This page is about the role of Roman Catholic religious orders in the adoption of the Nordic Model in the Irish Republic. There were four orders of Roman Catholic nuns who ran Magdalene Laundries. Three of them have been involved in the campaign for the Nordic Model to be adopted in Ireland. I wanted to find out more about them. This page is not just about the Magdalene Laundries but also about Mother and Baby Homes, orphanages and industrial schools.
The Nordic Model is a system where men can be convicted for paying for sex. In Nordic Model countries women should never be convicted for being paid for sex, and resources should be available to help women exit prostitution. The intention is to eliminate prostitution, or at least to decrease demand.
A Magdalene Laundry was an institution where women and girls were forced to perform unpaid labour—primarily laundry work—as a form of penitence for perceived moral transgressions. Many of the women confined in these laundries were unmarried mothers, victims of abuse, or simply deemed burdens on society.
A Mother and Baby Home was an institution where unmarried women were sent to give birth in secrecy. Many of the women were forced to stay for extended periods, performing unpaid labour, while their babies were frequently placed for adoption—sometimes without consent. Conditions were often harsh, and infant mortality rates were alarmingly high.
These are the four orders of nuns that ran Magdalene Laundries. I have colour coded them because it is easy to lose track of who did what.
- Religious Sisters of Charity (linked to ICI)
- Sisters of Our Lady of Charity (linked to Ruhama)
- Good Shepherd Sisters (linked to Ruhama)
- Sisters of Mercy
The good sisters did a deal with the developer who bought their land. They split the costs of clearing the mass grave, exhumed and cremated the bodies, and re-buried the ashes in another mass grave, in Glasnevin cemetery. However, it emerged that there were 22 more bodies in the grave than the nuns had listed when applying for permission to exhume. Over one-third of the deaths had never been certified. The nuns did not even appear to know the names of several of the women, listing them as Magdalene of St Cecilia, Magdalene of Lourdes, and so on.
Land surrounding a former mass grave at the largest Magdalene Laundry was quietly sold by the order of nuns who ran it for €61.8 million during the boom.
Land surrounding a former mass grave at the largest Magdalene Laundry was quietly sold by the order of nuns who ran it for €61.8 million during the boom.
Neither the Catholic Church, nor the four religious institutes that ran the Irish asylums [Magdalene Laundries] have as yet contributed to the survivor's fund, despite demands from the Irish government. They have ignored requests by the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child and the UN Committee Against Torture to contribute to the compensation fund for victims, including 600 still alive in March 2014. In 2013 they announced that they would not be making any contribution to the State redress scheme for women who had been in the laundries.
Who are Sisters Sheila Murphy and Bernadette McNally? They have three things in common.
Mother and Baby Homes
There were eight religious order who ran Mother and Baby Homes.
- Sisters of Mercy
- Good Shepherd Sisters
- Sisters of Bon Secours
- Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary
- Legion of Mary
- Sisters of St John of God
- The Daughters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul (DCSVP)
- Church of Ireland (Protestant)
The Sisters of Bon Secours ran a Mother and Baby Home in Tuam in County Galway. There is another mass grave there. Exhumations have yet to take place but it seems there are remains of almost 800 infants.
Only two of eight religious bodies linked to mother and baby homes in Ireland have offered to contribute towards a redress scheme for survivors. The Sisters of Mercy and the Good Shepherd Sisters made no offer. The Sisters of Mercy were asked for €21 million; they have assets of €320 million and €24 million in the bank. The Good Shepherd Sisters were asked for €10.46 million; they have assets of €75.8 million and €2.4 million in the bank.
Orphanages
At St Joseph's Orphanage at Neerkol in Australia run by the Sisters of Mercy an inquiry found that hundreds of children had been sexually abused, beaten and forced into hard labour. It might have been even worse for Aboriginal children in Australia (and Indigenous children in Canada).
