The Magdalen Asylum network
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The first Magdalen Asylums (later known as Magdalen Laundries) were initially Protestant and funded by philanthropists. In Ireland, Magdalen Asylums were largely run by Catholic Orders, in response to the levels of poverty, prostitution, destitution and disease (Smith, 2007). The Magdalen Laundries were part of an extensive institutional network, which began as asylums for ‘fallen’ women but graduated to being “carceral institutions that were used to hold at least 10,000 girls and women, many against their will before they finally closed in the 1990s” (McAtackney, 2022: p. 267) [1].
Magdalen Asylums existed in Europe, North America, Australia and New Zealand. The first institution that could be classified as a Magdalen Laundry was the Magdalen Hospital for the reception of the penitent ‘fallen’ in the Whitechapel area of London in 1758 (Finnegan, 2004). This institution “admitted females aged between fifteen and twenty and could eventually house around 140 inmates desirous of reform” (ibid.: p. 8). Its success encouraged the establishment of similar institutions in Ireland, such as the Dublin Magdalen Asylum situated in Lower Leeson Street, which was opened in 1767 by Lady Arabella Denny, an Irish Philanthropist who was a supporter and later reformer of the Dublin Foundling Hospital. The Dublin asylum was “intended as a refuge in which reforming prostitutes could be rehabilitated, and new skills learned there would help give them independence when they re-emerged” (O Mahony, 1997: p. 47) [2].
Two Homes were opened in Cork, Ireland - a Catholic Magdalen Asylum in Peacock Lane (1809) and a Protestant Refuge in South Terrace (1810). The Catholic Magdalen Asylum was established by a philanthropist called Mr Nicholas Terry (Professor Linda Connolly cited Walking Borders, 2018). “Later, the Irish Sisters of Charity were asked to take over the running of the Asylum and following the completion of the St. Vincent’s Convent on the grounds, the order took over the Asylum in 1846” (ibid.: Planning the Walk; see also Finnegan, 2004). It was described as a
refuge for the fallen who would otherwise wander through our streets, a menace to the innocent and a prey to the vicious. It is a sanctuary where the sinner finds, not rigorous and condign punishment, but forgiveness for the past and strength for the future. It is a home where the homeless outcast may find happiness in the friendship of God and the society of those who work for His glory (Irish Examiner, 1921: p. 5)
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After a wing on the Convent of St. Vincent de Paul at Peacock Lane had been fitted with a laundry and drying room, the girls in the asylum worked in the laundry “washing, ironing and mangling” (O Mahony, 1997: p. 249). ​
The Ordnance Survey of Ireland, 1869 layout of St Mary Magdalen’s, Peacock Lane.
(copyright: OSi) (photo credit: Tom Spalding, courtesy of Diarmuid Ó Drisceoil)
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The other Cork refuge in South Terrace was modelled on the London Female Penitentiary (Finnegan, 2004). It took in women mainly from prison (Professor Linda Connolly cited Walking Borders, 2018). Here, the girls were also ‘rehabilitated’ and trained in laundry work and kitchen duties (O Mahony, 1997). Today, the site is part of St. Johns Central College (T. Spalding, personal communication, April 4, 2024).
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The Contagious Diseases Acts of 1864
By the early 1860s, the apparent levels of venereal disease were causing alarm and the inter-related discourses of government, the police, medical opinion and the armed forces combined to counter the spread by regulating ‘prostitution’ to protect the nation’s health, through the Contagious Diseases Acts (O’Neill, 2001; Luddy, 1993; and Finnegan, 2004).
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The Contagious Diseases Act of 1864 (and the subsequent C.D. Acts of 1866 and 1869) were introduced, to permit the compulsory inspection of prostitutes for venereal disease in certain military camps or naval depots in both England and Ireland (Walkowitz and Walkowitz, 1973; Luddy, 1993; and T. Spalding, personal communication, April 4, 2024). The 1866 Act extended police powers into all towns and communities where women were
suspected of promiscuous behavior […] Previously, police had relied on reports from the men admitted to the military hospital. Now they were expected to go out to the community and maintain a tight surveillance over places where "public women" might congregate, principally the centers of working-class leisure activities and residential quarters-pubs, beershops, music halls, fairs, private lodgings and tramp common-lodging houses (Walkowitz and Walkowitz, 1973: p. 75)
Under the C.D. Acts, a woman suspected of being a prostitute could be arrested by a policeman and “taken before a magistrate, who had the power to certify her as a common prostitute and order her to submit to a fortnightly internal examination” (Luddy, 1993: p. 32). If found to be suffering from a venereal disease, she was forcibly detained in a Lock Hospital (pseudo-medical prisons) for a period of up to nine months (ibid.; see also Malcolm, 1999; O’Neill, 2001; and Walkowitz, 1980 for an example from England of treating women detained in Lock Hospitals with mercury for suspected venereal disease [3]).
