Wednesday September 23 2009
Minister for Education and Science Batt O’Keeffe officially responded to Tom Kitt’s questions regarding state complicity in remanding women and children to Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries in ‘Minister rules out redress for Magdalene victims’ (Irish Independent, September 19).
Among other atrocious comments, the minister referred to Magdalene survivors as “employees”.
One wonders what Mr O’Keeffe’s definition of an ’employee’ is.
I am sure that in the 10 years my mother Josephine spent at Sunday’s Well embroidering elaborate tablecloths and other linens sold at exorbitant prices to the tourism crowd (and not a penny received by her), instead of receiving a proper education, that she never considered herself an “employee” of the Good Shepherd Sisters.
Likewise, when she was sent to the mother-baby home at Bessboro, Cork, to have and ultimately relinquish me to adoption, all the while doing more sewing (for profit to the home), she did not consider herself an “employee”.
I have seen the scars that she bears from years spent as something less than a true citizen. The pain left her unable to even speak of her past and family history — including acknowledging a long-lost brother whom I found while searching for her — until recently.
I’ve seen the daily regimen she puts her frail, 77-year-old body through to this day, a relic of her institutional life. My heart breaks each time I read a painstakingly written letter from her, scrawled as a six-year-old child would, barely legible and misspelled, yet clearly heartfelt.
Mr O’Keeffe’s callous denial of state complicity is disrespectful and disingenuous at best. At worst, it is an outright lie and insult to my mother and to me, and to the thousands of women like her who slaved under the eye of the Church and State.
I remain unconvinced that no governing body, inspector or other authority knew what these women were subjected to and I have strong evidence to prove quite the opposite.
Give these women their day in court and let them tell their stories. They are owed redress and justice.
Shame on Mr O’Keeffe and the prevailing attitudes of the Church and State.
Mari Steed
Philadelphia, PA
(Published – Letters Page, Irish Independent.)