Gail Beck is an Australian Aboriginal activist. Her grandmother had been taken from her family at the age of two to live in a Catholic missionary home. She was abused physically, mentally and sexually. Gail's mother was under the supervisory care of the nuns in the home from the day she was born. She was beaten and burned by them. Gail said that the Sisters of Mercy 'were very cruel people'.
The Sisters of Nazareth ran Nazareth Houses in different countries including Ireland. Cruelty and sexual abuse happened and some children died of malnutrition.
Industrial Schools
Industrial schools in Ireland were primarily run by Catholic religious orders, including the Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Mercy, and the Presentation Sisters. Many survivors have since spoken about the harsh conditions and mistreatment they endured.
Who are Sisters Sheila Murphy and Bernadette McNally? They have three things in common.
- They were leaders of religious orders in Ireland. Murphy was regional leader of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity. McNally was provincial leader of the Good Shepherd Sisters.
- They each told the Department of Justice that their religious order wasn't going to contribute to the fund for the survivors of Magdalene Laundries.
- They were both board directors of Ruhama.
People like that shouldn't be allowed anywhere near vulnerable women.
You may think that I am criticising nuns more than I should. After all, it was priests and monks who were also abusers. I am criticising the whole of the Roman Catholic Church and their attitudes. Readers of this blog will know that I criticise Evangelical Christians even more.
It sickened me when I read that Anna Skarhed attended a conference at the palatial Casa Pio IV in the Vatican and told lies about the success of the Nordic Model in Sweden. It sickened me that the Vatican can't be bothered to check the statistics. Occasionally when I am looking for research into sex work the only place where it still exists is on the Vatican web site. Such as the research into the harm done to women by the Nordic Model in Norway.
"It was reported that prostitutes in indoor market prostitution have to work harder now in order to secure 2008 income levels." see here
So Norwegian sex workers have to work harder and have sex more often to get the money they need while Swedish liars like Anna Skarhed live it up in a Vatican palace. Trying to spread their harmful ideology to even more countries.
It is nuns, however, who set up Ruhama and the ICI. They campaigned successfully for the Nordic Model to be made law in Ireland. They lied when they said 38% of Irish women involved in prostitution have attempted suicide.
The Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach) Mícheál Martin issued a formal apology to former residents of mother and baby homes on behalf of the state in the Dáil (Irish parliament).
So why are they still listening to the nuns? Why is the state continuing to pay them? Their warped attitude to sexuality hasn't changed. There are two big reasons why nuns are the last people we should ask about prostitution.
Firstly, the idea that a woman can have sex with a man she has just met is so repellent to them that they find it impossible to believe that any woman could do it unless she is a drug addict, threatened with violence or dirt poor. They don't understand that not all women feel the same way that they do.
Secondly, they don't understand the world we live in. They don't understand what 'underground' means. They think that prostitution cannot be underground if 'it can be found online in less than five seconds on any device' (this is what Ruth Breslin of the SERP Institute formerly of Ruhama wrote here).
'Underground' means that it is in the hands of professional criminals just like drugs are. Drugs like ketamine are even more available than prostitutes. The Nordic model (or the 'Equality model' as they want to call it now) does drive prostitution underground. I want to see sex workers controlling prostitution, not professional criminals.
Janice Raymond is an influential American Radical Feminist author on this subject and she used to be a nun with the Sisters of Mercy. In her book she said that in Sweden from 1999 to 2008, there was a 76% reduction in the number of prostituted women. That is not true.
Janice Raymond seems to be an academic high flier so I am not inclined to believe that she just made a mistake. They want people to believe that the Nordic Model worked in Sweden. Why would they lie about that? Why would you continue to support a system that hasn't worked either in Sweden or Ireland?
It isn't about helping women. It is about punishing the men who pay for sex. They want to punish me. I'm not an Australian Aboriginal child or a Canadian Indigenous child, people like me can fight back. Ruhama are paid by the Irish government and have influence over the Irish government. I only have this blog that few people will read. Other people have exposed the lies and cruelty of these nuns and I will continue to tell as many people as I can.
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