A Dublin Magdalene Laundry - by Mark Coen & Katherine O'Donnell & Maeve O'Rourke (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

Towards the end of the 20th century, the decades of abuse and neglect perpetrated in Ireland's comprehensive carceral network began finally to be exposed. The mistreatment endured by children and others on the margins of Irish society, notably women, in these orphanages, reformatory schools, industrial schools, psychiatric hospitals, County Homes, Mother and Baby Homes, adoption agencies and Magdalene Laundries now attracts increasing investigation and scholarship. Bringing together contributions from leading experts across a broad range of disciplines, including history, philosophy, law, archaeology, criminology, accounting and architecture, this book offers a comprehensive exploration of the Magdalene system through a close study of Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry in Dublin.

To date, the Justice for Magdalenes Research group has recorded the names of 315 women and girls who died at Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry.

By focusing on this one institution-on its ethos, development, operation and built environment, and the lives of the girls and women held there-this book reveals the underlying framework of Ireland's wider system of institutionalisation. The analysis includes a focus on the privatisation and commodification of public welfare, reproductive injustice, institutionalised misogyny, class prejudice, the visibility of supposedly 'hidden' institutions and the role of oral testimony in reconstructing history. In undertaking such a close study, the authors uncover truths missing from the state's own investigations; shed new light on how these brutal institutions came to have such a powerful presence in Irish society, and highlight the significance of their continuing impact on modern Ireland.

Review Quotes

"A Dublin Magdalene Laundry is not only an excellent, well-documented account of one of the biggest Magdalene Laundries in Ireland ... It analyses the social, cultural, religious, and political ideologies, as well as the class and gender biases that contributed to the construction of a deeply patriarchal society ... The book also gives a voice to survivors, something that official enquiries have denied them. For all these reasons, it constitutes an important contribution for those researchers, survivors, and members of the general public interested in Irish history, historical abuse, institutional violence against women and children, and processes of transitional justice. a national identity based on sexual morals that placed a burden on women's lives, bodies, and sexuality." --Estudios Irlandeses

"Collectively, this body of work unpacks the still-too-recent history of a carceral state of neocolonial institutions funded by the state and ruled by the church, imprisoning women and generating Ireland's infant diaspora." --Adoption & Culture

"One of the remarkable achievements of this book is the amount of detail that the writers managed to gather without access to the archives of the Religious Sisters of Charity [...] through [the writers'] work, the voice of survivors of the institution is given the prominence and respect it deserves" --History Ireland

About the Author

Mark Coen is a Lecturer in Law at University College Dublin, Ireland. His historical research has been published in the American Journal of Legal History and the Law and History Review. He is the sole editor of The Offences Against the State Act at 80: A Model Counter-Terrorism Act? (Hart, 2021).

Katherine O'Donnell is Professor, History of Ideas, at UCD School of Philosophy University College Dublin, Ireland, and is a member of the Justice for Magdalenes Research group. She is also co-author of Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice (Bloomsbury/I.B. Tauris, 2021).

Maeve O'Rourke is Assistant Professor of Human Rights at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, School of Law, University of Galway, Ireland, and a member of the Justice for Magdalenes Research group. She is also co-author of Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries: A Campaign for Justice (Bloomsbury/I.B. Tauris, 2021).