Original subtitles

It is a report that has been very well worthwhile producing.

The overriding requirement was to deal with the stigma that was

attached to those people who

worked in Magdalene Laundries,

the 'fallen women', as they often were referred to.

The stigma needs to be removed and should have been removed

long before this.

But far from jumping to conclusions here, we should treat this with

the measure of calmness and consideration that it deserves.

Come back in 2 weeks and have a debate in the Oireachtas about it.

They were young, vulnerable women, imprisoned.

So the time for the apology, Taoiseach, is now.

The long awaited report into the Magdalene Laundries has found there

was significant State involvement.

The Taoiseach expressed his regret but stopped short

of offering a full apology.

I'll start by asking, are you satisfied with the Taoiseach

and the government's reaction to the report?

No, we're not satisfied with the government's reaction.

Um, there is absolutely irrefutable evidence of State involvement

in the Magdalene Laundries.

So to get up in the Dail today and refuse to apologise to a group

of ageing and elderly and vulnerable women is frankly cynical.

These women suffered the most serious violations of their civil

and political human rights, and the fact that they were women

should not influence the Taoiseach perception of what that amounted to.

It was abuse, plain and simple.

These girls and women were absolutely in the dark as to often

why they were there and why they were kept there.

The State failed to make sure that these women's rights were protected.

Then that's absolute and utter and abject failure.

(Camera shutters clicking)

Well, it's statutory based torture?

Statutory based arbitrary incarceration.

There's also significant international interest in this now:

A spotlight on Ireland.

And the news today is that there is absolute, irrefutable evidence of

State involvement in the Magdalene Laundry system,

and the State has refused to refused to apologise.

(Haunting music)

(Children playing; laughter)

(Haunting music continues)

The Irish State is guilty of torture.

I don't know what part of incarcerating women and children

against their will is not torture.

I don't know what part of separating women and children from

each other is not torture.

We have to put the State in the dock,

make it answer for the crimes against its citizens that it had

been involved in, and had done nothing to prevent.

(# Music fades)

I was adopted.

I grew up essentially not knowing anything about my own background.

Didn't even know my own name.

The Magdalen Laundry system was part and parcel of the overall system

that obliterated our identities.

In August 2003, a story broke.

It was Mary Raftery's investigation into what happened at

High Park Magdalene Laundry in Drumcondra in Dublin.

The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity had gotten into debt.

They'd also lost money on the stock exchange,

so they wanted to sell the land.

However, in order to facilitate road access, it required the exhumation

of Magdalene women from a graveyard.

The women were in the way, essentially.

There was no way to do the development without getting

rid of the graveyard.

The process began.

Everybody assumed it was women being dug up for the for the sake of

a property development, and nobody knew that there was a whole

other story happening.

From day one,

they were finding unknown remains.

There were huge anomalies.

One woman had no skull.

Over a hundred women are essentially unaccounted for.

Directly after the exhumations, the women were cremated.

That immediately made it impossible to investigate it further.

A group of concerned women got together and started campaigning,

largely for a public funeral, that at least the womens' reinterment

would be a dignified occasion.

On the morning of the reinterment, they were tipped off by a journalist

that it was happening in Glasnevin Cemetery.

It's an enormous cemetery and they just about made it on time

before the soil was put in over the urns.

Even that moment where it could have been a moment of dignity

for these women, was denied to them.

(Gentle traditional Irish music)

What the High Park exhumations tell us about the treatment of women in

Magdalene Laundries in 20th century Ireland

is that they were disposable,

treated appallingly in life, and appallingly in death.

(Slow music continues)

Meanwhile, across the complex, the nuns own graveyard was

in pristine condition,

untouched.

(Music fades)

The story of the High Park graves is what ultimately led to the

Justice for Magdalenes campaign.

We just felt we had to do something.

Little did we know where it would lead us.

(PA announcement): "Departure,

Shamrock jet flight 113 to Shannon, Boston and New York."

Catriona: I was working in the National Archives

and I found two files on children adopted in America.

I thought there must be more to this than I'm seeing.

There has to be a scheme of some sort behind it.

Nothing - I couldn't find anything anywhere.

So I did what historians and archivists do,

I found reference numbers.

Went down to the third floor where those records are,

and discovered 1740 files, each relating to an individual child,

adopted from Ireland to America.

Most of the children who were adopted

came from mother and baby homes.

I looked at the files and I found they contained one document only

relating to the birth mother.

And that was the document that she signed, handing over her child,

usually to a nun, and promising she would never attempt to see this

child again as long as she lived.

There were also 2 or 3 boxes of records relating to how the scheme

operated, mainly to do with the vetting of prospective parents in

America and details about their travel arrangements, and so on.

Children had to get passports to be adopted, and the Department of

Foreign Affairs held these files accordingly.

It was the beginning, I suppose, of the gradual unpeeling of the horrors

that had happened to people in church-run institutions.

(Rail crossing bell ringing)

(Train horn blaring)

I was born in Ireland at the Bessborough mother baby home.

I was flown to the US at the end of 1961,

so I was about 18 months when I arrived.

My adoptive father actually captured brilliant film footage of us

arriving down the stairs and across the tarmac.

They claimed I was very quiet on the flight and just ate french fries,

chips, and just didn't say anything.

Banished from our country of origin

and quite literally trafficked to the States.

Some to the UK, Canada, Australia, even a couple to Egypt, I believe.

There were very strict demands that were put in place

by Archbishop McQuaid.

He wanted them in good Catholic homes, Catholic educated.

Our poor adoptive parents had to pass a physical exam to prove that

they had not shirked the natural responsibilities of marriage.

I've spoken to banished babies who said, "No, my parents

weren't Catholic, I was raised by Protestants."

It really didn't matter about the religion.

It was about the money.

The troops are mustering.

Good morning Mari.

Good morning. I guess we'll kind of get rolling here.

I have lots of friends,

folks like myself, who have been sent to the States.

Banished babies was what we called ourselves.

How many of you? Just as a, like, rough count here,

have been able to find family.

Good, bad or indifferent?

I had a relatively happy adoptive growing up.

Went through the usual Catholic school activities,

joined Girl Scouts.

All the typical American things that you can think of.

It was in my senior year of high school,

I found out that I was pregnant,

and that caused a whole different shift.

It just erupted into, you're going to be giving this child up and

there's just no way around it.

So there I was, standing in the same shoes that my mother was

18 years before that.

When I relinquished my daughter, it brought up a lot of feelings,

a lot of, kind of a longing, like, so what about my mother?

I wonder if I could find her.

I began to learn more about my mother's history and started hearing

about these places called Magdalene Laundries.

I wrote to the Good Shepherd Sisters.

They sent me back this bizarre letter that, "Oh yes, Josie was with

us for ten years, did beautiful sewing and embroidery."

They made it sound like she had been at holiday camp for ten years,

you know, not that she had slaved away

sewing for Ireland for ten years.

So our little merry band of adoption folk,

which included Claire McGettrick, came together.

Like, "What do we do for these women?"

CLAIRE: It was about justice.

Justice for the living and the dead.

(Music fades)

Right.

