For generations, women in Ireland who were considered ‘wayward’ or ‘immoral’ were forcibly confined to institutions known as Magdalene Laundries. These state-funded and church-operated institutions coerced women, many of whom were abuse victims, into unpaid labor, isolating them from society.
The discovery of a mass grave containing 155 bodies on the grounds of one such laundry in 1993 exposed the atrocities that occurred within. Ireland’s last Magdalene Laundry closed in 1996, with former Prime Minister Enda Kenny condemning them as the “nation’s shame,” while Cillian Murphy described the institutions as leaving a ”collective trauma” in Ireland.
Survivors recounted – echoing similar sentiments from certain students in Ireland’s religious run schools – being forced to scrub floors, suffering physical or sexual abuse, and giving birth without medical care, only to have their children taken away. Some spent their entire lives in these workhouses.
Singer Sinéad O’Connor famously protested against Catholic church abuse by tearing up a picture of the Pope on Saturday Night Live in 1992. Having spent 18 months in a care facility linked to a Magdalene asylum for truancy and shoplifting, she claimed girls there “cried every day” and recalled being tasked with washing priests’ clothes.
(Image: Getty Images)
Murphy takes the lead for the first time since his turn in Oppenheimer, starring in the new movie, Small Things Like These. The film is an adaptation of Claire Keegan’s acclaimed novel and sees Irish coal merchant Bill Furlong (played by Murphy) becoming wary when he sees a lot of activity around the local convent in his modest town, reports the Mirror.
Gerald Kean’s daughter is heartbroken after the passing of Lisa Murphy, mentioned by Kean as, “She has lost her second mum.”
Murphy himself pitched the film to Matt Damon while filming Oppenheimer. The motion picture honors the multitudes of women who were sent to Magdalene Laundries between 1922 and 1998, emphasizing how their plight worsened with time.
(Image: UGC)
Critics have been showering praise on the film, with one reviewing: “It stays true to the quietly devastating source material. Over a terse 97 minutes and a handful of simple scenes with bare-bones dialogue, the story of Bill Furlong is shown, not told.”
Another was impressed, expressing: “A poignant story about powerful institutions and their influence. It does a lot with little dialogue, leading to something rich and thought-provoking.”
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