- Sometimes I like to
look into the future, you know, to see like what
holidays are coming up because I think it's fun to do a story that ties into what's
going on in the real world. In this case, I saw that St. Patrick's Day was like right around the corner. So I decided to look
into some Irish history and I realized the only thing so many of us know about
Ireland is the potato famine. And that's kind of like it, sorry. Sorry, Ireland. I'm sorry. Now, I'll be honest with you, it's hard to shock me anymore. So when I tell you that this story I found shook me to my core, you know it's for real. Am I right? Pound it.
(crow cawing) While I was looking into
unknown Irish history, unknown especially to Americans, I kept reading about this thing called the Magdalene laundries. They sounded so innocent and pure, all about cleanliness. Like, nothing to see here, just laundry. But that is exactly what the Catholic Church
wanted people to think. Because these laundries
turned out to be a network of facilities that destroyed
the lives of countless women. They were part prison, part work camp, part reform school, and were open for business
for about 231 years until a mass grave site was discovered and blew this whole scandal wide open. This episode is about the horrific truth behind Ireland's Magdalene laundries. Doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo-doo. (upbeat music) Hi, friends, I hope you are
having a wonderful day today. My name is Bailey Sarian and I'd like to welcome you
to my podcast, Dark History. (crow cawing)
Okay, sorry, Joan, our podcast, Dark History. She's holding a gun to me, help me. (crow cawing)
Here we believe that history does not have to be boring. It might be tragic, usually it is, right? It might be happy, but either way, it's our dark history. So all you need to do is sit back, relax, and let's talk about that
hot juicy history goss. And today is dark, okay? Before we begin, I just wanted
to give everyone a heads up at this episode. There will be some stories
that involve sexual abuse, so just a disclaimer ahead of time, and I'll make sure to do this more often moving forward for you as well. Okay, so our story
begins in the mid-1700s. To set the stage, you need to know that in Ireland, religion was, and still
really is, everything. The church told the Irish who they could be friends with, where they could live, what school they went to, and also who they could marry. If the church said jump, the Irish said, how high, Jesus? Back then people in Ireland
were either Protestant or Catholic. And as time went on and the country became independent, more people were Catholic and the Catholic church got stronger. But no matter what
religion you identify with, everyone agreed on one big thing, society was going to hell in a handbasket. There was a crisis, and that crisis came in
the form of corrupt women, or as the Irish called them, the quote, "Fallen woman." End quote. The phrase Fallen woman
was used to describe ladies who had lost their innocence and had fallen from the grace of God, just like the most famous
fallen woman of all time, Eve, you know. She ignored God's message and got us kicked out
of the Garden of Eden. Nevermind the men's part in this, men were simply encouraged not to sin, but women were the sin. And the worst kind of fallen woman to them was the sex worker. And there was this paranoia at the time that sex work was on the rise. It was believed that any
woman who had premarital sex or got pregnant out of wedlock
would be on the fast track to selling her body and her soul. This is when a rich white lady shows up and decides that she's going
to save these poor souls. She's going like full Michelle Pfeiffer in "Dangerous Minds". Lady Arabella Denny was born in 1707 with a silver spoon in her mouth. Her mom came from a wealthy family and her dad was the first
earl of County Kerry. So Lady Arabella was
essentially like local royalty. Her life is essentially
eat, pray, love, you know? She goes to spas, has dinner parties, and hangs out with her wealthy friends. And it's great, you know? But I guess she was feeling like her life didn't
really have much purpose. That is until one day she reads an article about a place called
the Foundling Hospital. Foundlings was the word used
for babies who were abandoned, sometimes even killed because
they were born out of wedlock, which was a major sin. So the Foundling Hospital
was trying to address this very dark, using
quotations here, "Dark problem." But the real problem was
conditions at this hospital were horrific. They just didn't have enough resources. When Lady Arabella reads this, she realizes, hmm, this is
my philanthropist moment. She can actually create
some meaningful change here, so she decided to go full
extreme home makeover and set out to revamp
the Foundling Hospital in a very big way. She was like that guy, Ty. Move that bus! New hospital. Great. Not only did she completely