In those early days, we had no evidence that the State knew that

the women were being abused in the Magdalene Laundries,

but we knew it had to be there somewhere.

We had no bargaining chips with the government.

We had nothing other than, "My God.

Why won't you act?"

Oh, I see it.

(Ominous music)

MARI: Next thing you know, we get contacted by an academic

in Boston, Jim Smith.

Claire: Jim brought evidence with him,

and it was evidence that we just simply didn't have.

(Ominous music continues)

JIM: I wrote a book, "Ireland's Magdalene Laundries

and the Nation's Architecture of Containment."

It set out to tell a partial history

of the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland.

It could only ever be partial because the religious orders

did not afford access to their records.

When I put this book out in the world,

I wasn't prepared for what was to come.

My phone rang and I literally just caught 1 or 2 utterances.

It was a halting voice.

An Irish voice.

"Are you the man?

Are you the man who wrote the book about the Magdalene Laundries?

How do you know my story?"

(Music stops)

My mother died in childbirth.

My stepmother never touched us, but she touched us with her tongue.

We were nothing, only Annie Donovan's bastards.

(Gentle music)

At the age of 14, my father took me on his bicycle to New Ross.

He didn't tell me where I was going,

but I realised I was being abandoned.

I honestly thought after being treated the way I was at home,

that at least the nuns would be kind.

They were NOT!

One time I broke out and said, "You're all bloody liars."

I was VERY angry.

She had, they were called penitents.

She had them hold me down,

and she came with her scissor and she cut off all my hair.

JIM: Catherine would stay there until shortly

after her 18th birthday.

Even in England, she was afraid that she would fall under

the control of the nuns.

So she came here to Boston.

That phone call changed my life.

It transformed a project which was academic.

Immediately it became embodied.

There was a voice, and Catherine finished that phone call,

and it was interesting, her choice of words,

she said, "What are WE going to do about it?"

In the months following Catherine Whelan's phone call, I was in touch

with a friend and a former colleague, Katherine O'Donnell,

who was at the time the director of women's studies

at University College Dublin.

Katherine had much more experience as an activist.

She was much closer to the scene, on the ground.

Hearing from and meeting survivors,

Katherine certainly provided us with a spark.

(Tense music)

When Jim asked me to become involved in justice for Magdalenes,

it was clear that we had to build a campaign on a number of fronts.

What was missing was testimony.

The witness statement, the statement of those directly affected.

So I knew that I would have to be part of that,

gathering oral histories.

(A curlew calling)

We always conducted the oral histories face to face.

We always travelled to meet the ladies, generally in their own home.

Once we turned on the recorder, these women

unburdened themselves.

And it's just this woman telling the story of her remarkable life.

Hello, how are ye?

Welcome.

You're asking me about the history of the Magdalene and my

experience of it.

Um, that's not hard to find.

(Music stops)

I have no recollection whatsoever of Tuam.

I was four years old when I was fostered.

There were two brothers and a sister in the house.

That's what I grew up with.

My foster mother, she was a lady.

She never married.

She was as good as any birth mother and better than some.

It was a great life, a farm life.

I was as wild as a march hare.

But I was, I was, I was treated like a queen.

My foster mother died when I was 13.

That was the worst thing that could have happened me.

The State took over.

They wouldn't leave me in the house with two men.

I was taken out of a classroom in school.

Half an hour later, I walked in the door of the Magdalene Laundry

in Galway with a school bag on my back.

I said to the nun, "Why am I here? I don't want to be here.

When am I going back to school?"

And she looked at me in kind of a sneering way

and laughing, and she said, "You're in the finishing college now."

(Bell rings)

I was no angel.

I couldn't say I was a good girl there,

I was far from perfect.

But I bloody well didn't deserve that.

Like you know, I was only 14 years old.

Jeez, they didn't give me time to get a boyfriend. (Laughs)

But, the Magdalen was a different thing.

The four and a half years I was there,

I never seen the sun, moon or stars.

You went to work in the morning, ran straight to your job,

in the evening you went to the dining room

and went straight upstairs.

The girls there used to say "This is a prison."

But the Magdalene was supposed to be a house of refuge.

Why beat them?

Why cut their hair?

And why throw insults at them and make little of them?

I got a fist in the face and I got my hair cut

for giving a back answer.

It wasn't right.

I remember they made the film, 'The Quiet Man'

and I ironed Johnny Wayne's shorts and Maureen O'Hara's blouses.

The people didn't think about the Magdalen women like, you know.

It was just a laundry to them.

(Gentle music)

So as time went by,

all I could do was bide my time and watch for a chance

to try and escape.

(Thunder rumbling)

I remember it well,

it was thunder and lightning.

The rain couldn't be any worse.

I deliberately did it for rain.

If you grew up in the country and you run around the fields with

animals, I knew you went out in the rain.

They wouldn't be able to follow you

because they wouldn't know what direction you went.

I had spotted earlier a ladder, and I put that ladder up the wall

and I got over that wall.

I remember saying to myself, "I'm out, I'm out."

And I was gone, headed eastward.

But the one thing I wanted to make sure, I was nowhere near the town,

because that's where they'd be looking for you.

I knew if I got to my foster father then everything was all right.

I was put to bed and looked after,

and he took over and got me out of Galway,

where they couldn't touch me, and that was it.

That's how I made it.

It left its mark on me.

I'm going to no nursing home, I'm not tied behind lock and key.

But that's the feeling of being locked in.

It's something you can't shake off.

It's left its mark.

(Music fades)

(Gentle music)

Maeve: In the summer of 2009, I had just graduated from UCD.

I was going to Harvard.

I was really looking forward to a career internationally,

and maybe working for the UN

and advocating for human rights in countries all around the world.

What stopped me in my tracks was one night watching the TV programme,

'Questions and Answers,' and they were talking about the Ryan Report

into industrial schools.

In the audience was a man called Michael O'Brien,

who had been a local politician,

and I will NEVER forget watching him describe the horrific

abuse that he suffered

in the industrial school, but also the decades of suffering

that that led to.

I got raped of a Saturday, got a merciful beating after it

and then he came along the following morning and put

Holy Communion in my mouth.

You don't know what happened there.

You don't know what I feel inside me.

You don't know the hurt that I am.

You said twas non-adversarial,

My God!

Seven barristers

throwing questions at us

non-stop.

I attempted to commit suicide.

There's the woman who saved me from committing suicide.

On my way down from Dublin, after spending five days at

the Commission. Five days I spent at the Commission.

They brought a man over from Rome.

90-odd years of age, to tell me I was telling lies,

that I wasn't beaten for an hour non-stop by two of them,

by two of them.

Non-stop from head to toe, without a shred of cloth on my body.

My God, Minister.

For God's sake,

try and give us some peace.

Try and give us some peace, and not to continue hurting us.

That woman will tell you how many times I jump out of bed at night

with the sweat pumping out of me, because I see these fellows at

the end of the bed with their fingers doing that to me, pulling me

into their room to rape me,

to bugger me, and beat the shite out of me.

