Josephine McCarthy was sent to a Magdalene laundry because she had been accused of sexual activity in a car's back seat. She denies the accusation. Even if the charge were true there would be no excuse for her treatment, especially as nothing was done to the man involved. After the accusation she was sent on a train to the town of Cork, and was told that her name was Phyllis and would work in the laundry room. Women in these slave institutions got new names to detach them from their past.
Josephine McCarthy says the day in the laundry started at 5 o’clock in the morning. The women had breakfast, went to mass and then had to start gruelling work. They had to wash and scrub by hand, severely damaging the skin on their knuckles. When ironing clothes they were burnt, and they received no pay for their work. As a further humiliation the women had to pray continually and loudly for their alleged sins. Josephine McCarthy says she has felt dirty all her life. Like Mary Norris she would have preferred a prison sentence. Josephine McCarthy says the women were kept behind 20-foot walls and broken glass was mortared into concrete topping those walls.
References and Sources
Wikinfo (http://www.wikinfo.org/wiki.php?)
The Magdalene Laundries--An Unfortunate Part of Ireland's (Recent) Past (http://www.getunderground.com/underground/columns/article.cfm?Article_ID=1326)
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