Pre-concert Discussion

The Magdalene Laundries

From 1922 to 1996 more than 10,000 women and girls were incarcerated in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries. Operated by four religious orders in ten locations around the country, these for-profit punitive institutions detained individuals against their will and forced them to work long hours, unpaid, under abusive and humiliating conditions. The institutions committed
some of the most serious systematic violations against human rights in
Ireland in the 20th century.

Deirdre Brenner, pianist and commissioner of The Magdalene Songs (Event 58), is joined by Maeve O’Rourke, barrister and Lecturer in Human Rights at the Irish Centre for Human Rights at the University of Galway. Maeve O’Rourke has worked with the group Justice for Magdalenes Research since 2010, and leads this interactive discussion to provide a harrowing but vital backdrop to the concert that follows.