Maeve: I really couldn't speak after I'd seen it, but when I did,

I said to my dad, who was sitting next to me,

"I don't know why I'm going anywhere to work on human rights."

So yeah, it actually

still, gosh.

(Whispering) Sorry.

Yeah.

(Maeve sobbing)

I probably equated human rights lawyering

with international human rights lawyering.

I suppose it just woke me up to all those issues

that are right there on your front doorstep.

Human rights definitely isn't the mainstay of Harvard Law School

legal education, but one of the absolutely amazing aspects of Harvard

was studying sex equality with Catharine MacKinnon,

who is a really well-known radical feminist.

Catharine MacKinnon's class is really about seeing how the

patriarchy operates everywhere, essentially,

I decided to write my master's thesis on the State's responsibility

in relation to the Magdalene Laundries.

That's what then brought me to meeting Jim Smith in Boston College.

Jim said we should "Apply to the Irish Human Rights Commission

for an inquiry.

Do you know how to do that?"

I then wrote my master's thesis to be the legal submissions to

the Irish Human Rights Commission.

And Jim asked that I would consider joining 'Justice for Magdalenes'.

(Sighs)

Thank you.

Jim: Maeve brought a different level of expertise and a different mindset

to the campaign: legal arguments and human rights arguments.

Maeve is the person who joined the dots.

She compiled four extensive testimonies from women who had

different experiences in different Magdalene laundries,

allowing survivors to speak for themselves and to recognise that

their stories were actually testimony,

and that as testimony, counted as a form of evidence.

She moved us from a place where we were saying:

"will you not do the right thing?"

to "how can we shame or embarrass the State?

Here's the evidence.

Will you not apologise?"

She moved us to a place where,

"no, you had obligations, and you had responsibilities and you failed

to fulfil your duty."

(Big Ben chiming)

Maeve: I was starting to train as a barrister in London.

The Irish Human Rights Commission issued its report in response

to our application.

The Government has asked the Attorney General to consider a

report by the Irish Human Rights Commission into the treatment of

women and girls who resided in the Magdalene Laundries.

The commission has called for a statutory inquiry into

their treatment, and says they must have their case for compensation

investigated immediately.

This was just monumental.

That felt like the first win.

Jim: The JFM campaign went international on that day.

The media turned up, the following day there was an article

in the Boston Globe and the San Francisco Chronicle and

the Chicago Tribune.

...And nothing happened.

Time was the one commodity these women did not have,

and the wheels of justice were grindingly slow.

Maeve: I met Sally Mulready, who ran a women's survivors support group.

She had been aware of our application to the

Irish Human Rights Commission, and she said to me,

"What you're missing is that the police returned girls and women

to the Magdalene Laundries, and this was State involvement

on a whole new level."

I was born in 1945,

in a mother and baby home.

My mother hadn't told any of her family about her pregnancy,

so I was kind of like the secret.

At four, we were just sent to other institutions.

My mother would come once a year.

It was hard because I didn't really know when

I was very young who she really was.

Once you were 16, you had to leave,

and this is when life just changed for me.

They took me to the Magdalene Laundry in Sean McDermott Street.

I remember going in, big door shutting behind me.

"Take your clothes off."

And all I could see was these women with brown and black and

macintoshes working soap, carbolic soap.

It was like a prison.

I hatched up a plan to get out.

Got this other girl, and I said, "I'll get you outta here."

The van men used to come for the laundry every day at two.

I remember watching, I could see the door.

I said "Run."

And we just charged.

And that's when I escaped.

But, she wanted to see an auntie of hers, who knew the nuns.

So we went to her house

and immediately they got the police...

...and took us back to Sean McDermott Street.

And in the morning,

they came to take me down to Limerick.

I had no idea.

I thought they were going to let me go.

Again, the big gate.

In you went,

and I was stuck in there for two and a half years.

Impossible to get out.

They changed my name from Gabriel to Stella,

and they said, "You know, Stella, get down on your knees.

You are here because nobody wants you."

And when you hear that, you can actually believe it.

Because it felt true.

(Soft piano music)

I wouldn't work in the laundry, I wouldn't go to bed.

I wouldn't eat sometimes.

Giving them hell.

I was bold, I was fighting them.

I was trying to get out.

Eventually then, they let me go.

The Magdelenes affected me really badly.

Always dreaming, I was running,

running, running.

I always felt I'm back.

(Gate squeaks open)

When I used to wake up

it was such a relief.

I lost out a lot, and life was very difficult afterwards.

Nobody would believe us.

Typically, why did women end up in laundries?

It was people that were regarded as being morally impure and

a danger to the menfolk... Yes.

...outside the wall. Well, I learned a lot after.

(Inaudible audience comment)

No, I'll come to you in a moment.

I'll come to you in a moment sister, because it is,

a scandal that people who were

16, 17 years of age should be deprived of their liberty.

On the face of it, yes.

I'm not aware of people deprived of their

liberty in that way. In our setup, that's...

That's in your particular setup. Okay.

I grant you had your own experience, but your reference to

being in a place that was a madhouse, I take exception to that

I want to speak for women who still live with us

and who would certainly not describe their situation in that way.

You have had your say, sister, but the facts that I said

are absolutely true.

I wake up, I get nightmares thinking that I am back there,

whether you like it or not, it happened.

(An eerie wind sound)

Maeve: The Government still hadn't responded to the

Irish Human Rights Commission's call for an official inquiry.

I thought, where we should go next is the UN.

(Tense music starts)

I gave my prepared presentation and it contained the witness testimonies

gathered from women in their sitting rooms.

The committee members said to me, "Rest assured we will be

raising this tomorrow."

I think the Irish government really did not expect the committee to be

so interested in the Magdalene Laundries.

At the end of the committee's session, the Secretary General

of the Department of Justice, Sean Aylward,

he just took a moment to

make some comments on all of these queries that had been coming up

about the Magdalene Laundries.

These alleged events happened in most cases a considerable time ago

in privately run institutions, and therefore the

information available to us all, is limited.

As far as we know, the majority of women who went

to these institutions, went voluntarily, or if they were minors,

with the consent of their parents or guardians.

The Irish government is considering, Chairman, how we can best resolve

the issues raised by the women.

Conscious that many of the organisations which ran these

private institutions and are the subject of its allegations

are still in existence,

mostly orders of nuns.

I also want to say that in absolute fairness to some of the religious

who manage some of these institutions,

their side of the story hasn't been heard.

It was just so clear that the Government didn't think that

it had any case to answer.

I really want to get to this question of "What is voluntary?"

I think voluntary means that one makes a choice.

I think that voluntary means that one is informed.

I think that voluntary means that one is then free to leave.

We had testimony about locked doors and people being captured by

the police and returned to the institution,

so there's State involvement.

The wilful failure to inspect a place where acts of cruel,

inhuman treatment occur.

Wouldn't this apply to the Magdalene Laundries?

Were they exempt from standards?

(Tense music continues)

Maeve: Two weeks later, the UN Committee Against Torture

made a firm recommendation to Ireland to investigate promptly,

impartially and thoroughly, to proceed to prosecuting

perpetrators where appropriate and to ensure

that surviving women obtained redress.