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In these Acts, one may perceive imperialist compulsions turned inward toward the domestic colonization of the poor…the C. D. Acts were informed by a fear of contagion, and were part of the legal, institutional, and sanitary network that segregated and rationalized the treatment of the socially deviant (Walkowitz and Walkowitz, 1973: p. 5).
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The ‘subjected districts’ in Ireland were Cork, Cobh, and the Curragh camp, which increased surveillance of women's public activities. The Acts served not only to regulate poor women but to define the category of Prostitute, as explained by O’Neill and Jobe:
The Contagious Diseases Acts enshrined in law the category `prostitute’, so that what she does (sells sex) becomes who she is (prostitute). Her identity is fixed through labelling, registration, cautioning and imprisonment in pseudo-prisons called lock hospitals. She is simultaneously made an `outcast’ from the working-class communities she lived and worked in, set apart as `Other’, labelled a `common prostitute.’ (2016: para. 4).
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Opposition to the Acts arose by some because they were seen as an interference with civil liberties, and by others, as the recognition and support of vice by the state (Luddy, 1993). The acts also heralded Ireland's first women’s organisation, the Ladies National Association, which condemned the acts on legal and moral grounds (see Finnegan, 2004; and Luddy, 1993).
The Good Shepherd Asylum at Sunday’s Well
Cork City’s third asylum was established in early 1870 following the Contagious Diseases Acts. That is the Good Shepherd Asylum at Sundays Well, which was supported and managed by the Sisters of the Good Shepherd. It aimed to reform prostitutes and train girls in useful skills (see Smith, 2007; O Mahony, 1997; and Walking Borders, 2018). The complex was designed by the architect George Ashlin and it opened in July 1872 (O Mahony, 1997). This was followed by the construction of the Convent in 1873 and later still by an industrial school (Professor Linda Connolly cited Walking Borders, 2018).
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Image of the Good Shepherd Magdalen Asylum (photo credit: Conach Gibson-Feinblum, 2024)
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The Good Shepherd Asylum occupied a commanding position next to Cork City Gaol, wholly separated from its surroundings by walls, symbolically and materially representing the containment of the women and children inside (see Professor Linda Connolly cited Walking Borders, 2018). After its opening, six women were received into the asylum the following day. They had been sent from the Lock Hospital, on the Old Blackrock Road, by its chaplain, Rev. Henry Reed (O Mahony, 1997; see also Finnegan, 2004: p. 178 for information on the first six ‘penitents’). By the end of 1879, over 300 women had passed through the doors of the Good Shepherd, and 160 remained there - many of which had come from the Lock Hospital for ‘training and reform’ (ibid.).
Some of the Magdalenes stayed in the asylum until they were considered to be reformed, and in some cases, the Magdalenes remained permanently in the institutions “not knowing if they would ever be released” (Professor Linda Connolly cited Walking Borders, 2018: Planning the Walk).
Image of the back of the Good Shepherd Magdalen Asylum (photo credit: Maggie O’Neill, 2024)
Sex, sin and stigma
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Although the Good Shepherd Asylum at Sunday’s Well was originally established to accommodate registered prostitutes, it soon began receiving women and girls from a variety of channels, including women and girls sent by the judicial system and transfers from other institutions such as Industrial Schools or Mother and Baby Homes. Justice For Magdalenes Research also discovered evidence of girls who were sent to the asylum by social workers, local authorities, and hospitals; and some women and girls were committed to the asylum by non-state actors, including family members, priests or church groups. This happened for an array of reasons, notes Justice For Magdalenes Research (n.d.), such as the fear of scandal related to unwed mothers and illegitimacy, as well as sexual abuse and mental illness: “It wasn't just for pregnant girls. Not many were unmarried mums, they were wayward women, girls from orphanages, pretty girls and prostitutes” explains Mary Norris (born Mary Cronin), a former inmate at the Good Shepherd Asylum (Young, 2002: p. 8).
The asylum’s rehabilitative foundation became punitive and cruel, particularly after the foundation of the Irish State in 1922 (Professor Linda Connolly cited Walking Borders, 2018; and McAtackney, 2022). Women’s citizenship was defined according to Catholic moralistic values and judgements as “guardians of sexual virtue and as symbols of home and nation”, and any woman or girl who shamed not only their families but also the nation was required to be physically separated and concealed (Seal and O’Neill, 2019: p. 39). Against this, the mobilisation of guilt and shame was deeply embedded in the operation of the Magdalen institutions, as they cultivated a particularly disciplinary environment through industry and labour (ibid.). “No woman, then, was to have a moment’s privacy or relaxation” (Finnegan, 2004: p. 232).