renovate this hospital building, but she treated the staff like people. What a concept, huh? She made sure the nurses
were paid properly and that the working
conditions were actually good, not just enough to get by. All this proved that Lady
Arabella was great at business and could get a job done, and her next project kind of
like fell right into her lap. While she was running the hospital, historians say that it's
likely that she read letters from the mothers of those
illegitimate children, AKA, the fallen woman
we talked about earlier, and that's when Arabella had
like this light bulb moment that changed everything. I'm sorry to put you on blast, Joan, but I had to take her debit card away because she has an
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order and 365-day returns. Love to hear that. That's Quince, Q-U-I-N-C-E.com/darkhistory to get free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com/darkhistory. (lively music) Lady Arabella figures if she can get right to
the source of the issue and rehab these fallen women, maybe there won't be so many foundlings and orphans that need hospitals. On June 11th, 1767, Lady Arabella and some other
rich investors rented a house in the center of Dublin, they called it, quote,
"The Magdalene Asylum for Penitent Females." End quote. First of all, that name, Magdalene, if you don't know, it
comes from the Bible. It's one of Jesus's B-F-F-F-F-F-F-Fs, was Mary Magdalene. Some say that Mary was a sex worker, then she literally found Jesus and reformed her life. Ask any Christian or Catholic
walking down the street who Mary Magdalene is and they will say the sex
worker who washed Jesus's feet. But I'm about to ruin
it for you, I'm sorry. Here's a little fun fact. You can tell them there is
literally nothing in the Bible that says Mary Magdalene
was ever a sex worker. Sorry. I mean, go look. Maybe I'm wrong. I don't think so, but go look. I'm telling you. But it's a story people
have told for centuries. The original idea behind this place was to be like a reformatory, a place where these fallen women could go and restart their lives. These weren't just about
sex workers, but quote, "Seduced and abandoned women who had been discarded by society
for no longer being pure." But this was Ireland in the 1700s, so seduced and discarded was just as dirty as the word prostitute, so they lumped them all together. The idea was that these women
would stay at the asylum for a couple of years while
they learned a, quote, "Respectable profession." They could take up skills
like knitting, embroidering, sewing, you know? And while they weren't learning, they would be put to work, mostly doing laundry. Yeah, this is the
laundry comes into place, it makes sense now. This laundry came from all sorts of places like local businesses, public schools, government departments,
and even like the military. These places would pay the
asylum for the laundry, which kept the lights on and the food on the table for these women. Because of this, Lady
Arbella's facility became known as the Magdalene laundry. Makes sense. It's like when you hear the
movie title in the movie, you know? After its success, more Magdalene laundries opened up in places like the United Kingdom, Europe, Australia, and Ireland. And it was clear the laundries
were really onto something. And to be fair, at the beginning, they truly tried to
help these fallen women. Originally, women even checked themselves into the Magdalene laundry. It was their choice. It seemed like a good
opportunity for like a new start. If a woman was a sex
worker and she wanted out, there was finally a path forward. So it's like great, you know? But then tragedy strikes, and the laundries, they take
a sharp left into funky town. From 1845 to 1852, Ireland experienced the Great Famine, AKA, the Potato Famine, where about 1 million
people died of starvation and another million left the country, and it reshaped Ireland forever. And during this time, the people were in desperate need of some kind of like leadership, some guidance, someone in charge. And who do people turn to when it feels like the end of the world? This was a hard time for everyone, and philanthropists
couldn't raise enough money to keep running these Magdalene laundries. So the Catholic Church steps
in and decides to take over. And instead of running them as a charity, they would now be a for-profit
business moving forward. At a certain point, they realized they had a
cash cow on their hands. Somebody's like, hey, if there are more women
in these laundries, we could wash more laundry
and make more money, plus, save more souls. It would be a win-win-win for
the church, the government, and society, except for the women, of course, but who gives a shit about them? By the late 1800s, there were about 41 Magdalene
laundries in Ireland alone run by different nuns and
different Catholic groups. And women weren't going
there voluntarily anymore, mm-mm, nay, nay. By the 1920s and '30s, the Irish government and