The committee actually considered this recommendation to be so urgent

that it included it in its one year follow up process,

meaning that it would come back in a year and ask the government

to report on progress.

The UN's recommendations were national and international news.

A dark chapter in Ireland's past has come to light.

For decades, thousands of women endured brutal conditions while

working in the so-called Magdalene...

...Asylums which forced thousands

of young women into slave labour,

are a dark chapter in the history of the Catholic Church.

Incredibly harsh conditions.

Maeve: Within eight days, the Government announced

an inter-departmental committee to establish the facts

of State involvement with the Magdalene Laundries.

JIM: The Government made the announcement that

Senator Martin McAleese would be appointed

as an independent chairperson.

He was the first gentleman throughout the presidencies of

his spouse, Mary McAleese.

Given his service to the State, he was certainly close to the

political establishment.

Maeve: The nuns insisted that the McAleese Committee would

return all documents that the nuns gave, and destroy all of its copies

at the end of its work.

The nuns were arguing that their records contained lots of

sensitive information.

The State doesn't seem to have considered that it had a

responsibility to obtain and keep those sensitive personal records,

so that it could help women and families understand their own

identities and histories.

The McAleese Committee was set up simply to investigate the question

of State involvement.

It conducted all of its work in private.

We did have discussions in JFM over whether we would even take

part in this process.

But you can't criticise something that you haven't participated in.

JIM: We wanted to be part of the solution.

We wanted to genuinely contribute because we saw that as a way to

further the objectives.

Maeve: In London in the autumn of 2011, I met Raymond Hill,

the senior barrister who had lots of experience

of State inquiries in the UK.

His recommendation was to undertake a shadow investigation,

that we would gather as much evidence as we possibly could

of State involvement.

I remember him saying, "We actually need to put this together as if we're

going to the High Court, so the State knows if it doesn't do the

right thing, that there is a case waiting in the wings."

RAYMOND HILL: I'd worked on a number of big cases,

inquiries and multi-party actions

involving the British government, one of which was in the

north of Ireland.

No matter how sympathetic, perhaps even tragic some of the stories are,

there is a very high threshold to getting recompense from the state.

They know that what they're dealing with is taxpayers money,

and they've got to be responsible for that.

There is a very high bar.

It turned into a very, very extensive task,

putting together a coherent submission.

KATHERINE: We had to provide all of the evidence they needed,

which we were able to get from archives and from oral testimony.

We also made legal arguments that the Irish State had broken its own

domestic law and international treaties.

RAYMOND: We ended up submitting about 3400 pages

of archival material, in addition to 790 odd pages

of fully transcribed survivor testimony.

Claire: We were encouraging Senator McAleese from pretty much day one

to meet with the women.

It's unthinkable to mount an investigation into what happened at

the Laundries without talking to a woman who was incarcerated.

Ultimately, they agreed to meet the women.

It was an emotional day for them to be there, at the seat of power,

to tell what happened to them.

It was a powerful moment. I think they enjoyed it.

That first meeting all around a big table, and the women were telling

their bits and bobs in front of each other.

They were all supporting each other.

That's what they do.

But then there was a second meeting

and that was a completely different experience.

We were told we were going to bring everybody

in one by one, this time.

We were not given any warning whatsoever.

If I'd been told, I would've been telling them,

it is okay to request another person in the room.

To take a vulnerable woman into a room with the senator

and his legal advisor,

and to essentially have her experiences challenged.

It just was unsettling.

It felt like a trust was being betrayed.

It didn't bode well, did it?

My mom married my stepfather, and shortly after he started abusing me.

There was a big court case, and the perpetrator was allowed to stay in

the home, and the innocent person had to be put away.

The judge said that, "I was to go into the care of the nuns

and to stay in there until the eve of my 16th birthday."

At 14, the nuns, with the Education Department's permission,

decided that I was to go to the Magdalenes.

(Ominous music)

It was slopping out,

locked in a cell at night.

Sheer hard work.

I was in the actual wet part,

not understanding why am I, for years,

daily sitting in that swamp of water

with wellingtons and wearing a rubber apron.

That was my life,

and it was my teenage years.

What were we doing it for?

Were they sending money to the Pope?

Were they,

counting the money for themselves?

And why did... did they get a kick out of locking us up?

(Dramatic music continues)

I asked somebody, "Why are they all whispering about this padded cell?

What is it?" "You don't want to know. We don't talk about it."

One day,

the nun, she said, "Where did you put the sweets you took?

What sweets? I didn't eat anyone's sweets."

(Doors banging)

She was all prepared.

There was a cup with water in it, a tin plate with dry bread on it,

and a pot.

They loved their pots,

and no bed.

And I was there for three days and three nights,

and I was just...

...in despair.

You just could not...

imagine it.

I just, oh.

Hang on. I don't want to stop.

I could see the moon shining,

and I thought, I'm going to be here for the rest of my life and die.

(Slow string music)

And I'm gradually appreciating what my mind is grasping about survival.

I've got to get out of here.

(Sad string music)

I befriended another girl.

I said, "Right, we're going."

In the front, they had no bars because it was facing out.

They were all having lunch in the convent and we jumped into

their garden to get out.

We walked down to Saint Finbar's Hospital in Cork.

The nun in charge, she got us a job and accommodation.

And three months later then, to go into the parlour and see

the Irish Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Children.

They're taking me from a safe environment

to Magdalen Laundry number two.

I've been trafficked and kidnapped,

yet I'm supposed to have rights.

I'm an Irish citizen.

I mean, the Constitution says "Equal before the law."

Who gets equal?

"This incident, which I regard as a public scandal,

should be brought under your Lordship's notice.

The girl who told me she was forbidden to speak to me,

was beaten most unmercifully on Wednesday last.

She was in her bare feet with her clothes all torn when I met her.

Through the holes in her clothes, I could see blue marks on her body.

Sisters Margaret and Catherine were present and helped some

four women on the job.

Three men working at the Magdalene asylum heard the screams of the

unfortunate girl, as well as the people on the roadside houses.

Stalin and Co could not do much worse than that."

(Ominous music continues)

NEWS REPORT: A report into State involvement in

the Magdalene Laundries is to be published later today.

The report is due out this afternoon.

So just how involved was the Irish State?

KATHERINE: When I was a little girl,

one of the things I wondered was, how did all the people in Germany

not realise what was happening to the Jewish people during

the Second World War?

How could people not know?

I didn't know that would be a question I would

ask about my own kind, about Irish people.

How could we not know that one in every hundred was locked up?

I found my answer in the kinds of reports that the government

commissions, where they actively produce forms of inquiry that manage

to copper-fasten an ignorance, cloud over the facts,

even as they're ostensibly working to understand these institutions.

After Senator McAleese briefed Irish journalists, he allowed us the

courtesy of giving us the report and it was horrendous.

He had investigated whether or not there was punishment or physical

abuse in the Magdalenes.

I was saying,

"The women and girls were locked up.

What part of that isn't physical abuse?

Didn't you listen to their testimony?"

Maeve: I remember hearing there was very little physical abuse.