Measures of control and discipline
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To discourage any reference to an individual’s former lives and improper thoughts, uniforms were shapeless, and in most asylums, women had their hair cut (Finnegan, 2004). Long hours of prayer and the Rule of Silence were also features of the asylum enforced by the Good Shepherds. “It was hell on earth - like a prison. We were called inmates or sheep. They took everything away from us,” explains Mary Norris’ whose only ‘sin’ was going to the cinema without permission - with a boy who did not exist - at the age of 17 (Young, 2002: p. 8).
Revenue was derived from charity sermons that largely defined the Good Shepherd Sisters as “devoting their lives and their energies to looking after Christ in the poor” (Irish Examiner, 1955: p. 2; see also Irish Examiner, 1942; Irish Examiner, 1954). Another means of support was the laundry regime, which involved harsh and sometimes dangerous working conditions for the Magdalenes, who did not receive any payment for their services. As explained by Mary Norris:
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When you went behind those doors you gave up your identity, there was no choice in the matter. It was slave labour - we got up at six every morning and worked until six at night. Girls who answered back or committed minor offences had to lie face down and beg forgiveness from the Mother Superior (Young, 2002: p. 8).
The Good Shepherd Sisters ran the Magdalen Asylum at Sunday’s Well until its closure in 1977.
The women and girls experienced the Good Shepherd Magdalen as a total institution based on confinement, discipline and control (see Goffman [1961]2007), making it a prime example of Ireland’s architecture of containment.
Image of the back of the Good Shepherd Magdalen Asylum (photo credit: Maggie O’Neill, 2024)
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Justice for Magdalenes
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Mary Norris, who in her lifetime was instrumental in fighting for justice for the women who died in the care of the Good Shepherd Convent at Sunday’s Well, visited the graves at the Good Shepherd site at Sunday’s Well in 1997. At this time, the site was owned by University College Cork, who purchased the property in 1995. During her visit, Mrs Norris discovered that the nuns’ graveyard was well-cared for and each grave had its own engraved iron cross, but the other graves were enclosed “behind a high wall and the old entrance was sealed” on land belonging to Cork Prison ((Cunningham, 1997: p.3). She spoke of discovering the mass graveyard of 27 women who were buried in derelict, overgrown and unmarked graves, adding that “these women were ostracised in life, and they are now buried in a pauper’s grave and ostracised in death” (ibid.). After the state of the graveyard was made public, Mary Norris received numerous phone calls from people all over Ireland who believed that they might be related to the women buried at Sunday’s Well (ibid.; see also Murphy, 2014 for information on a campaign by a group of survivors of the Good Shepherd Magdalen Laundry).
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Image of the nun’s graveyard (photo credit: Conach Gibson-Feinblum, 2024)
To date, Justice For Magdalenes Research (n.d) has recorded the names of 195 women and girls who died at the Good Shepherd Laundry at Sunday’s Well. There are 30 names inscribed on headstones at the former laundry site, while there are 137 names inscribed on headstones in St Joseph’s Cemetery and a further 27 names inscribed on headstones at Kilcully Cemetery (ibid.). The analysis revealed a number of apparent errors, where names are duplicated between graves, and it is therefore unclear which graves some women are buried in. Justice For Magdalenes Research raised these concerns with the McAleese Committee (see the McAleese Report, 2013).
Little Nellie of Holy God
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In stark contrast, there is a shrine to Ellen Organ (better known as Little Nellie of Holy God) marked by a statue of the infant of Prague on the Good Shepherd site. Little Nellie, who was born in 1903, was placed in the care of the Good Shepherd Sisters at their Industrial School in Sunday’s Well with her sister Mary following the death of their mother from tuberculosis in 1907 (see Herbert, 1973; and Fitzgerald, 2000). It took some time to discover that Little Nellie had been suffering from curvature of the spine, and despite every care, Little Nellie was also diagnosed with lung tuberculosis, giving her only months to live (Herbert, 1973).
As Little Nellie’s health declined, Herbert writes that she had entered “a realm of intimacy with God”, and many of those associated with her believed she had reached the age of reason at four years old (1973: p. 28). Moreover, the nuns began to entertain the idea that Little Nellie should be confirmed and there was great joy in the convent when Most Rev. Dr. O’Callaghan said he was coming to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation to Little Nellie. Afterwards, an obsession with receiving the Holy Communion took possession of the child (ibid.). At first, Little Nellie’s age posed a problem, but this was soon resolved when Rev. Father Bury wrote to Bishop O’Callaghan, who agreed to let Little Nellie receive her First Holy Communion - a sacrament reserved for children over the age of 12 (O’Keeffe, 2022).
