UNBELIEVABLE TALES FROM A LAND NOT FAR AWAY, NOT SO LONG AGO... "THE MAGDELENE SISTERS"

In the developed world, we read with horror, the stories of people incarcerated or even sometimes put to death for “matters of the heart”. The examples range from countries that punish homosexuality by death to those stories of families that put their daughters through punishments that range from ostracism to death for flirting with a boy, or even being suspected of flirting with a boy.  While we roll our eyes and thank whatever gods may be this no longer happens where we live, it’s very easy to forget that it actually did happen, until relatively recently, in a land not so far away…

The Magdelene sisters is the true story of life in the Magdelene Laundries, an “establishment” for “fallen women”. These institutions were first founded in the 18^th century and continued to function in much the same way until 1996 when the last of the institutions closed down in Ireland. The institutions could be found all over Europe, North America and Australia and aimed to “reform” fallen women through a gruelling regime of manual labour (often laundering clothes but also other forms of labour, cleaning, needlework etc), prayer , enforced silence and the giving up of all worldly luxuries (such as decent food and sleep). Our story focuses on the stories of three young Irish women who are sent to just such an asylum for “crimes” such as flirting, getting raped and having a child out of wedlock. Once dumped here, more often than not their families wanted nothing more to do with them and the girls faced a life of drudgery and dehumanization, as some of the more unfortunate ones who were either orphans or the offspring of very strict families were never “claimed” or asked after again… The three heroines of our story realise quickly that “gritting your teeth and baring it” is really, really not an option and that unless they take their fate into their own hands quickly they are going to get “swallowed” forever by the establishment and never heard of again. The question is, will their friendship give them enough strength to break free?

I defy anyone to watch this film from beginning to end without welling up at some point. Geraldine McEwan gives an absolutely stellar performance as Sister Bridgette, the head nun who runs this particular branch of the Magdalene laundries with an iron fist. The girls are “institutionalised” for crimes that are mostly not even their fault; some of the girls don’t even quite understand what it is they have done as finding people with serious mental issues is quite common. The institution calls itself an asylum but very little is done in the way of actually trying to “treat” the girls. The girls have to “redeem” themselves through drudgery and suffering. They can, supposedly, leave when the nuns decide they are ready but this rarely happens. The only real ways out are joining the order of nuns, being “reclaimed” by a male relative or escape. Failing those, the girls are pretty much left in the laundry to “redeem” themselves until the day they die. But as you watch the film and rejoice when the happy endings come round (be warned, not all of the “stories” in the film end happily) please spare a thought for the millions of women around the world today who suffer the same sort of treatment on a psychological level. There are so many cases where rape victims are considered to have “provoked” their attacker and getting pregnant outside of wedlock is considered the greatest of all sins. The film may be set in the 60’s but the stories it tells are sadly quite current in some countries, some far, some closer to home than you may think…

The film not only does a wonderful job of telling a chilling story through truly amazing acting and some seriously quality filmmaking, hopefully, through these stories, it provides a stepping stone for people of the developed world to start thinking about these stories, these stories that are getting repeated all over the world today in different settings. The film is a far cry from being a “call to action”; in fact it is more a testament to something terrible that happened in the recent past and a voice that has been leant to thousands of victims that were forced into silence. But it does bring you to the question “why stop there?”. A couple of well selected key words in to the search engines and you will see that the story is as current as ever… Now this little multiple award winner has given you something to think about… Who knows, you may want to do something about it as well…