We had to understand, these religious orders were enclosed.

It's all explainable that the women were locked in.

But I remember having this panic,

just this feeling like, this is going horribly wrong.

KATHERINE: It was really shocking,

and we knew that this was the message that journalists

had already been given.

Maeve: We staggered out of the Department of Justice,

rushed through Stephen's Green to gather ourselves

and get our media strategy underway.

KATHERINE: Maybe it was because I'd trained as a journalist.

I was saying, "We've got the line, we've got the line."

All we need is the State admits it was involved.

Once we have that, we can just make the context in which this report is

going to drop so hot that that's all the public want to hear.

I stepped out into Marion Square to an entire barrage

of international cameras, and I kept saying,

"We are so, so happy."

We're expecting that the Taoiseach, when he comes into the Dail at

3.00pm, will give an apology.

I stepped into one of the mobile vans

the BBC had to watch the live feed of Enda Kenny coming into the Dail,

and I could see him with his briefing note.

His hand was shaking.

I, I'd suggest that what we need to do is to

absorb this report and reflect on its findings.

It is 1000 pages long.

I'd suggest that we, em

take the opportunity to have a, to have a

Dail debate on this in two weeks time in the House,

when people can have had a time and an opportunity to read it.

Magdalene survivors groups have

expressed disappointment at the

Taoiseach's response to the report,

saying they want

a full official apology.

Can I start by asking what your general reaction is?

Are you satisfied with the Taoiseach and the Government's reaction to it?

Um, well, I think the last part first.

No, we're not satisfied with the Government's reaction.

Um, because it was absolutely irrefutable evidence of state

involvement in the Magdelene Laundries.

So to get up in the Dail today and refuse to apologise to a group

of ageing and elderly and vulnerable women is frankly cynical.

What the report intended to do was to prove State complicity,

which it did.

It says that physical abuse and torture were not a

feature of the Laundries.

It has been accepted, and Senator McAleese did not refute the fact

that these women were not paid and that the doors were locked.

If that is not physical abuse, I don't know what is.

These women suffered THE most serious violations of their civil

and political human rights, and the fact that they were women should

not influence the Taoiseach's perception of what that amounts to.

It was abuse, plain and simple.

Statutory based torture?

Statutory based, arbitrary incarceration.

There's also significant international interest in this now.

A spotlight on Ireland,

and the news today is that there is absolute, irrefutable evidence of

State involvement in the Magdalene Laundry system,

and the State has refused to apologise.

(News report): The justice for Magdalenes campaign

has called for an apology-

Maeve: We did a good job in a short time,

of setting the agenda and standing up for the women,

saying, "This is going to be the beginning of justice.

This isn't where this is ends."

(Magdalen Laundry by Mary Coughlan) # For 17 years,

# I've been scrubbing this washboard.

# Ever since the fellas started in after me.

# My mother, poor soul, didn't know what to do.

# The Cannon said, 'Child, there's a place for you."

# I'm serving my time at the Magdalene Laundry.

# I'm toeing the line at the Magdalene Laundry.

# Whoa Lord won't you let me,

# Don't you let me,

# Won't you let me wash away the stain?

# Whoa Lord, won't you let me, please let me wash away the stain. #

(Applause)

Thanks so much, Mary.

(Applause continues)

Thanks so much to everybody for coming

This evening we had a vigil for the women who were incarcerated

in the Magdalene Laundries. It was a chance for the public to

show their support for the women. We wanted to-

Two weeks is a very long time in politics.

We were hoping, of course, that what was going to happen next was

a historic State apology.

We were in the gallery

with many of the women

and it was packed.

We now move on to statements

on the report of the Inter-Departmental Committee to

establish the facts of State involvement with the

Magdalene Laundries, and I call on the Taoiseach

to make a statement.

20 minutes, thank you Taoiseach.

Ceann Comhairle (Chair)

The Magdalene Laundries have cast a long shadow over Irish life,

over our sense of who we are.

The women are and always were

wholly blameless.

I, as Taoiseach, on behalf of this State,

the Government and our citizens

deeply regret and apologise unreservedly

to all those women, for the hurt that was done to them,

for any stigma they suffered as a result of the time they spent

in a Magdalene Laundry.

We failed you.

We forgot you.

Or if we thought of you at all,

we did so in untrue and offensive stereotypes.

This is a national shame,

for which I say again, I'm deeply sorry

and offer my full and heartfelt apologies.

Let me hope

that this day (he gets emotional)

and this debate,

excuse me,

(Voice breaking) heralds

a new dawn for all those who feared that the

dark midnight might never end.

(Applause)

Maeve: It was just an extremely important moment in Irish history.

MARI: It was meaningful and poignant.

Kenny, you know, he went up to the gallery, which was

precedent breaking and shook hands,

some of them, that's all they were looking for.

Just say you're sorry.

I'll always carry it.

I'll carry this abuse with me to the grave because

it was part of my life.

but it has, tonight his apology has made such a huge...

...it's taken a load off my shoulders, so to speak.

These women, they're not former residents.

They're survivors. They're heroines.

They worked for no pay.

They deserve their justice, they deserve their wages back.

They deserve compensation for what has been done to them and fast.

(Emotive music)

KATHERINE: Part of the scheme require the Department of Justice

to facilitate Magdalene women meeting each other.

Many of them had kept their time in the Magdalene secret, and really

needed to connect with others who had the same experience.

Maeve: We put together an event, 'Dublin honours Magdalenes',

that brought together hundreds of

survivors from all corners of the world.

(Tram bell ringing)

I felt, oh my God, they've done it for us.

What will I wear?

What's it going to be like going to Ireland?

Never expected what I saw there.

(Police sirens)

(Applause and cheering)

(Uplifting music)

(Gentle music and cheering continues)

GABRIELLE: That for me was my healing,

to see how people really, really reacted to us.

We felt valued.

We'd never had that.

And we felt believed.

(Uplifting music, cheering, clapping continues)

ELIZABETH: That made me glad to be Irish.

I know it's so confusing.

(Applause and cheering continue)

Maeve: The redress scheme promised lump sum payments,

pension payments and also comprehensive health and social care.

(Ominous music)

We have seen the letters back and forth between the Minister for

justice and the religious orders, where he is kindly asking them to

contribute and they are saying, "We read the McAleese report.

Essentially, we have nothing to apologise for."

(Ominous music continues)

The religious orders have never paid anything to survivors.

The redress scheme was really significant.

I saw that up close and personal again with Catherine Whelan.

The quiet dignity that came with having access to a pension and

allowed her to bring her friend for a cup of coffee and not worry about

the expense, or get her hair cut and coloured.

CLAIRE: We tried to stop campaigning once the apology and the redress

scheme came into play.

Those were our aims,

but it wasn't long before we were dragged back in.

(Ominous music plays)

KATHERINE: Mother and baby homes in 20th century Ireland

were institutions that were designed to help unmarried women

give birth in secrecy.

There was a was a huge cultural pressure on these women to give

up their babies into Ireland's coercive, secret adoption system.

Maeve: The Government had known all along about the

mother and baby homes, but in 2014

this became an international media story.

