Insight: Victim feels let down by child abuse inquiry

When Helen Holland talks about the abuse she suffered at the hands of nuns and priests at Nazareth House in Kilmarnock it is as if she has been transported back into her childhood.
She may be sitting serenely in her home in Dunbartonshire – her long hair twisted in a Rapunzel coil, her two Yorkshire Terriers dozing in her lap – but the pain of what happened to her and the way it made her feel – unwanted, unloved, unworthy – has not been blunted by the passage of time.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/insight-victim-feels-let-down-by-child-abuse-inquiry-1-4173763 

Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry: Questions remain as public hearings end

Public hearings at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry have ended after two and a half years.

The chairman of the inquiry, Sir Anthony Hart, is due to hand over his report to Stormont by next January.  The hundreds of testimonies of the past two and a half years at the inquiry have changed a chapter in the history of Northern Ireland society.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-northern-ireland-36747652?post_id=10204672433356106_10207066760532789#_=_ 

NUN ABUSE: A Survivor’s Message for the Vatican

I remembered back to this past spring. I’d just hung up the phone. It was late and the conversation with yet another clergy abuse survivor had zapped my strength and spirit as they’d recounted to me the horrors of their youth. I looked to the clock and knew I should be heading to bed because tomorrow was Easter. Easter. The celebratory feast day that millions of Catholics would spend rejoicing and celebrating the resurrection of Jesus.

I also knew that the survivor I’d just spoken with would not be attending Church tomorrow; instead the victim of clergy abuse would struggle to get out of bed and spend most of the day weeping ...

Just as I know; Jesus weeps.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/kim-michele-richardson/apology-and-accountabilit_b_721489.html

Hogan Lovells works pro bono in Irish Mother and Baby Homes investigation

Independent commission to look into the treatment of unmarried mothers and infant mortality International firm Hogan Lovells is to provide pro bono support to mothers and adopted people giving evidence to an independent investigation into Irish Mother and Baby Homes.
Working in collaboration with the Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA) and Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR), Hogan Lovells lawyers will assist in the preparation of witness statements to be sent to Ireland's Commission of Investigation.

http://www.solicitorsjournal.com/news/family/children/26792/hogan-lovells-works-pro-bono-irish-mother-and-baby-homes-investigation

Raftery helped to lift lid on abuse

FEARLESS” is one word that sums up the approach of the late Mary Raftery, the woman who shone a light on so many dark corners of Irish society, including the scandal of the Magdalene Laundries.
Add to that the word “effective” and you will get a notion of the legacy she left behind when she died in January of last year at the age of 54.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/raftery-helped-to-lift-lid-on-abuse-221771.html 

Magdalene Laundries in Ireland

The Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, also known as Magdalene asylums, were institutions, generally run by Roman Catholics, that operated from the 18th to the late 20th centuries. They were run ostensibly to house "fallen women". An estimated 30,000 women were confined in these institutions in Ireland. In 1993, a mass grave containing 155 corpses was uncovered in the convent grounds of one of the laundries.^[1] This led to media revelations about the operations of the secretive institutions. A formal state apology was issued in 2013, and a £50 million compensation scheme for survivors was set up, to which the Catholic Church has refused to contribute.<sup>[2]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magdalene_Laundries_in_Ireland</sup> 

Before It’s Too Late: Local Prof Speaks to Survivors of Magdalene Laundries

A sociology professor with Memorial University Grenfell Campus is researching a shocking and painful part of recent history which few people are even aware of; the Magdalene Laundries.
The laundries started out as an attempt by the Roman Catholic church to reform so-called wayward and incorrigible women. They were originally intended as a short-term experience to teach women a trade and change their path in life.

http://vocm.com/news/before-its-too-late-local-prof-speaks-to-survivors-of-magdalene-laundries/ 

Bessborough Mother and Baby Home: It’s time these women’s voices are finally heard

A previously unpublished report by the HSE in 2012 examined Bessborough’s own records. The in-depth findings and conclusions are damning. Conall Ó Fátharta reports FOR years, places like Bessborough Mother and Baby Home were spoken of in hushed tones.
For generations of Irish people, they were places where thousands of women and girls were sent when they had “a problem”. They went in pregnant and came out alone, some after spending years locked away.  Some left only to be moved to other institutions and Magdalene laundries. Most were never the same. Their voices were never heard.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/special-investigation-bessborough-mother-and-baby-home-its-time-these-womens-voices-are-finally-heard-334069.html 

Irish campaigner releases powerful video calling the nation to action

Inspired by the 1916 Centenary, Ruairí - who is originally from Cavan - enlisted the help of filmmaker Myles O’Reilly to make the visually stunning clip that explores Ireland’s past and present, our faults and our strengths - and our nation’s potential for greatness.
Musician Colm Mac Con Iomaire provided a fittingly soaring score to accompany Ruairi’s call to action which he says started out as a personal reflection, "a way of trying to capture how I feel about the state of the nation and our role as citizens".

http://www.irishexaminer.com/examviral/real-life/irish-campaigner-releases-powerful-video-calling-the-nation-to-action-394295.html 

Ireland’s generation of stolen children deserve to know who they are

All of us stolen babies of the catholic church orphanages worldwide... need to know our birth rights... we were called orphans from the time we could walk and talk... but we were not orphans... we were stolen from our mother's arms... by St. Vincent De' Paul... who were working for the catholic church... our mother had no say... they could not fight the catholic church alone... there neesd to be an apology... from the catholic church worldwide... to us men and women... who were stolen from our mothers... I hear and see about the mothers... but what about us babies who were stolen right out of our mother's arms... there is so much more I want to say... sorry but I can not... it is too upsetting for me...  Ann

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IF we did not deprive them of life, we deprived them of their identity. That is the hard truth about our relationship with “illegitimate” children which Stephen Frears’s film Philomena makes us face.
Some years we killed half of the “illegitimate” babies we got our hands on. In 1930, the year the Sean Ross Mother and Baby Home opened in Roscrea, 60 babies died out of a total of 120. That’s an infant mortality rate of 50%, more than four times higher than in the general population.

http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/columnists/victoria-white/irelands-generation-of-stolen-children-deserve-to-know-who-they-are-248731.html

Ireland’s generation of stolen children deserve to know who they are

IF we did not deprive them of life, we deprived them of their identity. That is the hard truth about our relationship with “illegitimate” children which Stephen Frears’s film Philomena makes us face.
Some years we killed half of the “illegitimate” babies we got our hands on. In 1930, the year the Sean Ross Mother and Baby Home opened in Roscrea, 60 babies died out of a total of 120. That’s an infant mortality rate of 50%, more than four times higher than in the general population. 

http://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/columnists/victoria-white/irelands-generation-of-stolen-children-deserve-to-know-who-they-are-248731.html

'What happened is horrific’

Survivors of Magdalene Laundries deserve peace after years of suffering. It’s often gut-wrenching, but Dr. Rie Croll says there’s a sense of “urgency” in her research aimed at collecting stories of women forcibly confined in female-only laundries and reformatories before “they are forever lost to history.” 

Her current research brings together stories of women from Ireland, Canada and Australia who spent time in institutions known as Magdalene Laundries. Many of these facilities were run by various orders of Roman Catholic nuns. The laundries operated from as early as the 18th Century before the last one closed in Dublin, Ireland 20 years ago.

http://www.thewesternstar.com/Living/2016-07-04/article-4576383/What-happened-is-horrific%26rsquo%3B/1