2,000 Irish children were illegally adopted in US from Magdalene Laundries

You have to consider the source. In a lot of the cases, a relative (fathers in most cases) had the girls committed to the slave institutions because the girls were considered to be “bad” because of their interest in boys. In other cases, the girls were molested by a male relative so were considered to be the sinful one and they were shipped off to the institution by the family. I was taught by the Sisters of Mercy by both nuns and lay teachers and in my experience, most of them were frustrated old biddies. In one case, my friend and I were whispering to each other and the nun came to us at our desks and banged our heads together!!!

Lofty7, so glad your mother escaped and had a happy life.

Home Rule = Rome Rule

Come on now, lets stop these ridicuoulus law suits that seek "historical" damages. I'm a direct decendant of Adam (Adam & Eve). I'm very hurt that Eve gave Adam an apple to eat. Tommorrow, I'm going to seek a class action suit in everyone's name against all apple orchard owners.

There will never be peace in Northern Ireland as long as the bishops and Apostolic Nuncio from Rome push to maintain apartheid in education. This is supposed to be the Christian way. One does not have to go too far across the border to Enniskillen to see the children getting out of two different school systems and never talk to one another.

Great story Lofty7, I commend your mother for her courage & strong-mindedness. Sadly a lot of Irish Catholics didn't & don't have the same qualities.

My mother was sent to one of these places for marrying my father & having a child with him.Her crime was that he was Church of Ireland.At the time,he was serving in the Belfast Fire brigade during the blitz there.For which he had volunteered,even though he came from Co.Carlow. Thankfully she was strong enough to jump the wall after 5 days & never had anything to do with the Catholic church ever again.They went on to have 6 more children & lived a full & happy life. And can I say to Michael McGrath,you are a pompous buffoon & have the typical attitude of all those who are destroying this country today!!

Further to my post on slave traffic in babies I am not a conspiracy theorist but I will bet that the New York Archdiocese was involved in this some way. There should be soe serious questions asked. Cardinal Spellman is not around any more. But Cardinal Dolan should be asked a question.

George J. Catholic bashing for money is it? Cop on to yourself, who do you thinjk the customers of te laundrys were? The Catholic(CULT) Church made more money from this slave labor over the years and from selling the babies of these unfortunate people to rich Irish Americans. It has been shown that these laundrys customers were Irish Prisons, The Irish Army, Irish hotels, and many other state run organizations. These women recieved nothing in return except abuse, neglect and loss of freedom. Your "Maids Dancing at the Crossroads" view of Ireland and the Catholic Church is dead and buried. Hopefully the Women that are still living that went through the horror that the catholic church brought down on them will take them to the cleaners and for every penny that vile organization has stolen.

This sorry tale is strong argument for the separation of church and state. History is clear. When these institutions combine, prejudice, cruelty and the most ungraceful (or "ungodly", if that suits your worldview better) behaviors follow.

In relation to the Magdelene laundries scandal,I have to agree with some of the comments that church and state should never be allowed in bed together in an unholy and corrupt marrage of convenience,the two most powerfull organisions that have most control over peoples lives on the premise that power corrupts and total control totally corrupts,and Ireland in the past is only one example but there are many more even to this present day,the idea that a government or religion can have total control,this should be a warning that your freedom should never be taken for granted or compromised either to the state or to a religion.

I protest,there is way more to this story than is being exposed.This is Catholic bashing at best(for money)

@MichaelMcGrath There is NEVER an excuse for the ABUSE that the Catholic Church Meted out to those unfortunates and others the world over. There is NEVER an excuse for the subsequent cover up and misleading of investigators that occured on the orders of Popes right the way down to Priests and Nuns. How dare you try to minimalize what happened to these unfortunate people with your ridiculous comments that they were better off in the Magdalene slave shops. You must be a member of one of those apologist groups like the AOH or Opus Dei or the like. Take your head out of the sand!

It might be understandable in the context of the times when many were driven out of Ireland by hunger. It might be explained that some were indeed criminals, many prostitutes and argued that it was better than being locked up in jail, as otherwise may have happened. They were very different times , not only in Ireland , but around the world , when nobody had anything. They are now practising inhumanity by replacing their own citizens by immigrants , and there's nothing at all about it? But back then there was really no hope of survival otherwise excpet in Magdalene and the like.

What happened to these young children is very very sad. I know for a fact that in 1964 when I got married in Jackson Heights my wife's friend who came to our wedding was an airline hostess with Aer Lingus. She carried babies on an Aer Lingus flight together with another stewardess. When they got to Kennedy Airport they just handed over the babies to people who were waiting for them. No questions asked. The State Department or Immigration service in US should be made to investigate this slave traffic. One other thing. When I was teaching in a junior college in Chicago in 1980 a young boy who was in my class came to me and told me that he was adopted in America and he wanted to find out how he would go about finding his Irish parents. I remember telling him to ask his adopted American parents. There should be no secrecy in this. The Minister for Foreign Affairs in Ireland should demand an investigation from the American State Department. Let's call it what it is, slave traffic introduced by the Catholic Church in Ireland.