(News report) The discovery of remains of babies and children

at the site of the former Tuam mother and baby home.

For a period of over 35 years,

a child died there every two weeks.

Nearly 800 children now discovered in 20 underground chambers.

(News reports in various languages)

Maeve: A local historian, Catherine Corless,

found 796 death certificates for infants who had died at Tuam

mother and baby institution, but there were no burial records.

Those infants were buried in a disused septic tank.

(Singing: 'Go dig my grave' by Lankum) # Go dig my grave,

# Both wide and deep.

# Place a marble stone

# At my head and feet.

# And on my breast,

# a snow white dove.

# To tell this world,

# I died for love.

Thomas Patrick Killoran, 9 weeks.

Catherine deVere, 1 month.

Mary Josephine Glynn, 1 day.

Annie Connolly, 9 months.

Patrick Hardiman, 6 months.

Patrick Naughton, 12 days.

Josephine T Staunton, 21 days.

Evelyn Barrett, 4 months.

Patrick Dervan, age 5 months, died and disappeared.

Bernard Lynch, 3 years.

Maud McTighe, 6 years.

Maureen Kenny, 8 years old.

Francis Coy, 6 months.

Rose Margaret McLaughlin, 4 months.

Baby Fallon, 4 days.

Bridget Walsh, 15 months.

(Applause)

Claire: There was a huge outcry, and rightly so.

The notion that children could be buried within a sewage system,

forgotten about completely.

The commission of investigation was launched

looking at a 10th of the possible entities involved in force

of family separation.

It was an effort to make Tuam go away to stop the public outcry.

Such an investigation was never going to get to the truth because

it was only looking at a partial picture.

Maeve: Tuam is not the only institution where there

are hundreds of deaths with no identified burial place.

In Bessborough in Cork, over 900 babies are known to have died

and no burial records exist.

I had suspicions that I was pregnant.

I knew that I had to quickly escape.

Literally escape.

So I came over

thinking that I'd have my baby in England.

(Poignant music)

Out of desperation, I went to confession.

And the priest...

He must have been used to having Irish girls coming because they

planned it very quickly.

Very quickly.

Not in a million years did

I think that I would ever be sent back to Ireland.

At the other end, there was a man with a dark suit

and a black car, and he collected me from Cork Harbour.

I still have the horrors when I think about it.

He got out to open the gate and I thought that this is my fate sealed.

I didn't know where babies came from.

I didn't know how.

(Ominous music)

My waters broke

and I didn't know what was happening.

I got very ill, very feverish.

I did have an injection,

I don't know what it was.

I was there for three days, screaming and screaming

and her assaulting you.

Telling you all sorts of awful things.

There were bars on the window,

so you, you were helpless.

William was born,

beautiful William.

He was absolutely beautiful.

William got ill, that second day,

I don't know how he got the infection,

it's either through me or through the needle.

(SOBBING) They took, they took William away.

I don't know where he was kept.

I used to get up at night and go around searching the doors and...

The last week, I didn't see him at all.

(Echoes of a baby crying)

I cried every day for my baby.

They wouldn't, they wouldn't let me have him.

The nun came and she said, "William died."

And I said, "When did he die?"

She told me he was buried.

He was buried in Bessborough.

(Gentle music)

The arrangement was that I would be sent back to England,

and of course, my life was nothing.

Absolutely useless.

Not a single soul knew.

My saviour was gone.

It was a miracle that they ended up where they are.

It was during the crash in London.

We came back to Ireland thinking we could just pick anywhere.

But in fact it was difficult finding a place.

One requirement I gave my husband was I wanted

a green hill as a view,

but what I didn't realise was that the hill I'm looking at, is the hill

that overlooks the graveyard in Bessborough.

It was like fate brought me here.

On one of my mum's first visits,

unbeknown to me, she had gone down to Bessborough.

I saw her coming up the drive and she was absolutely distraught.

She came in the door and she actually, in this spot here,

she collapsed.

I helped her onto the chair.

I said, "What's wrong? What's wrong, what's happened?"

She just was sobbing.

Couldn't, couldn't blurt it out.

After about ten minutes, she said, "I've been to Bessborough

and I had a baby there."

Then she went on to tell me about the baby dying.

This was the first time in 36 years, probably at that time,

that she'd ever told anybody.

The first time she said it out loud.

(Bees buzzing)

It came out of the blue. I had absolutely no idea growing up.

But in hindsight, I can see that Mum could never be

left with her thoughts for too long.

She was always busy, always doing something.

The nun decided to take her down to the graveyard.

She wouldn't allow my mum inside.

My mum had to look over the wall,

the nun tapped her foot on a spot and said, "Your baby's buried here."

We always questioned this small little graveyard.

How could it hold so many children?

(Sad music continues)

Eventually we found out that he's not buried there at all.

William was buried in All Saints Cemetery, Carr's Hill,

a famine grave where 30,000 people are buried.

We have no idea on this five acre site where he is.

We just go and lay flowers at the gates.

The first time I took my mother up there,

oh, it was pitiful because, she just wandered through the whole site

trying to see any evidence of a grave anywhere.

At 80 years old, with brambles, scratching her legs,

searching a field.

MADELINE: 60 years we've missed not not taking flowers

or telling him why.

You want to know where your child is buried.

I'd like to go

and sit down,

sit down where he is buried.

Sit down for 2 or 3 hours with him and talk to him.

He needs us.

He's been on his own all this time.

Really, they were monsters.

Absolute monsters.

(Sad music continues, with a church bell)

Maeve: We knew from previous experience

that you have to do a shadow investigation.

After the shadow reporting that we had done for the McAleese committee,

we were all completely spent, and it wasn't feasible to do another

project on a shoestring.

What we really needed help with, was this testimony gathering effort.

So Claire and I set up something called the Clan Project.

We worked with Hogan Lovells, an international law firm,

and specifically their London office.

The fact that Hogan Lovells were available and willing to put

significant resources into it really made all the difference.

ROD BAKER) Hello, come on in. Nice to see you.

Hogan Lovells is a truly international law firm.

One of the top ten by size in the world.

The firm has got a very well established reputation for dealing

with pro bono work.

And we made a decision that it was going to focus its major efforts to

battle discrimination against women and children.

We had a team of over 50 lawyers who were speaking to witnesses on the

telephone, and sometimes in person.

I read every single witness statement and went back with

comments and questions.

At times, the subject matter could be pretty harrowing.

And, you know, personally, I would often need to take a walk

around the block after I'd spoken to somebody who might've been telling

me a story the first time in decades that those words

had passed their lips.

The Clan Project was not a rival report,

it was designed to help the Commission and to let them know what

we had found, based on our substantial exercise of

speaking to witnesses.

Maeve: The scale of the abuse was what made Hogan Lovells so committed

to intervening.

Solicitors in Hogan Lovells office spoke to more than 160 people,

and ultimately helped 82 people give full witness statements to the

Mother and Baby Homes Commission.

(A crow caws loudly)

Katherine: Mother and baby homes were a carceral for a certain

class of woman.

