BOOK REVIEW: Whispering Hope.
Just finished reading this book, its in WH Smiths in UK and available on Amazon (see below).
I am SO angry right now, firstly well done to these very brave women who tell their awful story in this book, its written by five very brave ladies and their campaigner Steven O'Riordan.
This book is about the battle that the Magdalene women had to make the Irish Government accept that they were held illegally in Catholic laundries, and beaten and starved and worked like slaves with no pay and no human rights.
Incredibly Enda Kenny REFUSED to apoligise to these women, or to compensate them, but then of course had to do a U turn when he faced pressure from other Irish politicians and the Country at large, this was in 2013 so it is about recent events.
What makes me so angry is that some of these women were sent to laundries at the age of 10, or 12, mere children, I remember a time when the Irish government staunchly refused to accept that young girls were sent to these hell holes and they tried to defend it by saying only pregnant women were sent there, because society did not want them and they acted like they were doing these women a favor.
I also remember when the Redress Board first set up, they refused to compensate women from the laundries, saying that they were there because they were pregnant and that these were "unmarried mothers homes" their words, not mine, the State also argued that they had nothing to do with these laundries so they were therefore not responsible.
Well the book proves that young girls aged 10 and 12 WERE sent there, and were worked like slaves to make the nuns lots of money, it also proves that the state WAS paying the nuns for each resident, so they WERE responsible.
It made me so angry to see young children being sent to these hell holes, when in truth of course NO woman should have been sent there, and a woman of 17, was sent there too the book explains how the LAST woman was sent there in 1996, yes, I said 1996. And even in 2015 when the women were taking part in an inquiry there was a woman who was STILL a resident in one of the last laundries where they took women in and held them illegally and refused to allow them to leave, and where they told them, they were "penitents" and were there to work off thier sins, even the 10 and 12 year olds were told they were there because they were penitents and sinners.
This book opened my eyes, and taught me things I did not know, and educated me, and its a must read.
I also remember when the Redress Board set up that it refused to take applications from blind or deaf children who had been placed in deaf or blind schools and been abused, the State argued that these kids were there because they were deaf or blind and not because they were being taken illegally like the other kids who were taken by the State.
Can you believe that??? That they were saying that because a child was there due to its disability, they couldnt be acknowledged or heard, simply because they were not stolen by the State and incarcerated illegally?
I also remember that the children who WERE stolen by the State and kept illegally, were told if they suffered physical abuse, rather than sexual abuse, they too couldnt be compensated or acknowledged? When we know now that some children were either worked to death, or beaten to death.
I also remember because I was one of them, that we were told that if we were abused in primary or secondary schools we wouldnt be heard or acknowledged, and that still stands to this day, that the Redress Board and the Commission to Enquire into Child Abuse, refused to hear cases, like mine, where I was beaten and abused in Loreto Abbey National School in Dalkey, and when the nun discovered that I was pregnant aged 11, rather than get me the help I so desperately needed, she punished me for not taking off the smock coat I was wearing belonging to my older pregnant sister, and caned me, for refusing to show her my bump.
Had this nun of acted, my four younger siblings would not have been abused, three of them might still be alive, and my daughter Noleen may not have been murdered in front of me, and my son John conceived, or born in my family home, where when he died, he was buried in a shallow grave in my back garden, where I had to live for another five years before I could leave home, with his tiny grave under my bedroom window.
So yes, instead of protecting me, this nun ignored my plight, and left me to continue to be raped and beaten at home and by the local paedophile ring, and she continued to beat me too, making it impossible for me to be able to trust her, or approach her for help for my siblings and I.
And so, this book is a must read, so that we can educate ourselves about our Irish Government, and not a Government of 50 years ago, no, a Government of only 2-3 years ago, and a Government who still refuses to reach out to me or my daughter, and my son, and my siblings, a Government who continues to do what it does best, ignore, lie and avoid. Is it any wonder I am angry??????
https://www.amazon.co.uk/Whispering-Hope-Story-Magdalene-Women/dp/1409158292/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1474819080&sr=8-1&keywords=whispering+hope