families were now sending women and young girls to the
Magdalene laundries, usually against their will. This included women from
psychiatric institutions and jails and even women with special needs. And something I found so screwed up is that women were also sent there because they, the women,
were sexually assaulted. Yeah, it was their problem that they were sexually assaulted. One survivor, a woman named Martha Cooney, was raped by a family
member when she was only 14. She was obviously traumatized and shared that this happened
to her with her cousin who she thought she could trust. That cousin ratted her
out to the whole family, and the next day, Martha
was sent to the laundries. This is the kind of story that actually inspired a famous movie called "The Magdalene Sisters". 10 out of 10, recommend. The laundry became a place for parents to send their problem children. They would send their unmarried daughters who had gotten pregnant before marriage. Basically, this was a way
for them to hide them. Can't let the neighbors know about Eileen's little secret, you know? These parents relied on
the word of the church who made them believe they had no choice. The state did not provide any
support for those poor girls. And then a major thing happened that sealed the fate of the
Magdalene laundries forever. In 1922, after a three-year war, Ireland won its independence from England. This meant England had no more control over the Irish government and the power that once
belonged to England shifted over to, you guessed
it, the Catholic Church. Yeah, the Catholic Church
became even more powerful. They were seen as the highest
moral authority in the land. And something like 94% of the
population was now Catholic. I mean, you definitely
don't see that anymore. Literally everyone you knew was Catholic and it was just how society was. This is when newly free
Ireland became obsessed with presenting themselves as a, quote, "Pure, moral nation." And there's this intense
church-fueled panic about sexual purity. So the Magdalene laundries
became a catch-all for any woman who weren't considered pure. Instead of a vision for a place where outcast women could start again, the Magdalene laundries had morphed into this carceral institution
that anyone could be sent to without warning. One woman who spent time in
a Magdalene laundry stated, quote, "In Ireland,
especially in those days, the church ruled the roost. The church was always right. You never criticized the priest. You never criticized the holy nuns. You did what they said without
questioning the reason why." End quote. So it's safe to say that the church was
essentially the government, and they must have had some
good PR because no one knew what the hell was going
on in these laundries. To the outside world, these nuns were angels sent
from above to save the whores. Why wouldn't they be trusted? Plus, hey, I mean, they're doing a service and helping restore the
good name of Irish families. The most important thing
in this Catholic society was to not bring shame upon your family. And trust me, anything could bring shame. If you kissed a boy in the street, shame. Wearing a dress that
shows your ankles, shame. A priest molests you, ugh, that's on you, shame. And the worst thing you could do in this time period as a woman was lose your virginity out of wedlock, or God forbid, get pregnant. That would be the ultimate shame. Now, the qualifications for getting into the
laundry were expanded. I mean, women were getting sent there for all kinds of random ass reasons. Like if you were considered a flirt, pack your bags, off to the laundries. Oh, and my favorite reason
you could get sent away, if you were considered too hot. Mm-hmm, seriously. Too hot, you look good, too hot, out.
(crow cawing) There were actually two
categories of women, the fallen ones and the falling ones, AKA, they were in danger of falling. One of these girls was a
teenager named Phyllis Morgan who lived in an orphanage that was connected to
the Magdalene laundries. When she was a teenager, the nuns gave her the up down, you know, looking at her like, mm, mm-hmm. And they told her
literally like, you're hot, if you leave this orphanage, you're gonna get knocked up, so we're gonna send you to the laundries, you're falling. Honestly, it kind of reminded
me of our witches episode, like if you sneezed wrong, your ass was in a carriage
on the way to the nuns. If you sneezed and you
looked cute doing it, bad, shame, bye. People instinctively trusted the church, and therefore, they trusted the laundries. Sending women there wasn't
seen as like a big deal. Publicly they were seen
as a place of correction and also worship where women
could become pure again. But the thing was, no one really knew what was
happening on the inside. And until you got there and then you realized you were in hell and there was no escape. Satan, is that you? Yeah. Hmm, I love cereal.