Those women stayed in the institutions until

their babies were toddlers,

and could prove to the adoptive American parents that they

were getting healthy children who

had no physical or cognitive difficulties.

Those mothers would be made to work to pay off the debt

for the care of this child that would be trafficked.

(Tense music)

(Camera shutters click)

I went with Maeve to meet with Philomena.

It's such a well-known story now.

But, you know, it's as if it was fresh every single time.

At the age of six, my mother died.

The three boys stayed at home,

and us three girls went into an orphanage.

There we stayed until we were 18.

I had an aunt living in Limerick City

the next thing I knew she was coming to take me to live with her.

"We are going to a carnival tonight," she said.

Well, I couldn't believe my eyes.

The lights, everything.

I thought I was in seventh heaven.

And that's when I met Anthony's dad.

We just walked around and then we started making love.

I didn't know what the heck was happening.

(Carnival music)

He just said, "Cheerio," and he was gone, you know.

(Fireworks explode)

I still didn't really know what I'd done.

Then about five months later, my aunt, she said to me,

"Are you pregnant?"

And I said, "What do you mean, am I pregnant? What does that mean?"

(Birdsong)

And that's where my life started in Roscrea.

(Gentle piano music)

All they said to me was, "You're not going to be Philomena Lee anymore.

Your name is going to be Marcella."

You couldn't use your own name in case we let anything out the bag.

It was hard. It was very, very hard.

A lot of it I've forgotten,

some of it I think I purposely forgot.

Having a baby out of wedlock was a mortal sin

and we had to suffer for your sins.

(A baby cries)

We moved over to the other side of the convent,

and your babies went into the nursery,

and you went off to work.

In the evening, we were allowed to go

and pick your baby up and cuddle him.

Three and a half years.

What can I tell you about Anthony?

Every time he seen me he always hugged the life out of me

and I used to hug the life out of him. (Chuckles)

(A child laughing)

We just did laundry, laundry, laundry all the time

until he was gone, you know.

(Sad music continues)

Oh, what I can say about that day?

I still weep sometimes when I think about it, you know.

Another girl, she said, "Come quick. I think your Anthony's going away."

Up the stairs,

and there he was, getting into the back of a car.

Going to America, no discussion, you know.

He was straining to see if I could see him,

looking out the back of the car.

That was the very last I ever saw of him.

(Car engine starts, and pulls away)

I cried and I cried and I cried.

They said, "Oh, will you stop it? You ought to be grateful.

He's gone to a good Catholic home in America."

50 years I never told anybody.

I was too frightened to tell them.

Coming to the age of 70, I kept saying, "I have GOT to find

him before I die."

(Traditional Irish music)

My daughter Jane, she often wondered because I had photographs of him.

Little photographs that the nun got me.

When I did tell her, she said, "Do you want me to find him?"

I said, "Oh, yes, please."

She worked on it for years.

They did send us full circle all over looking for him.

Then we got word from the nuns.

She said, "We've got news, but I'm very sorry to tell you he's dead."

Well, I couldn't believe it.

I just couldn't believe it. I just went to tears.

She said, "But there is a gravestone in Roscrea" where I had him.

Nine years previous, he'd been buried there.

Nine years. All the while we were trying to find him.

He went into all the homes in Ireland looking for me, you know.

He became Michael Hess,

and written on the headstone was "Michael Anthony Hess,

a man of two nations and many talents."

(Music continues)

I have forgiven a lot of it, because it's no good being

so sour, you know, and

carrying on grief and carrying on, no.

Never return anger with anger.

(Melancholy music continues, and a tree rustles in the wind)

(News report): The Commission of Investigation into

Mother and Baby Homes, has submitted its final report to

the Minister for Children.

Taoiseach Micheal Martin has described the long awaited final

report as a dark, difficult and shameful chapter

of our recent history.

Maeve: The Mother and Baby Homes Commission Report was like deja vu.

Yet again, the report essentially finding that there was very

little abuse and that what people believed had been the nature of

these institutions was not actually the case.

ROD BAKER: The Commission took the view that it could only really

rely on evidence that had been given directly to them,

on oath, and that was subject to questioning and challenge.

KATHERINE: Most people who gave their testimony, ended up speaking to

a so-called confidential committee,

and that confidential committee wasn't going

to take seriously their testimony, as a matter of fact.

They state some of the people gave evidence that was "contaminated"

because they had spoken with other residents.

(Tense music)

Maeve: Yet again, we have a situation where women's testimony

has no evidentiary value according to the institutions of the Irish State.

ROD BAKER: It's undoubtedly true that recollections can differ and that

recollections can be genuinely held, but they can be incorrect,

and so that's why lawyers always try to corroborate things.

But in something like this, where it's the experience of people,

what actually happened in a room when giving birth, what actually

happened when a consent form was put in front of somebody.

A consent form can have a signature on it,

but the circumstances in which that signature was written,

can only ever be described by personal testimony.

When you have a lot of people who have no connection with each other,

all saying the same, exactly the same thing, then that seems to me to

independently corroborate each individual piece of evidence.

This report finds there is no evidence of incarceration

in the institutions.

No evidence of forced adoption.

No evidence of medical neglect.

No evidence of forced labour in mother and baby homes.

If we want to have a republic,

we're going to have to exercise our democracy.

We're going to have to make our politicians hear and act.

The State has worked for the last 95 years with the Catholic Church...

Maeve: A huge concern following the report's publication was

that the Commission's unsubstantiated findings would then form

the basis for the Government's redress scheme.

And that is exactly what has happened.

They have left us with an ongoing legacy of trauma that hasn't

been properly addressed.

Maeve: The redress scheme only provides payments to people who are

institutionalised as children for more than six months, seemingly

based on the notion that it's institutionalisation and extended

institutionalisation that is the key harm.

Absolutely failing to recognise that the key harm

was the unlawful separation of mother and child.

(News report): With many survivors claiming the report does not do

justice to their experiences and those who wrote it standing over

their work, it's still far from clear

how the issue will be resolved from here.

(Echoes of a baby crying)

(Music continues)

They get it wrong over and over and over again.

For example, the vaccine trials.

(Tense music)

Maeve: Incredibly, the Commission finds that although

vaccine trials were not legally authorised and consent does not

appear to be given, there is no evidence of injury

to children as a result of vaccine trials.

(A baby cries)

On my medical records were notations that I had been given this

series of vaccines.

I filed a request with GlaxoSmith, and then they sent

back reams of documentation that showed I was part of the trial.

And interestingly, also provided copies of news articles that they

had obviously been keeping track of where I had been interviewed or

asked about my participation in the trials.

They don't know if we suffered ill effects because nobody

followed up, at least those of us that were sent to the US.

I've never had any, you know, full screenings or anything like that

to determine were there any lasting effects.

(News report): In a statement,

GlaxoSmithKline says the report makes for difficult

reading and our thoughts are with the families involved.

GSK did not say if it would contribute to any redress scheme.

If we're going to go after players like GlaxoSmithKline or

the Sacred Heart Order, they're both based in the UK.

If it's a gross human rights violation,

the UK, they're willing to disregard statute of limitations.

