‘...it was a cruel, pitiless Ireland; distinctly lacking in a quality of mercy...’
I’ve just finished listening to Enda Kenny apologising on behalf of the state to survivors of Magdalene Laundries. I think he got the tone right; it was simple and heartfelt and did nothing to mitigate the state’s shameful role in decades of abuse. If his promises ring true and survivors can look forward to compensation and compassionate care, then it will have been a signal night for the state.
Why, oh why, though, could he not have done this a fortnight ago?
I don’t know which is the greatest emotion tonight as I write this: joy that for so many women tonight marks the end of a long battle and the beginning of a more hopeful future; or sorrow that we as a nation did not have the moral courage, the strength, indeed, to give action to the Christianity we professed on our bended knees of a Sunday, to help them through dark decades – because so many knew, or suspected, what went on behind the closed gates of convents. Perhaps it is simply deep and bilious anger that so many were subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment for simply being young and in love, or naive, or pregnant, or at risk, or any of the plethora of excuses used to justify their indefinite, unlawful detention and abuse as slave workers, for the benefit of religious orders.
Nobody who heard or read the apology could but be moved. But it will ring hollow if we fail to learn from this national shame, and treat the vulnerable, the weak and the simply different with similar callousness.
I’ve just finished listening to Enda Kenny apologising on behalf of the state to survivors of Magdalene Laundries. I think he got the tone right; it was simple and heartfelt and did nothing to mitigate the state’s shameful role in decades of abuse. If his promises ring true and survivors can look forward to compensation and compassionate care, then it will have been a signal night for the state.
Why, oh why, though, could he not have done this a fortnight ago?
I don’t know which is the greatest emotion tonight as I write this: joy that for so many women tonight marks the end of a long battle and the beginning of a more hopeful future; or sorrow that we as a nation did not have the moral courage, the strength, indeed, to give action to the Christianity we professed on our bended knees of a Sunday, to help them through dark decades – because so many knew, or suspected, what went on behind the closed gates of convents. Perhaps it is simply deep and bilious anger that so many were subjected to inhumane and degrading treatment for simply being young and in love, or naive, or pregnant, or at risk, or any of the plethora of excuses used to justify their indefinite, unlawful detention and abuse as slave workers, for the benefit of religious orders.
Nobody who heard or read the apology could but be moved. But it will ring hollow if we fail to learn from this national shame, and treat the vulnerable, the weak and the simply different with similar callousness.
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