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DARKHISTORY to save $5 off. A big thank you to Magic Spoon for sponsoring today's episode. Now let's get back to today's story. Obviously these places are
called the Magdalene laundries, so the girls knew they were
going to be put to work doing laundry. It was in the name. They show up and they're like, just show me where the
goddamn laundry room is. Like, I get it. But listen, the whole laundry thing was kind of like a fake-out because washing dirty clothes
for the entire city is, you know, it's very
exhausting and kind of gross, but the work wasn't the worst part about the Magdalene laundries, I mean, not by a long shot. Now, here's what was
actually going on inside. As soon as you get to the laundry, you get examined. Sometimes this meant being stripped naked. Sometimes there was even hazing, like a nun would strip the new girls, have them stand altogether and they would point, laugh,
and compare their bodies. It was like, what the fuck? I mean, I know, I was like, I thought these were women of God. What happened to thou
shall not judge, ladies? Then after that you were handed a uniform, but not for a school, it was actually a work uniform. And then, get this, they renamed the girls. So they stripped them of
their real legal names and renamed them after a saint. Some former Magdalene laundry inmates even described getting
the GI Jane treatment the second they got a work uniform. Like right off the bat, the nuns would chop off all of their hair. I'm talking about the
worst kind of buzz cut you could ever see. It was bad. They weren't cutting the
hair off with scissors, not even like kitchen scissors, they were essentially
sawing it off with a knife as short as they could get it, like up by your scalp. So sometimes the ladies would
get like a bloody scalp, and if that happened, that was on you, that's your fault. Maybe you shouldn't have moved. There were no mirrors
in the entire building. No one ever celebrated birthdays or even knew how old they were. The nuns were absolutely
hell-bent on making you forget that you were a human being. You were just a mindless worker. And in addition, you were a sinner and you
would be treated as such. The living conditions were horrific, like you were a literally in prison. According to the Justice for
Magdalenes Research page, quote, "Once inside, girls and women were
imprisoned behind locked doors, barred or unreachable
windows and high walls. They were usually given no information as to when or whether
they would be released." End quote. You could try to escape, but there were usually
pieces of broken glass cemented on the other side of the wall, kind of like a booby trap. So the chances on you
getting over the wall through the window and not
landing on this jagged glass was like very slim. Good luck. Have you guys ever seen
these jagged glass fences? A lot of people kind of break glass and put it on a windowsill
or around a planter to prevent people from
coming in or whatever. It's their own form of security, but it's scary-looking, it's aggressive. And if you did manage to get out somehow, you couldn't celebrate just yet because you had to make it
past the local authorities. And those snitches were constantly on the lookout for runaways. So if you got caught, you were returned back to the laundries and the nuns would then punish you by sending you to a
different Magdalene laundry, which may not seem that bad, but it meant your sentence was essentially now starting over. Day one, baby. So a lot of women just shut the hell up and waited to get through the system until they were released. They didn't wanna cause
any problems, right? But there was no guarantee
of when you would get out or if you would get out at all. I mean, it was kind of, it's kind of like worse than a prison because at least in prison you know how long your sentence is. Either you're getting out or you're spending life in prison, right? And it's like, well, at least you know. Women could be there for
a few weeks, for a decade, and many, they never got out. You could either escape or hope that a relative
would come and get you, otherwise, you were
pretty much stuck there. Your best hope was to follow the rules and prove to the nuns that you
were really being transformed by the laundries. Like, oh my God, I never
wanna open my legs again. I'm saved. The first and most important
rule of the Magdalene laundries was to zip your lips. The laundries were set to be very quiet, no talking, no relationships, rules at all times. You were not allowed to have
friends or make small talk or even gossip at all. So except for church or work, it was dead silent all of the time. But if you did manage
to sneak a letter out, there would be nuns who
would make it their job to intercept and destroy the letters before they reached anyone. They were silencing them and keeping them further and further away from their families. The nuns would also play
psychological mind games with these women. They would constantly tell
them that they were nothing, that they came from nothing, that they would never be anything. And they took advantage of how vulnerable and lonely they were. They wanted them to forget
about the outside world and forced them to focus on working. And the work they had to do was hard. Most of these girls were underage and they were doing the
work of full-grown men. Every morning trucks full
of dirty clothes and linen were dumped at the laundry's doorstep. Women were woken up by the
sound of a bell at 6:00 AM. They rushed to work. When my mind hears laundry, it thinks like laundry machine, right? But girl, this is a long time ago, okay? All the laundry was done by hand. Women would be washing, you know, pretty nasty laundry by hand in ice cold buckets. It was set until like
their hands turned blue. When the clothes were finally
washed and hung to dry, they then had to be ironed with these industrial super
dangerous irons for hours. And these irons would cause
serious burns on the women. In my mind, I was picturing
like the scene in "Willy Wonka" where Charlie's mom is stirring
