Thunderblaster
31/12/2008, 11:21 AM
I was watching a film on Channel 4 about the Magdalen Laundries last night, and it certainly does not like to seem to be an age when women who had children out of wedlock were sentenced to a life imprisonment with labour in an asylum where silence was strictly observed during work and meals, except for an inmate reciting prayers during meals. The punishment was severe, the mildest was four strokes of the cane across the buttocks for talking. Escaping meant getting your head shaved, attempting to escape meant getting your hair pulled and cut, contact with the outside world meant 24 strikes of the leather (I counted the strikes inflicted by the Reverend Mother) and publicly denouncing a priest meant removal to a psychiatric hospital. It was based on a true story in 1960's Ireland where anybody that did anything outside of the conformity of the Church were subject to public humiliation, shunning and eternal damnation. As we all know, the last of the launderettes were closed in 1996, but it left a legacy. The film, although I read about the stories, gave a major insight on the tough religious ethos that Ireland went through, with the inmates put through monotonous labour, enforced silence and personal humiliation, just to be absolved from the sin of having a baby out of wedlock. Thankfully, we have moved on from that and that people are now happy not to fear the industrial schools and the Magdalen Launderettes, and enjoy the modern life of a modern Irish Catholic.