According to Fitzgerald (2000), Little Nellie was called to heaven in February 1908 and laid to rest in the public cemetery of St. Joseph. When Little Nellie died, Pope Saint Pius named her the Model of the Child Communicant, which influenced his decision to lower the age of Communion (ibid.). About a year and a half later, at the request of the nuns, Little Nellie’s body was transferred to the nun’s burial ground at Sunday’s Well. Herbert reported that when the grave was opened, Little Nellie’s remains were found to be intact, and “the Communion dress, wreath and veil in which she had been buried was still intact” (1973: p. 28). Since she was re-buried, Little Nellie’s grave remains “the centrepiece of the nun’s graveyard” and a place of pilgrimage that is well-maintained (O’Keeffe, 2022: p. 11).
Image of Little Nellie of Holy God’s grave among the nuns (photo credit: Conach Gibson-Feinblum, 2024)
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Relics, Remembrance and Sites of Conscience
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The Good Shepherd Asylum, like other Magdalen Laundries, was never officially retained by any heritage organisation: “Sundays Well (Cork) has been derelict since it was sold by the Good Shepherd Order in 1995 (it closed in 1977) and has been extensively vandalized, including damaging fires in 2003 and 2012” (and 2022) (McAtackney, 2022: p. 271; see also O’Keeffe,
2022, for more information on the history of ownership) [4].
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In 2016, Maggie O’Neill and Linda Connolly found relics of flowers and messages pinned onto a gate leading to the convent. The symbols on the gate testify to the memory of the women confined behind these gates and the suffering and stigma that happened on these grounds (Walking Borders, 2018).
Image of relics of flowers and messages pinned onto the locked gate
(photo credit: Maggie O’Neill, Walking Borders, 2018)
Maggie and Linda could not gain access to the site in 2016, but today, visitors can enter and walk the trodden path up to the graveyard and Little Nellie’s grave.
In 2017, Justice For Magdalenes Research became aware of a planned development at the former Magdalen Laundry site to redevelop the site into a residential development of 234 apartments (see Cork City Council Moneda Developments Limited’s planning application details, 2017). They presented a submission to Cork City Council regarding the proposed property development, recommending that a consultation process with survivors and family members be facilitated and that every effort be made to locate and preserve any documentation and identify all human remains (O’Rourke, 2017). As part of the submission, Justice For Magdalenes Research wrote that it is imperative that the nature of the identification process is determined and carried out by independent experts and that the results be made publicly available. In response, Cork City Council informed the developers that they must conduct a geophysical survey to identify any unmarked graves at the site (Healy, 2017). However, after achieving planning permission for 202 residential units in 2018, the Good Shepherd site was put up for sale again in 2019 (McAtackney, 2022).
Acknowledgement: Many thanks to Dr Tom Spalding, who introduced us to the site and Little Nellie’s grave, generously shared his knowledge and reviewed this text. Thanks also to Professor Linda Connolly for contributing to and reviewing the text.
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Footnotes
[1] From the foundation of the State in 1922 until the closure of the last Laundry in 1996, the McAleese report (2013) claimed that approximately 10,000 women were known to have entered the Magdalen institutions. However, as pointed out by numerous advocacy groups such as Justice for Magdalenes Research, the official statistics significantly underestimate the number of women and girls confined. As Professor Linda Connolly argued, around thirty thousand women in Ireland, possibly more, were incarcerated (Walking Borders, 2018). Ongoing controversies include the discovery of unmarked mass graves of women and children during redevelopment projects. For example, the mass grave of babies and children found at Tuam care home (see Loftus, 2017).
[2] A succession of asylums/penitentiaries followed the establishment of these 18th-century Homes, including the Bristol Female Penitentiary (1800), Bath Penitentiary (1805), Pentonville Asylum (1807) and Liverpool Female Penitentiary (1810) (see Finnegan, 2004: p. 9 for other examples of early Homes in England).
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[3] Mercury was a standard treatment for VD for both women and men since the early C18th (T.
Spalding, personal communication, July 24, 2024).
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[4] Whilst not recorded in detail, the Good Sepherd Asylum is the subject of a National Inventory
of Architectural Heritage survey and at least two highly detailed environmental and architectural
surveys on behalf of the various developers over the years (T. Spalding, personal
communication, July 24, 2024).
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