that giant pot of clothes and it kind of looks like soup. I always thought it was. I know it wasn't soup, it was clothes. Kind of like that. But no one was singing and obviously there was no chocolate bar. The money that the laundry
made went right back into keeping the laundry open. The woman didn't see a dime of that money, why would they? Not for you, silly rabbit. They were forced to work in this prison pretty much for free. I mean, you could call it
essentially slave labor. That's what it was. They were also in charge of keeping the prisons
absolutely spotless, top to bottom. They would be on their hands and knees on the cold stone floors, scrubbing and scrubbing until the nuns came and told them to stop. Many women reportedly had walking issues from cleaning on their knees all day. After all this manual labor, these women couldn't even look forward to taking a break for a meal because the food situation
was barely there. The nuns believed there
shouldn't be any comfort at these laundries, and this included food. This meant if you were
living in a laundry, you were constantly on
the verge of starvation. Bread and water was really
all you could count on. I mean, at least you get
some frozen vegetables in prison, you know? It's kind of sad that we're
making a comparison to prison 'cause, you know, well, whatever. But it was worse than
prison, it really was. And if you happen to act up
or give the nuns attitude, mm-mm, no food this week for you. One survivor named Marina Gambold remembers a nun punishing
her by withholding food, saying, quote, "I lost my temper once, she got her string and
she tied it around my neck for three days and three nights and I had to get down on my knees and eat off the floor for three days." Hmm, yeah. Apparently while Marina was
eating food off the ground with a string around her neck choking her, she had to look up at this nun who was like sitting on
her throne in front of her and beg for God's forgiveness. Because of punishment like this, most women just kept their heads down and would pray and pray to be released, along with the isolation, physical abuse, and forced labor. There were reports that the women and girls had experienced sexual abuse inside the Magdalene laundries as well from the priests that they
were expected to trust. And of course, the nuns weren't
gonna say anything about it. I mean, who knows, maybe
the nuns were doing it too. One of the people who
had endured sexual abuse at the laundries was a
woman named Brigid Young. Brigid didn't technically live within the Magdalene laundries, but she lived in the orphanage
that was connected to one, and Brigid dealt with the
nuns from the laundries like daily. She was constantly told by the nuns that the women in the
laundries were, quote, "Women of the devil." End quote. One of those women was
actually Brigid's mother, but she was forbidden to
have any contact with her. The nuns didn't want the women
within the Magdalene walls to have any contact with others, even if it was the orphanage next door. The girls were allowed
to talk to the priests, and some of the Magdalene laundry priests would have these private Bible lessons with some of the more troubled girls. Brigid was one of them. She had private lessons with the priest, but they weren't talking about scripture or anything like that, instead, he would
masturbate in front of her and then ejaculate all over her. It was just disgusting, it was disgusting. Brigid for the longest time
didn't know what was going on because in the orphanage, I mean, there was no sex education. So she knew something
was like off and wrong, but she also just didn't
have the verbiage for it. And on top of that, she knew that the priest
was the highest authority and you didn't question anything he did. Apparently the psycho
would do this to Brigid over and over again and always before his
mass on Sunday mornings. Yeah. And if he was doing it to her, it's like, how many other
girls was he doing this to? Now, if by some miracle you
survived and you were released, you were usually kicked
out without warning, without money, and the only thing you had
was the clothes on your back. And because you had zero communication with the outside world, you were likely starting
your life over from scratch. Many survivors straight up left Ireland because they didn't wanna carry the stigma of having been in a laundry. I guess it was kind of
like a scarlet letter. I mean, it's easy to think
that these are the worst of the stories, but these are only a few
stories from a few survivors. Most women didn't get a chance to talk about their experience and a lot of the women just
didn't wanna relive the trauma. You don't blame them at all. They just wanted to forget about this and forget it even happened
and move on with their lives. But still, by this point in the mid-1900s, hundreds of women were still going in and out of these institutions. By the 1970s, it finally
started to die down, but there were only 660 women
who were admitted to laundries in that 10-year period, which is, it's improvement, right? I'd love to say that this was because society was
getting more progressive, but no, industrial laundry machines were replacing manual laundry, so there wasn't such a big need for cheap, AKA, free laundry labor. By the '80s, only 147 women
were sent to the laundries. And by the '90s, there were
only eight new women admitted, which,
(people applauding) good, good. But it's wild to think
that at the same time on the other side of the world, women in America were burning
their bras at Woodstock and having orgies in the park, you know? Meanwhile in Ireland, they're throwing girls in
prison for showing an ankle. Wild, huh? Like, those two realities don't feel like they should be able to overlap, but they do and they did for way too long, I mean, 231 years to be exact. That's so many generations of trauma and lives just being completely ruined. And I know I've said it before, but so many people outside of Ireland, they've never even heard
about this, you know? I mean, I know I didn't, did you?
