Magdalen Asylum

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See Magdalene laundry for more information about Magdalene abuse in the 2nd half of the 20th Century.

The Roman Catholic Church ran most Magdalene Asylums in Ireland. Work was grinding and unpaid, and has been considered Slavery. The last Magdalene laundry closed as recently as September 25, 1996. Around an estimated 30,000 so-called "fallen women", were imprisoned in Magdalen Asylums during their 150-year history.

Contents 1 History 2 Revelation 3 References 4 External links 4.1 References

History

Magdalen laundries grew out of the "rescue movement" in the 19th century, which had as its formal goal the rehabilitation of women who had worked as prostitutes. The institutions were named for Mary Magdalene, a character in the Bible who repented her sins and became one of Jesus' closest followers.

The Magdalen movement was quickly appropriated by the Church, and the homes, which were initially intended to be merely short-term refuges, increasingly turned into long-term institutions. The goal of reform became secondary. Penitents were required to perform hard labor, primarily in laundries, and the supervising nuns were instructed to "discourage" inmates from leaving. In practice, many Magdalen Asylums were prisons which took strong measures to make sure that none of their inmates escaped. and the supervising nuns were instructed to "discourage" inmates from leaving and encourage them in penance. The Congregation of the Sisters of Misericorde, for example, is described by the Catholic Encyclopedia thusly:

In receiving patients no discrimination is made in regard to religion, colour, or nationality. After their convalescence, those who desire to remain in the home are placed under a special sister and are known as "Daughters of St. Margaret". They follow a certain rule of life but contract no religious obligations. Should they desire to remain in the convent, after a period of probation, they are allowed to become Magdalens and eventually make the vows of the Magdalen order.

Asylum records show that in the early history of the Magdalen movement, many women entered and left the institutions on their own accord, sometimes repeatedly. Lu Ann De Cunzo wrote in her book, "Reform, Respite, Ritual: An Archaeology of Institutions; The Magdalen Society of Philadelphia, 1800-1850" (published in Historical Archaeology, the journal of the Society for Historical Archaeology), that the women "sought a refuge and a respite from disease, the prison or almshouse, unhappy family situations, abusive men and dire economic circumstances."

As the Magdalen movement became increasingly distant from the original ideas of the "Rescue" movement, that is, to take prostitutes off the streets who would not find regular employment because of their background, the Asylums took an increasingly prison-like character, and many of them adopted strong measures to make sure that none of their inmates escaped.

Because of their background as prostitutes, inmates were regarded as in need of penitence. The women who were in Magdalen Asylums were regarded as vile creatures of sin:

"The woman who has never known the pollution of a single wicked thought - the woman whose virgin bosom has never been crossed by the shadow of a thought of sin! - the woman breathing purity, innocence and grace, receives the woman whose breath is the pestilence of hell!" [Catriona Clear, Nuns in Ninteenth-Century Ireland, p.153]

Inmates were required until the 1970s to address all regardless of age, as "mother", and were called "children". As one priest wrote in 1931: "It may be only a white-veiled novice with no vows as yet; and it may be an old white-haired penitent giving back to God but the dregs of a life spent in sin. It matters not. In the Home of the Good Shepherd the one is ever the 'Mother' while the other is always the 'Child'." [Finnegan, p.42]

To enforce order, the inmates were required to observe strict silence for much of the day. "The Rule of Silence was a major feature of the women's lives and continues well into the second half of the twentieth century." [Finnegan, p. 24] Corporal punishment was not uncommon, and passive aggression was simply ignored:

"A sullen temper, often shown by refusing food, is best dealt with by silence. When a girl wakes up to the fact that no one takes any notice, nor is troubled (apparently at least) by her self-starvation, she gets weary of her self-imposed martyrdom and learns sense." [Arthur J. S. Maddison, Hints on Rescue Work, A Handbook for Missionaries and Superintendants of Homes (1898)]

As the Magdalen phenomenon became more widespread, it extended beyond the crime of prostitution, to unmarried mothers, developmentally challenged women and abused girls. Even young girls who were considered too promiscuous or flirtatious were sometimes sent to an Asylum. . This paralleled the practice in State Run asylums in Britain and Ireland in the same period, where many people with "social dysfunction" were committed to asylums.

The women were typically committed to these institutions by family members or priests. Often, family members were told that the women had moved away and would be impossible to find on account of having assumed new identities. Without a family member on the outside who would vouch for them, some penitents would stay in the asylums for the rest of their lives, many of them taking religious vows, perhaps because the religious organization had brainwashed them.

Given Ireland's conservative sexual values, Magdalen Asylums were a generally accepted social institution until the end of the 20th century. They disappeared as they ceased to be profitable. "Possibly the advent of the washing machine has been as instrumental in closing these laundries as have changing attitudes," according to Frances Finnegan.

Revelation

By the turn of the century, the severe conditions in the Magdalen homes became publicly known. In 1993, an order of nuns in Dublin sold part of their convent to a real estate developer. The remains of 155 inmates, who had been buried in unmarked graves on the property, were exhumed and, except for one body, cremated and reburied in a mass grave. This triggered a public scandal.

The 1998 Channel 4 documentary Sex in a Cold Climate interviewed survivors of Magdalen Asylums, who testified to continued sexual, psychological and physical abuse while being isolated from the outside world for an indefinite amount of time. The conditions of the convents and the treatment of the inmates was dramatized in the acclaimed film The Magdalene Sisters (2002), written and directed by Peter Mullan.

Similar instances of abuse have been reported in Ireland's industrial schools. As a group these institutions were exposed in an RTE (state run Irish television) series by reporter Mary Raftery in 1999. Despite convening of a government Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, attempts to obtain compensation for the victims of the system have proven frustrating. [1] [2]

The Catholic Church has made no reparations to women who were incarcerated in Magdalen Asylums.

References

• Frances Finnegan: Do Penance or Perish. A Study of Magdalen Asylums in Ireland. Congrave Press, Ireland, Piltown, Co. Kilkenny (2001). Official website.
• Mary Raftery, Eoin O'Sullivan or Eain O'Sullivan: Suffer the Little Children: The Inside Story of Ireland's Industrial Schools. Continuum International Publishing Group, hardcover, 424 pages, ISBN 0826413374.

External links

• The Magdalene Laundry. CBS News, August 3, 2003. (Note: The date given in this article for the mass grave scandal is incorrect.)
• IMDb entry for "The Magdalene Sisters"

References

• Adapted from the Wikipedia article, "Magdalen_Asylum" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalen_Asylum, used under the GNU Free Documentation License