Sir, – One appropriate response to the publication of the McAleese report might be to discontinue the purchase of all goods currently being produced in the sweatshops of the southern hemisphere. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – It was very wrong that women were treated harshly in the Magdalene homes, but the other forgotten victims of these homes are the many nuns who, in a spirit of faith and love gave their whole lives caring for girls and women abandoned by the state, society and sometimes by their own families.
These nuns did their best within the constraints of religious life and rules to help. There were no other people queuing up to provide refuge or help for these unfortunate women, nor were there any people calling to the nuns to say “close down the laundries and we will raise funds to help”.
Granted, there were some nuns who failed: these should not have become nuns in the first place being unfit for what was a very demanding vocation. In a sense they too were “victims” in life, unhappy and frustrated, just as there are some misfits in all professions, among the gardaí, clergy, teachers, even among journalists, who can cause misery to others.
Let us not condemn all for the misbehaviour of the few. – Yours, etc,
Sir, – At the risk of being burned at the stake, might I ask that if the Taoiseach should decide to apologise to those unfortunate women who were sent to and kept in the Magdalene laundries, he would make it clear that he is not doing so on my behalf? Like so many other citizens who are now supposed to be beating our national breast in repentance, I was not involved.
The hysteria of this clamour for apology – often expressed by people who, like myself, have not read the full McAleese report – is embarrassing even to those on whose behalf it is expressed.
If it were justified it might be aimed more properly at the mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers, aunts, uncles, grandparents, cousins, neighbours and friends who for what must at the time have been convincing reasons – desperation being one of them – arranged for deportation or exile for these “difficult” or orphan daughters. The campaign might also accuse those households and businesses throughout the country which used the laundry services without inquiring into the conditions endured by the laundry workers.
The current campaign has taken on self-serving political dimensions which ignore the social circumstances not merely of families, but of the times during which wages were often pitifully low, housing restricted, education commonly at its legal minimum and the Catholic Church at its most socially powerful.
We have forgotten how easily people were sent to mental hospitals for reasons which seem incredible now and how institutions flourished because for so many orphans and outcasts – the terms could be almost synonymous – there was nowhere else to go. That was society, and government reflects society rather than creating it.
There’s a lot to regret, but reparation rather than apology on demand should be seen as the best atonement now. – Yours, etc,