(crow cawing) No, exactly. The laundries might still be running today if it wasn't for a huge discovery in 1993. Up until this point in the early '90s, the laundries were basically
like an open secret in Ireland, which I don't know if you know, but it's a pretty small country. And because of the choke hold the Catholic Church had on Ireland, people were kind of
brainwashed into thinking that anything that was run
by the church was good. I mean, yeah, sure there were
rumors about abuse going on, but if it's the word of a girl
versus the word of a priest, a man of God, who do you think people
are gonna believe, hmm? In 1993, the Sisters
of Our Lady of Charity sold part of their convent
to a property developer, and this is when a
discovery happens, okay? You know what they come across? A mass grave. Over a 155 bodies were found, all former laundry inmates, and this was just one property. Obviously this gets out to the press and these journalists discover
that for those 155 bodies, there were only 75 death certificates. The math ain't mathing, hmm. So there are only death
certificates for half of the bodies, which I'm sure we can all agree, pretty shady. But before anyone could
step in and do anything, the nuns, they go and they rebury the
remains in another grave site and announce that there's been some kind of administrative error. Silly us. But silver lining, I guess, with the limelight
finally on the laundries, people feel safe enough
to come and speak out about their experience. Survivors of the
Magdalene laundries system begin to come forward and share their own horrific experiences. Like a survivor named Kathleen Legg. She was one of the women who willingly sent
herself to the laundries. When Kathleen was 14, she and her single mother
were living a very tough life, they were essentially scraping by, so they talked about how she could make something of her life just to get out of the
crappy situation she was in. They decided the best thing to do would be to continue her
education with the nuns. The nuns were trusted
by everyone, you know? At this place she could
learn new life skills, and most importantly, her mom thought that the
nuns would watch over her and give her a safe place to live. Nobody knew, you know? Kathleen described her experiences, quote, "You operated like a robot and you did not dare question a nun. We bathed once a week and I remember the lice from our hair used to float around the top of the water, so if you were one of
the last to get washed, it was horrific. Ugh, could you imagine? Ugh. I mean, think about it. I bet after like a week
of all that manual labor, you'd be like dying for a bath, you stink. But imagine being the last one to bathe. Mm, girl. Mm, I don't care. I'd be like, nah, I'm good. I'll smell like for
another week, you know? Not taking a dip with the lice. According to the Irish
Central Staff, quote, "The discovery turned
the Magdalene laundries from an open secret to front-page news. Suddenly, women begin to testify about their experiences
at the institutions and to pressure the Irish government to hold the Catholic Church accountable." I know, so this got me thinking, how is the government going
to investigate this properly if they were involved too? But this was bigger than the church. Now that the cat was out of the bag, it was becoming more
clear that this laundromat that was operating in plain sight was a massive human rights violation. So the United Nations steps in and goes to the big daddy
of the Catholic Church, the Vatican. And they're like, look, listen, bitch, this is fucked up. You gotta stop, I imagine they said to the priest. Technically what they
actually said was that, quote, "Girls, at the laundries, were
deprived of their identity, of education, and often of food and essential medicines and were imposed with
an obligation of silence and prohibited from having any contact with the outside world." And thank God that the UN stepped in, because once they put the church on blast, it was only a matter of time before the last Magdalene
laundry was shut down for good. And the evidence just kept piling up. More and more women were speaking out, more bodies were found, and more priests and nuns
are shitting their pants. It's discovered that over 300,000 women passed through the Magdalene laundries, and we don't even know how
many of those women had died. You think they were keeping track? Of course not, come on. And finally, on October 25th, 1996, the last laundry in existence
closed its doors permanently. It was called Our Lady
of Charity in Dublin. In its heyday, it had about 150 women who had been working there. And by 1996 there were only 40. And as of October 25th of that year, they were finally free to go. In 1998, a documentary comes out that sheds even more light on the truth about these laundries. It was called Sex in a Cold Climate. I just feel like, look, I'm
not trying to be judgmental, but I feel like I could have
picked a better name, right? Sex in a Cold Climate? Out of everything? Whatever. It told the true stories
of four survivors. Something I thought was
interesting in that documentary, they called the laundries