You can file class action there.

So I'm happy to go down that road.

Okay, as long as I've got time on this earth, we can play the game or

you can do the right thing and offer a decent settlement to these people.

(Sad music and bird calls)

I was born in Bessborough Mother and Baby Institution.

Apparently the nuns didn't think I'd make it through the night.

I screamed and I bawled and resisted dying.

And I'm resisting to this day.

I was two and a half years there.

What would happen was children would be dressed up and

paraded before couples that were looking for children.

My mother knitted me my 'going out things,' as she called them.

And one day she was called up to the nun and told that she was to have

me ready within a half an hour.

My mother didn't know where I was going,

who I was going with, or anything else.

She dressed me in the clothes that she made me and handed me over,

and I was walked down the corridor to this strange woman.

(Child babbling)

My mother with the other women,

they all ran up the stairs to a window where they could

see children leaving.

There was the final glimpse of their children.

The nun came back and threw the clothes that my mother

had made, back at her

and just said, "Mary won't be needing these."

To do that to a woman who's losing her child forever.

Sorry.

And that was me. Gone.

I was fostered and then

incarcerated in an industrial school.

They told me that my mother was dead.

At 16 and a half, homeless in London.

I found out from the nuns that my mother isn't dead,

she's living in the UK.

To find out that your mother's alive.

It was shocking.

Unbeknown to me, my mother, she had told her husband all about me.

And he said, "Let's go and get her."

And they were told that I was happily adopted.

Meanwhile, I was in the tender, loving mercies of the Irish State.

I went up to the Good Shepherds and I asked to see the head nun.

And I said, "You can stick your religion up your arse.

I am going to find my mother."

(Telephone ringing)

And that's what I did.

I get a phone call one night,

and my mother's voice came on and said, "Hello, love,

it's your Mammy."

And I said... you know,

bawl, bawl, bawl.

"Hello, Mammy."

That was our first conversation.

But the bond had been broken when I had been taken away from

her at two and a half,

and then when I found her, it was very difficult to connect.

It is the separation of families that's the damage

to thousands of Irish citizens.

(Melancholic music continues)

United Nations Office of Human Rights.

I am Mary Harney,

and I speak to you today from my lived experience as a survivor

of Ireland's institutions.

I am one of the eight women who sought a judicial review against the

Commission of Investigation in Ireland's High Court last year.

Even though the court agreed with me and others that our statutory rights

were violated, the Government, nevertheless, ignores the court's

declaration and relies on its faulty report as a foundation for

its own redress scheme.

The Government failed to listen to us then, and it continues to

discriminate against us today.

Fantastic. It's 11 seconds over.

Phew!

Nerves.

(Tense music)

I'm going to ask James to come in on some questions

on mother and baby homes.

Thank you Minister.

In the particular respect of children in the institutions,

the Taoiseach said,

"I share deeply the Commission's unequivocal view that the existence

of the status of illegitimacy until 1987, in this country,

was an egregious breach of human rights.

This was a huge injustice and blighted the lives of many.

Thank you.

I now adjourn this meeting.

Thank you. Thank you.

I can't see the little rascal.

I can't see him.

(Music continues with general room noise and chatter)

James?

I can't believe you said that.

The Irish government apologised for illegitimacy

as a human right.

I do not mind being illegitimate,

I mind my mother was forced labour.

I mind I was incarcerated.

When will this government say we violated your human rights

and we are sorry.

(Dramatic music)

Maeve: The inquiries have operated in secret.

There's a massive need for people affected to be able to access every

single document that the religious and the State hold.

We're at a point now where the State feels that it's put somewhat

of a lid on things.

To make this right,

you need the truth because you can't have justice without the truth.

You can't have the truth without access to records.

And I mean all records, unfettered access.

We have to remember that we're not just trying to achieve transitional

justice for survivors who are alive now.

We have a responsibility to those from the past.

(Music fades out)

(No sound other than shuffling footsteps)

(Gentle music plays quietly)

We're gathered here on Sean McDermott Street today,

that holds this building behind me.

The last Magdalene Laundry to cease its operation in Ireland in 1996.

And we stand here to bear witness,

and to remember

all of the pain

and suffering

that was experienced.

May all of our stories rise now and be illuminated by the truth,

by our love, by justice.

(Singing) 'Granite Gaze' by Lankum: # We are the ones

# Left behind

# In swaddling bands

# With baling twine.

# They stole the marrow

# From our very bones.

# And we in turn

Turned on our own.

Thank you.

(Applause)

(Traditional Irish music)

Maeve: How law operates is so much about who is in power

and who is heard in the corridors of power,

and who matters to the people who are in charge of the country.

But there IS a way of using the law for the benefit of people

who have been disenfranchised.

And what we have done in the Justice for Magdalenes campaign is use the

most basic principles of the Irish Constitution to say,

"Hold on, the way that this system operated is fundamentally contrary

to basic human rights."

If I was Taoiseach tomorrow, I would establish a human rights compliant

State investigation mandated to publish, to the maximum extent,

the archival records of the church and state,

and the testimony of willing survivors and individuals

in positions of responsibility.

Claire: We would love to be the victims of our own success,

for the hard campaigning to be over,

but unfortunately, half measures have been implemented to try and

draw a line prematurely.

You have to try and see it to its conclusion.

What else can you do?

If I was Taoiseach in the morning, I would amend the rules of civil

procedure to allow survivors of Magdalene Laundries,

mother and baby homes and forced adoption to sue

the Catholic Church in court.

You study history to learn the lessons so that you can do

better in the future.

How do we ensure that we do not repeat this?

The women wanted it taught in schools.

They want it in the history books.

This can never be forgotten.

Maeve: If I were Taoiseach in the morning, I'd change the legal

status of religious orders, so it'd actually be possible to sue

a religious order as an entity in itself.

You may not believe it, but currently it's not possible

to sue the religious sisters.

Instead, a person bringing a case needs to track down

every living member of the Religious order from the time of the

abuse they complain of, and sue them all together.

There's a constant forgetting about these institutions because

it's not visible still, in our culture,

there's no place where you can go to discover this history.

We need to get hold of this history.

We need to reflect on it and also see the ways in which people

resisted, and hold those people up as the heroes to guide

us into a better future.

If I was Taoiseach in the morning,

I would bring in class action legislation.

I would also change the rules on legal standing so that

representative organisations.

Could bring cases without needing to demonstrate that there is literally

no individual alive who could take the case instead.

Mari: I used to call us the little NGO that could,

a very small group of people just learning

how to navigate to get what you need or want.

Thank you Mari. All right.

Thank you. Thanks, gang.

Talk to you soon, bye.

I could happily go to my grave and say I did what I could.

I didn't sit back and let others do it for me.

You got to stand up and shout.

Maeve: It's time to accept that the Irish State is

actively impeding access to information and access

to justice, documents, the very ones that the

State and church are currently

holding secret can paint a very detailed picture indeed.

(Applause)

There are countries all over the world that have tortured their

citizens and engaged in reconciliation processes.

Why can't Ireland?

(Music fades)

(Haunting Irish music)