Irish leader Enda Kenny issues state apology to Magdalene Laundries survivors - VIDEO

Idiot Marloz- unrelated, stupid comments again.

Nora. although Russell`s bl0g is really cool, last saturday I bought a new Lancia Straton from making $8671 this-past/4 weeks and-over, 10k this past munth. without a doubt it is the nicest work I have ever done. I started this 5 months ago and immediately started bringin in more than $72.. per/hr. I use this here great link,, *-- ℬuzz80.ℂOℳ --*

There's got to be a happy medium between religiously inspired subservience to temporal autorities, and the condescening superciliousness of missionary positon Anglo-imperialism. Seems the whole Jesus movement went severaly badly awry when the Christian orthodoxists put their opportunistic fists into the chained mailed of Constantine.

The Irish are now on their knee's to Europe. Thats what grovelling does for you. GROW UP Ireland!!!

Mortimer. Equal horrors that went on in other countrys is a seriously flawed excuse for what went on here.You`re starting to go on like one of those Sinn Fein supporters who believe its ok to shelter peadophiles as long as you`re one of them. The church and Adams have only themselves to blame. Blind loyalty is nothing but BLIND. Open your eyes and think for yourself.

For more on the truth behind how the Magdalene laundries have been used as an anti-Catholic propaganda tool read the highly informative article by Irish columnist Mary Ellen Synon from a few days ago in the UK's Daily Mail blog: “Magdalene laundries: or how British-bred eugenics put Magdalene across the world” Seamus60, I have no problem with a person following their conscience and doing what they think is appropriate - provided they are following their conscience and not an agenda.

"First, the Magdalene homes were not an invention of the Catholic Church. Second, the Magdalene homes did not exist only in Catholic Ireland. For example, the Magdalene Society of Philadelphia was established in 1800 by, among others, the Quakers. In the north of Ireland, the Church of Ireland and the Presbyterians ran Magdalene homes. Third, the laundries – or if you want to use the name I prefer because it is more accurate, the industrial workhouses -- were not established in Ireland to punish unmarried mothers. The first Magdalene asylum was established in Ireland in 1767 by a Protestant benefactor as a home for ‘penitent prostitutes.’ In fact, we still don’t have figures as to just what percentage of the inmates at the workhouses were unmarried mothers. All of which surprises you, no? Because the tenor of the attacks on the history of the Magdalene institutions – and God knows the history of these nun-run versions of hell deserves to be attacked – is that these workhouses were yet another example of the way a uniquely powerful Irish Catholic Church controlled and suppressed sexual activity until the ‘liberal’ new times came and freed us from all that. But you would have to cut out an awful lot of the history of the modern Western world to believe that one. Yet Ireland does. Ireland looks at the Magdalene horrors and is wilfully blind to the way they fit in with equal horrors going on in other countries at the same time. Somehow the Magdalene politicos – by whom I mean the journalists and politicians who are using the suffering in these workhouses to attack the Catholic Church, I do not mean the women who were once inmates -- want us to believe Ireland and the Church were uniquely grotesque in their attitudes to sex and women. The truth is far different....." (cont)

Powerful stuff! Would that politics could be as authentic as this always, in this the State (if not National!) parliament. One hopes that the two Magdalen launderies that were excluded from the McAleese Report due to a conspicuous absence of records (Cork and Dun Laoghaire) will be included like he suggested. The Magadalen Laundry girls/women/females were only 'fallen women' to the extend to which the Irish State and society dropped them. Pope Gregory the Great, who retrospectively defamed (ie libelled and slandered) Miriam of Migdala has much to answer for centuries later. Timely that we should wash or dirty linen in public, and not behind the walls of labour camps where Arbeit did not Mach Frei. Dept of Defence used such low cost services, as did hotels etc. Will they be compelled to contribute too, like the culpable religious orders. And are we sure we're not repeating the compulsion to exploit with free to employer work schemes for unemployed people?

Mortimer74. Maybe if Enda had read Brendans article, he wouldn`t have apoligised. lol

wounded: It is because the Irish people have no gotten up from being on their knees.

@WoundedKnee - your insistence on the culpability of the Nuns for this scandal is premature in my view. As with earlier scandals involving Priest predators, it would be my fear that it will be shown that their evil and malign influence extended into these centres to the point that they were de facto "Leisure Centres" where they sate their carnal appetites with little or no risk to their reputation or their future in ministry. So when you speak of culpability, it is by no means certain that this began and ended at the front door of the institution itself. The same question asked before in the wake of the Murphy report must be asked; "Who else knew"?????

Obviously the nuns bear most of the culpability for this, but all Irish people should examine themselves before criticizing. What is it about Irish culture that seems to foster this kind of thing? Why are the Irish so subservient--there were many cases of parents handing over their children to these institutions and then not even checking on their welfare. How come similar abuses didn't occur in other Catholic countries, or at least in Catholic countries where there was no Irish influence? The Irish should look to their own pathologies.

What happened at Magdalene Laundries was not unusual in the private sector either. As a 14 year old girl, working at a guest house in Bray, I had to sleep in galvanized shed, rise at 6 a.m. to gut chickens and live in fear of the "lady of the house", Mrs. Sonny Padden. Mrs. Padden assured my parents that I would be well cared for. Little did they know, being trusting people, that this woman was a cruel task master. I literally ran away from her establishment to another B&B on Dargle Road, to Mrs. Claude Cleary, who treated me like a member of her family. Stories like this were very common in mid 1950's. So, who or how, can any one person apologize for conditions that were "normal" for that period in Ireland.

I can only speak for myself but I was in the Irish National Schools in the 1950's and 1960's and I can assure you that the brutality was horrific. I am not talking about rapping of knuckles or mere slaps or hair pulling here but serious physical stuff. Again, it's something that Irish people of a certain age know well but few talk about. This should be the next area of focus.

At Mortimer74 - did you actually even listen to the speech or watch it? In case you did not, let me give you a little reminder; "I believe I speak for millions of Irish people all over the world when I say we put away these women because for too many years we put away our conscience. "We swapped our personal scruples for a solid public apparatus that kept us in tune and in step with a sense of what was ‘proper behaviour’ or the ‘appropriate view’ according to a sort of moral code that was fostered at the time particularly in the 1930s, 40s and 50s. "We lived with the damaging idea that what was desirable and acceptable in the eyes of the Church and the State was the same and interchangeable."