When Silence Falls

The Waterford Memories Project and the School of Humanities at W.I.T. invite you to ‘When Silence Falls’, a public event taking place at the College Street Campus, Waterford Institute of Technology. This event will commemorate the former site of St Mary’s Good Shepherd Laundry and St. Dominic’s Industrial School, and the women and children who were contained in these spaces. 

https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/when-silence-falls-tickets-22652196329?aff=es2 

Call over submissions on Mother and Baby Homes

Advocacy groups assisting people affected by Ireland's treatment of unmarried mothers and their children have urged the Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes to be proactive in inviting submissions to its key investigation committee.
Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) and the Adoption Rights Alliance (ARA) say they have discovered that people who thought they had made a submission for the purpose of the commission's investigation had in fact just met with the body's confidential committee.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2016/0728/805544-mother-and-baby-homes-commission/ 

Priest, nuns and scoutmaster ‘abused boys’ at children’s home

Three nuns, a priest and a scoutmaster were complicit in “brutalising” boys at a Catholic home in the grip of a “cruel and vindictive regime”, a court has heard. 
Details of the alleged goings on at St Francis children’s home in Shefford, Bedfordshire, were aired publicly in the trial of former carer James McCann. McCann, 80, is accused of 52 charges of violent and sexual assault on 26 boys aged between eight and 12 in the 1960s and 70s.

http://www.scotsman.com/news/priest-nuns-and-scoutmaster-abused-boys-at-children-s-home-1-4228162

McCann, 80, is accused of 52 charges of violent and sexual assault on 26 boys aged between eight and 12 in the 1960s and 70s.

Read more at: http://www.scotsman.com/news/priest-nuns-and-scoutmaster-abused-boys-at-children-s-home-1-4228162

They Promised Heaven But Led Me To Hell.

They Promised Heaven

But Led Me To Hell

 

Years In Two Catholic Orphanages
Left their Hidden Scars 

 

I wish to thank every one who said no to me
Because of them I did it myself

 

My. book goes to the publishers next Friday... I can not wait until it is printed... I want people to know the TRUTH... about what happened to us, in the catholic church orphanages

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They Promised Heaven But Led Me To Hell.  Years In Two Catholic Orphanages Left their Hidden Scars I wish to thank every one who said no to me Because of them I did it myself My. book goes to the publishers next Friday... I can not wait until it is printed... I want people to know the TRUTH... about what happened to us, in the catholic church orphanage.

 I was conceived out of wedlock, because of my mother being raped at fifteen years old. I was just two and a half months old when I was taken from my mother’s arms, by the catholic church then placed in the care of one of their Catholic orphanage. From the beginning, I was taught that my mother was sinful and that I would be too unless the devil was beaten from my soul. 

I was sexual abused in the nursery from a tiny young girl of eighteen months old by three lady workers for four years. My childhood abuse in the orphanage, is New Zealand’s shameful, dirty secret of physical, mental and sexual abuse of innocent children by nuns, lay staff, the older girls and the priest and bullying at two orphanages in Christchurch New Zealand. 

From the age of five years old I was made to work on their farm and later on in their kitchen and laundries, both at Mount Magdala – St. Joseph Girls Orphanage and Nazareth House. At night times three nuns would ritual attack me by taking my clothes off, tying me to both ends of the bed and savagely attacking me with the buckle of her belt, hula hoop cut in half and a large whip as they tried to suppress my well and to break my spirit. 

They Promised Heaven is also about my fight with the catholic church to accept responsibility for the past institutionalized abuse of children and young people while in their care and to admit – unconditionally – that there was wrong doing by the two order of nuns and the priest.

It is a story which needs to be heard and to read, I have told of the horrific upbringing in two catholic orphanages. In 1997, when I watched a Prime Television documentary exposing the decades of abuse by the Good Shepherd nuns at the Christchurch orphanage, I realized then mine wasn't the only lost childhood. 

My name will not likely be familiar to most New Zealanders but my story is one that all will be shocked to read about. Whilst unbelievable that such acts of cruelty happened in New Zealand by nuns, They Promised Heaven, But Led me to Hell... also portrays my great strength of spirit and determination. I am a mother of four and I have lived in Whangarei for the past fifty years, with my husband Brian. 

