Girl in the Tunnel: My Story of Love and Loss as a Survivor of the Magdalene Laundries

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Not allowed to speak, barely fed and often going without water, the child was viciously beaten by the nuns for years and hidden away in an underground tunnel when government inspectors came. Maureen Sullivan was 12 years old when she was taken from her school in Carlow to the Magdalene laundry in New Ross, in the mid-1960s. She was incarcerated because she told an allegedly sympathetic nun at her school that she had been physically and sexually abused by her stepfather for years. Nothing happened to the stepfather; her mother appeared powerless to prevent her removal. She was effectively punished for the crimes of her guardian and the compliance of her mother. It was horrendous and cruel that I went from being abused, to more abuse,” says Sullivan. “What they did to me is pure evil. I can’t find any other word for it.” The work Oh!’ She said suddenly and rummaged in her bag, pulling out one of those thin, flat Dairy Milk bars you don’t see anymore.

Cover of Girl in the Tunnel: My Story of Love and Loss as a Survivor of the Magdalene Laundries, by Maureen Sullivan.When I started publicising my case my boss was a lovely man, and said ‘you go ahead and tell your truth, and anything I can do to help you, I will’. A man for justice,” said Maureen. When she is 12, she discloses her abuse, while being bribed with sweets, to her supposed ally, a nun in her school. The nun had two choices: go to the police and report the abuse; or go to the parish priest and set in train four more years of misery for Maureen, this time in two Magdalene laundries, where she experienced physical brutality, slave labour, denial of her education and cold unkindness from the nuns who must have known the reason why this child had arrived. There is a poignant description of a rare visit from her mother and her brother (who had ended up in an industrial school). A nun sits stiffly in the room throughout the visit. There is little communication. She describes her family and herself as “three worn-out animals in the same vicinity”. It was very hard for Liosa and me, because this is very disturbing and very, very painfully to listen to and exhausting emotionally. We’d often have to take a break, maybe for a few months, because I’m still in recovery, I always will be, so I do have to mind myself,” explained Maureen. After my father died that room was left empty, except for a small table in the corner on which his billhook lay. Granny told us that my father was out riding one day and got caught in the rain. A few days later he fell gravely ill. He died three days after that. That’s how the story was told to me anyway. I feel really sad, a truly great and deep sorrow, when I think about my young mother at his bedside, with him slipping away so fast, and then at his graveside with a toddler, a baby in her arms and another on the way.

Sullivan and her fellow survivors’ campaigning paid off. In 2013, a long-awaited report headed by Senator Martin McAleese which said there was “significant state involvement” in how the laundries were run – a reversal of the official state line for years, which insisted the institutions were privately controlled and run by nuns. The Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach) at the time, Enda Kenny, went on to formally apologise on behalf of the state for its role in the Magdalene laundries, saying that a memorial would be erected “to remind us all of this dark part of our history”. I didn’t rebel there at all, I asked nothing, I kept my head down and got on with it. I had given up. I did my work, ate and went to bed. I abandoned all ideas I had of who I was or what I thought. I said nothing. I was given the never-ending job of pressing the starched clothes. Starch isn’t common these days, but it was normal then to mix starch powder with water to form a loose jelly that you would dip clothes into, then wring the mixture out and hang them up to dry. Just before they were fully dry you would press them, almost to set the starch into the cloth. Day in, day out those nuns, those women and others like them, watched me at twelve, thirteen, fourteen and on until I was nearly an adult, work to the bone. They watched me, but not only that, they made it as hard for me as they could. They made me do hard time, hard penance, for a crime a man had committed against me. Something I had no control over. If I had taken a knife and gutted Marty Murphy like I had often dreamed about, at least prison would have let me go to school. (114)

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Sullivan also didn’t know at the age of 12, that other women around her were victims of rape and sexual assault – like her. There were also women deemed too flirtatious or promiscuous, some women with disabilities or special needs, many women deemed at odds with societal expectations. She was not allowed to speak, was barely fed, and often went without water, she was viciously beaten by the nuns for years, and hidden away in an underground tunnel when Government inspectors came.