Ireland's Magdalen Laundries and the Nation's Architecture of Containment

by James M. Smith

The Magdalen laundries were workhouses in which many Irish women and girls were effectively imprisoned because they were perceived to be a threat to the moral fiber of society. Mandated by the Irish state beginning in the eighteenth century, they were operated by various orders of the Catholic Church until the last laundry closed in 1996. A few years earlier, in 1993, an order of nuns in Dublin sold part of their Magdalen convent to a real estate developer. The remains of 155 inmates, buried in unmarked graves on the property, were exhumed, cremated, and buried elsewhere in a mass grave. This triggered a public scandal in Ireland and since then the Magdalen laundries have become an important issue in Irish culture, especially with the 2002 release of the film The Magdalene Sisters. Focusing on the ten Catholic Magdalen laundries operating between 1922 and 1996, Ireland's Magdalen Laundries and the Nation's Architecture of Containment offers the first history of women entering these institutions in the twentieth century. Because the religious orders have not opened their archival records, Smith argues that Ireland's Magdalen institutions continue to exist in the public mind primarily at the level of story (cultural representation and survivor testimony) rather than history (archival history and documentation). Addressed to academic and general readers alike, James M. Smith's book accomplishes three primary objectives. First, it connects what history we have of the Magdalen laundries to Ireland's “architecture of containment” that made undesirable segments of the female population such as illegitimate children, single mothers, and sexually promiscuous women literally invisible. Second, it critically evaluates cultural representations in drama and visual art of the laundries that have, over the past fifteen years, brought them significant attention in Irish culture. Finally, Smith challenges the nation―church, state, and society―to acknowledge its complicity in Ireland's Magdalen scandal and to offer redress for victims and survivors alike.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Ireland

312 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2007

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.

James M. Smith is Associate Professor, Department of English and Irish Studies Program, Boston College.

He has a B.A. in English & History from the University College (1987 - Dublin, Ireland); a M.A. in Anglo-Irish Studies from the University College (1988 - Dublin, Ireland); a M.A. in English from Clark University (1991 - Worcester) and a Ph.D. in English from Boston College (1999).

Reviews

[Pamela Paterson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Rage. That’s probably the only thing that comes to mind when I read this book. A book about the Magdalen Laundries of Ireland where society without thought sent their ‘fallen’ women, the victims of rape, incest and even young girls who might breed temptation in the other sex. A place where they were forgotten, forced into slave labor with no idea when there sentence would end. Rage because of sentences like “Alice disowned at 16 spent 56 years in the laundry before dying in closely veiled silence”. Rage when I read an interview with the Reverend Mother when ask about the consequences for the men and she says “yes its terrible that he is able to marry, live and die in respectability.......” while trying to justify that “life in these laundries is beautiful and peaceful......”. Rage at the State, the Catholic Church, the families and society for allowing these laundries to operate right up until 1996 announcing the closure only due to the fact at it was no longer financially viable to continue. Rage when in 1993, 155 remains are exhumed and they cannot name almost 40 of the remains and the women of the last operating laundry are denied the right to go to the reburial of those women. I could go on and on but what about the book itself.

In part 1 the author asked the reader to try to remain impartial as he lays out the facts and as you can see from the above paragraph I cannot do that but he can and he gives in-depth detail of how these laundries came about, how the state was complicit in allowing the Catholic Church to run them without any state intervention or inspection. He details the bills that were past that lead to the opening of these laundries and how as the rest of the world were closing their homes for unwed mothers, Ireland was doing the opposite.

Part 2 of the book takes you to the cultural impact of how these laundries were seen by the rest of the world when the release of the play called ‘Elipsed’ by Patricia Burke Brogan was released opening the country’s eyes. A series of documentaries were release from various countries try to discover who is culpable, each one highlighting a different culprit. We learn that these documentaries and films were done through the survivor accounts and through research as the Catholic Church still fails to acknowledge or release any documentation regarding the inmates of the Magdalen Laundries. Nor have the survivors had an apology or recompensation for what happened to them.

The whole book left me saddened and enraged, mainly because we will continue to repeat history because we fail to acknowledge it. We fail to put up our hands up and say ‘Yes we did that’ but we know better now. We fail to teach it as part of our history, but maybe if we did then our children and grandchildren might realize that those are the horrors they don’t want to repeat.

[Jory · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good and suitably academic. The only thing I was missing was slightly better critical analysis of the media he presents in the latter half -- like, his critique of Eclipsed was good, but it was rather one sided in that he didn't present any arguments "against" the play so to speak or any flaws in its portrayal of life inside a laundry... which wasn't necessarily essential but clearly bubbled under the surface and therefore could have improved the latter half of the book a little.

[Rachel Kelly · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic examination of the Magdalen laundries that calls for not only the church to recognise its involvement but also the state and the family.

[Nick Garbutt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Magdalen Laundries makes for an upsetting and difficult read – an analysis of the cruel and inhuman way that Ireland dealt with “fallen” women and their offspring post-independence.
As the new nation emerged it chose to assert its moral purity, in contrast no doubt to that of England.
Smith’s book is important – it needed to be written but I found it a struggle to get through, not just because of the topic but also because it is a re-working of a doctoral paper and thus peppered with academic language which I find annoying.
Smith, understandably perhaps, struggles to mask his own anger which bubbles to the surface throughout and is embodied by the book's sub title "the nation's architecture of containment" which encapsulates the purpose of confining unmarried mother's and their children in secure institutions, sometimes for life.