Madam, - Mary Raftery's column in Thursday's edition made harrowing and shameful reading. The story of the Magdalen Laundries is one of the most sordid in Irish social history. The young women who were imprisoned in laundries run by the religious orders and subjected to dreadful cruelty and constant humiliation are a generation we have, until recently, chosen to forget.
They were stripped of their dignity in life, and the grave has not given them relief from this debasement. Unnamed and unregistered, they passed through life without any basic civic dignities being bestowed on them. The conduct of the religious order in question is despicable, and the State's lamentable.
How can a group of people who shroud themselves in piety and charity behave in such a callous manner - and, in failing to register the deaths, an illegal one? Why did the State collude in this illegal activity, issuing an additional licence to exhume bodies when there were no death certificates for them?
Questions need to be answered both by the nuns and the State authorities. A serious crime has been committed. I have no doubt but that the Minister for Justice will be concerned by so many unexplained and unregistered deaths. If we choose to turn a blind eye to what happened in this case, we are condoning this conduct.
Religious communities have made positive contributions to Irish society, but the reputation of religious orders globally has never been so low. I welcome the fact that the State has made valiant attempts to wrestle free from the grip the Catholic Church once held in Ireland. This case proves that there is still a long way to go. - Yours, etc.,
FIONA O'MALLEY, TD, Dáil Éireann, Dublin 2.
Madam, - Reading the articles by Mary Raftery and Joe Humphreys in your edition of August 21st about the Magdalen Laundry graveyard, I could not help but feel a terrible sadness and a seething anger over the whole affair.
This is yet another unfortunate example of the State facilitating a cover-up of the most awful abuse that the most vulnerable people in our communities were forced to endure, and of the final insult - large numbers of unknown, unnamed women in unmarked graves.
These people not only endured the most heinous conditions during their piteous lives, but even in death Church and State conspired to deal them the ultimate insult - cremating their remains and reinterring their unknown ashes in a communal grave without even identifying many of the poor souls.
This is yet another example of the culture of secrecy and guilt that is prevalent in Irish society, and perpetuated by the self-serving needs of the few.
There are too few people willing to stand up, to ask questions, to demand that we no longer hide but acknowledge our past.
Shame on us all. - Yours, etc.,
SHANE McCARRICK, Main Street, Lucan, Co Dublin.