My story is one story of many worldwide... Ann 

The Church’s Lingering Shadows on Sex Work in Ireland

The Magdalene Laundries cast a long, dark shadow over the relationship many Irish women have with sex, transforming it into something shameful and guilt-ridden. While the last laundry closed in 1996, this shadow remains and is kept alive by a powerful force: Ruhama, an organisation for women affected by sex work.
Sex remains something of a dirty concept in Irish society. Though it is in the margins of discourse, it is at the centre of most people’s minds. Why is it, in an age of hyper-sexuality, that Catholic sexual teaching still permeates national school sex education? Why is it that such teaching features in our government’s policy in both overt and covert ways? Why is it that, Ruhama, a state-funded organisation, is made up of the same groups that ran the Magdalene Laundries?

http://www.universitytimes.ie/2016/04/the-churchs-lingering-shadows-on-sex-work-in-ireland/?doing_wp_cron=1473427113.8833920955657958984375 

Orphans died because nuns didn't want them seen in nightgowns

The worst thing for a child... is being alone... no one to care for you... no one to take your hand... and tell you that they care... No one to trust.. no one to call a friend.. no one to talk to... no one to play with... The child stays by herself... in a corner... so as no one notice them... They give all they have... to other children.. so as some one will like them... which leaves them open... to more bullying.. No mater what they do... trying to get some one... to take notice of them... their first thought... is to find some where... where they feel safe...
Please do not turn away from a child... you see or hear... that you know who needs help... because that child... will always remember... the person who helped them... An abused child... or a child... who is being bullied... remembers the kind words... remembers the hand... which is held out to them,,. Don't turn away... because one day... that child could be your child...  Ann

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NICOLA TALLANT THIRTY-five orphans who perished in a blaze in Cavan more than 60 years ago were locked into their dormitories as the fire raged because nuns didn't want them seen in their nightgowns.
The shocking claims are made in a new TV documentary which investigates the fire at St Joseph's Orphanage in 1943. One of the 50 children who were rescued claims that the children were ordered to say the Rosary as the fire spread from the laundry to the second and third floors of the building.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/orphans-died-because-nuns-didnt-want-them-seen-in-nightgowns-26418353.html 

Clean break for old laundry

A property investment group plans to demolish a former Magdalene laundry in Dublin 4 and replace it with 25 luxury apartments.
The Pembroke Partnership is seeking permission to demolish all the buildings at the former Donnybrook laundry apart from a distinctive chimney stack, which is a protected structure. The group wants to construct a four-storey block with four one-bedroom apartments, 13 two-bed units and eight three-beds.

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/ireland/clean-break-for-old-laundry-b8shgndx8 

Irish in Britain “failed” by Caranua and Irish institutional abuse fund says victims’ campaigner

A CAMPAIGNER for British-based Irish survivors of industrial abuse says Caranua, the body set up to help them, is failing survivors in the UK.
Simon McCarthy, a support worker for victims in the Midlands, says Caranua has failed to “address the overwhelming disparity” between Irish-based and Britain-based victims.

http://irishpost.co.uk/irish-in-britain-failed-by-caranua-and-irish-institutional-abuse-fund-says-victims-campaigner/ 

Concern over possible falsification of Bessborough death records raised in 2012

Concerns that death records were falsified in Bessborough Mother and Baby Home so children could “be brokered in clandestine adoption arrangements” at home and abroad were raised in an internal HSE report in 2012.
The unpublished report highlighted the “wholly epidemic” infant deaths rates at the Cork home and said: “The question whether indeed all of these children actually died while in Bessboro or whether they were brokered into clandestine adoption arrangements, both foreign and domestic, has dire implications for the Church and State and not least for the children and families themselves.”

https://conallofatharta.wordpress.com/ 

Irish Protestant mother and baby homes also saw neglect and high mortalities

To be poor and the child of a single mother were among the most dangerous things that could happen to you in the Ireland of the last century.

So dangerous, in fact, that now we have a Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes, established in February 2015, to find out exactly what happened to the thousands of vulnerable women and children who lived and died in 14 homes between 1922 and 1998.

http://www.irishcentral.com/news/irishvoice/Irish-Protestant-mother-baby-homes-saw-neglecthigh-mortalities.html 

Irish First Mothers on 'Today' with Sean O'Rourke, RTE Radio1

Members of Irish First Mothers who who were once incarcerated in Mother and Baby homes spoke with Brian O'Connell for the RTE1 Radio show 'Today', with Sean O'Rourke.
The women are members of Ireland's largest representative group of such mother's., They were attending the Irish First Mothers 2016 Conference in Dunboyne Castle Hotel on 27th August, 2016.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtBSbstzt7Y&feature=share

Wendy Lyon Speaks at IFM Dunboyne 2016

Wendy Lyon of KOD Lyons Solicitors addresses the Irish First Mothers Conference in Dunboyne Castle Hotel on 27th August, 2016. She speaks about the Irish Government's Commission of Inquiry into Mother and Baby Homes and human rights issues.
Wendy holds a BA in Political Science from the State University of New York and an LLM in International Human Rights Law from Griffith College Dublin. Her essay “Client Criminalisation and Sex Workers’ Right to Health”, was acclaimed by Justice Michael Peart and she has acted for a number of women in historical abuse cases, including symphysiotomy, illegal adoption and Magdalene laundries.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G0kYT32Rnug&feature=share&list=PLiY2m53pWdLfQUkINfAX-lRsrATQaphus