the Magdalene asylums. So it was like a little rebrand, because, yeah, laundry
was always the cover-up. I mean, they were technically asylums. Now thanks to this movie and the other one I mentioned,
"The Magdalene Sisters", which came out in 2002, there was now even more
pressure on the Irish government and the Catholic Church. Now, people wanted a public apology to all of the women that they had wronged. And at this point, a bunch of
organizations came together and demand formal investigations led by the United Nations
Committee Against Torture. Finally, in 2001, the
state does acknowledge that the women of the Magdalene laundries were indeed victims. Wow, progress. But before they can
officially assign any blame, they say they need to
investigate themselves. The government was basically
like, yeah, that sucks, but don't look at us, it was the church. In 2013, a report comes out. The Irish state admitted
they were involved with the Magdalene laundry abuse. The report was led by Martin McAleese. Now, Martin was a devout Catholic and he was married to a
former president of Ireland. So, and I think it's safe to
say not the most neutral person to be leading this investigation, but okay. And surprise, surprise, the report came back saying, quote, "Women employed in the laundries endured difficult working
conditions and verbal abuse." But there was, quote, "No proof of sexual or physical abuse at
the laundry facilities." What a slap in the face
to all of the survivors who finally got the courage
to speak out, you know? Of course you're not gonna find evidence. How do you find evidence of sexual abuse? Unless in the moment
or like after the fact you go and you report it or something. But a lot of people don't do that, blah, blah, blah. It was just disgusting. But thankfully others handled it better. The prime minister of
Ireland publicly apologized for the treatment of the Magdalene women on February 19th, 2013. So yeah, like 20 years after
the discovery of the graves. Thanks. He said, quote, "On behalf of this state, the government, and our citizens, I deeply regret and apologize unreservedly to all those women for the
hurt that was done to them, for any stigma they suffered as the result of the time they spent in the Magdalene laundry. We now know that the state
itself was directly involved in over a quarter of all admissions to the Magdalene laundries." End quote. Oh shit. It kind of sounds like
they're trying to get out of taking all of the blame. He also agreed to pay the
survivors 58 million euros, which is about $75 million. Survivors could get
between 15,000 and 130,000, depending on how long they
were at the laundries. These women were told that they would also receive
state-funded retirement and free medical care. And some did, but according to our expert, it was a very fishy situation. And the government made it
really difficult for these women to claim any money. And I think we all know this by now, but I'm gonna say it again, money isn't gonna fix the trauma and all the bullshit they went through. Money isn't gonna bring back one of those who was buried, you know? I don't know. During this whole investigation, the state starts doing the math, and it's reported that in a 74-year period from 1922 to 1996, 14,000 documented women
were sent to the laundries. And that's only the women
who had a paper trail. These are women who would
likely still be alive if they had made it out. Plus, that's only 74 years out of the 231 that the laundries were open for business. So, okay. The real number is probably
more than we can even imagine. And then another really
horrible stat comes out. Between 1954 and '64, over half the women trapped
in these laundries died there. What, over half? Yeah. The fuck? What's wild is that even
after all of this comes out, the church was still
refusing to apologize. Why do they hate apologizing? Isn't it in the Bible that
you should apologize, Church? They were pissed that the Irish government
was calling them out and publicly criticizing them, okay? Now, many nuns and priests still believe that they had done nothing wrong and that the laundries were
ultimately more good than bad. Claire McCormack, a journalist, interviewed two nuns who
asked to remain anonymous. Bitches. One of them said, quote,
"Apologize for what? Apologize for providing a service? We provided a free
service for the country. There was a terrible need
for a lot of those women because they were on the street, with no social welfare and starving. We provided shelters for them." Whoa, nuns, a little delulu, okay? A little delulu, but whatever. A little aggressive too. Like, just chill, just say sorry, whatever. It wasn't until 2018 that
the church acknowledged that what they had done was wrong. That year the Pope visited Ireland, which was like a huge deal because a pope hadn't been
to Ireland since the '70s. He came like with bell
bottoms and stuff back then and smoking a cigar, but not this time. And when he got there, it was said that Pope Francis spent most of his two-day trip in Ireland on an apology tour. I mean, yeah, he better. He gave a whole speech
asking for forgiveness for multiple things. And when it became clear he
