんな時でも、メディアは正義の味方だが、この件も同じ。

    こういう施設を賞賛してきたのもメディア。今になって批判するのもメディア。

    ペテン師のなかでも、メディアが一番たちが悪い。。。かもしれない。

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  3. shinichi Post author

    Magdalene asylum

    Wikipedia

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_asylum

    Magdalene asylums were institutions from the 18th to the late-20th centuries ostensibly to house “fallen women”, a term used to imply female sexual promiscuity. Asylums for such girls and women and others believed to be of poor moral character, such as prostitutes, operated throughout Europe and North America for much of the nineteenth and well into the twentieth century. London’s Magdalen Asylum was active from 1758 to 1966. The first such asylum in Ireland opened on Leeson Street in Dublin in 1765, founded by Lady Arabella Denny.
    Initially the mission of the asylums was to rehabilitate women back into society, but by the early twentieth century the homes had become increasingly punitive and prison-like. In most asylums, the inmates were required to undertake hard physical labour, including laundry and needle work. They endured a daily regimen that included long periods of prayer and enforced silence.
    In Ireland, such asylums were known as Magdalene laundries where it is estimated that, since their inception, up to 30,000 women had been incarcerated. The last such institution in Ireland closed in 1996.

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