was referencing the laundries, everyone who was there applauded. Again, it's like, okay, 22 years too late, but okay, okay. In 2022, the Irish government announced that the last standing
Magdalene laundry building would be turned into a
memorial for all of the, quote, "Thousands of unmarried mothers
and other unwanted women who were forced to work without
pay in abject conditions, often until they died." End quote. There seems to be this
trend on dark history of things starting out with
great intentions, right? And then they just take a
fucking sharp left, right? Just wildly out of control. They get crazy, especially when money gets involved. It doesn't matter if
you're a CEO or devout nun, money and power can corrupt anyone. And we still don't know
everything about the laundries. Did they search all the
properties for more victims, more bodies, anything like that? And shouldn't they? I mean, there's still more coming out, and some of these
survivors are still waiting on their payouts from
the Irish government. Hello, Irish government, can you please get a move on? Thank you. And the story of the Magdalene
laundries isn't even over. There are still new
details being discovered by groups like the
nonprofit research group, Justice for Magdalenes. They're doing incredible
work to shed light on everything that happened
to the fallen women. Definitely check them out if
you can at jfmresearch.com. I'll link them in the
description box as well. But what they're doing is incredible. And there's also a movie that's supposed to come out
this year about the laundry starring Cillian Murphy. It's called "Small Things Like These", but I guess it's based on a book, so I'm definitely gonna
check that out for sure. There seems to be serious
interest in this story, which is great since it has
been buried for so long. Next week I get into something that affects the entire world. It's a tradition that's older than Jesus and one unofficial event involved throwing women off a cliff. It used to be something
celebrated by the average Joe, and now it's a billion dollar industry. I'm talking the Olympics. (triumphant music) Every four years we're
supposed to get all excited and be like America, yeah! But my question was like, for what? Why? Why do we do this? Does anyone know? Well, next week we're gonna be talking about the dark history of the Olympics, and I hope to see you there. Well, friends, thank you so much for hanging out with me today. Sorry to drop this awful story on you, but now you know. Join me over on my YouTube where you can watch these
episodes on Thursday after the podcast airs. And while you're there, you can also catch my
Murder, Mystery and Makeup. I'd love to hear your guys's
reactions to today's story, so make sure to use
the hashtag darkhistory over on social media so I can follow along and
see what you're saying. Now, your favorite part, Joan. Let's read a couple of
your guys's comments that you left me. Ooh, scribbabbles left us a comment on our Valentine's Day
episode saying, quote, "In response to the Vinegar Valentine, there used to be, maybe it still exists, a rejection phone line where you could find a phone
number in your area code and give it as your phone number to people and it would let them
know when they call it that you're not interested." True story. I was given this, it's sad, I was given this phone
number in middle school 'cause I had a crush on this
guy and he wasn't interested. So he gave me this phone number and I was really excited I called it and it was a rejection number. Yeah, but look at me now. (Bailey laughs) Where's he? I don't know. Fuck him. Amani38964 had a question for me, asking, "Are you involved
in some form of witchcraft? I don't know, I get that vibe from you." No, but thank you, I guess. I don't know. What kind of witch, though? Not the one with the wart or
the mole or something, right? Like a cute witch? As long as I'm cute. Thanks for your question, but no. Lexismd commented on our
Founding Fathers episode, saying, "Love this series on founding fathers. Have you considered looking
into the history of birthdays? Thank you for all you do. Beautiful soul." Thank you so much. At first, I was like, is there something to
learn about birthdays? Isn't it just the day that you're born? But look, I'll look it up, I'll look into it and see
if there's something there. Thank you guys so much
for leaving comments. I appreciate it and I love
reading them every week, so keep 'em coming 'cause
you might be featured. Hey, if you don't know, Dark History is an Audioboom original. This podcast is executive
produced by Bailey Sarian, Dunia McNeily from 3 Arts, Kevin Grosch and Matt
Enlow from Made In Network. Writers, Joey Scavuzzo, Katie Burris, and Allyson Philobos. Production lead, Brian Jaggers. Research provided by Coleen Fives-Smith. A special thank you to our
expert, Nathalie Sebbane, senior lecturer at the Sorbonne in Paris, specialized in Irish history. And I'm your host, Bailey Sarian. I hope you guys have a
good rest of your day, you make good choices. And I'll be talking to you next week. Goodbye. (lively music) (crow cawing)
