By the time I left New Ross and went to St Michael’s in Athy, I was already a broken person.
I didn’t rebel there at all, I asked nothing, I kept my head down and got on with it. I had given up. I did my work, ate and went to bed. I abandoned all ideas I had of who I was or what I thought. I said nothing.
I was given the never-ending job of pressing the starched clothes. Starch isn’t common these days, but it was normal then to mix starch powder with water to form a loose jelly that you would dip clothes into, then wring the mixture out and hang them up to dry. Just before they were fully dry you would press them, almost to set the starch into the cloth.
For adults, not children
That starch and me, we were not friends. My skin reacted to the mix by breaking out in dermatitis, small splits in my over-dried skin that left my hands raw every day. And there was no break from the work to let it heal, so I lived with that every day. I was in constant pain. On top of that, working the press meant I burned myself regularly. The machines were designed to be used by fully-grown adults, not small-sized children.
It was difficult for me to avoid the steam as I held the corners of the clothes to get the right fold without making dents in the fabric. Marks were not tolerated.
One morning, I was working slowly, as I had open sores on my knuckles and also a case of something like tendonitis in my elbow, so I couldn’t fold well.
Girl in the Tunnel is Maureen Sullivan's story of love and loss as one of the youngest known survivors of the Magdalene laundries
Suddenly I heard a sound and the corner of my eye was lashed with something. It felt like a bee sting and my hand flew up expecting to find a pulsing stinger on my cheek. But then again, the same lash on my cheek. The supervising nun, the old harridan, was whipping me with the end of a wet pillowcase that she had picked up off the pile next to me.
I gasped and put my hand up, but she flicked it again and caught me across the bottom lip.
‘Stop!’ I cried out.
‘Work!’ she said, and I got straight back to it, faster than before even though it was intensely painful. My lesson was learned faster there than it had been in New Ross.
Maureen as a child
That flick became familiar in Athy. Sometimes you wouldn’t be able to work out why you got it and you’d fidget around, changing your position, your hands going faster, higher, until it stopped. Some of us would respond with tears, some with yelps and some – like me – would show no reaction if we could help it.
Mother
My mother came once as Athy was close and she managed to get a lift. We talked for a while, very politely.
‘Oh!’ She said suddenly and rummaged in her bag, pulling out one of those thin, flat Dairy Milk bars you don’t see anymore.
‘Your granny sent you that up,’ she said.
I didn’t want to ask, but I did.
‘How is Granny?’
‘Well, your granny misses you something fierce, girl,’ my mother told me. ‘She’s always going on. Won’t let up to bring you back,’ she said.
I was touched, but I swallowed all my emotions as best I could. I missed my granny.
‘I tell her you’re getting your education,’ my mother said. ‘She is proud of that.’
I wanted to cry. I wasn’t getting anything but hit and slapped and overworked and treated like a slave, but I held my tears back.
When I recovered, I said, ‘Tell Granny I miss her. Tell her I miss her so much.’ The muscles in my chin pulled in and I breathed in and out to calm myself. I didn’t want to cry.
Maureen as a child, the picture features on the front cover of the book
I saw something cross my mother’s face, regret perhaps that it was my grandmother I missed that much and not her. I did miss my mother, but there was never time for love or affection in her home – she had too much to do and too many of us.
The nun began to clear the table as we sat there and my mother made small talk about prayers and good turns that she thought would impress these holy women. I watched the chocolate bar being lifted onto a tray and carried out by one of them, with the empty cups and saucers. I told myself I’d get it at dinner time, the way we sometimes got a biscuit. But I never did.
Edited extract from Girl in the Tunnel, My Story of Love and Loss as a Survivor of the Magdalene Laundries by Maureen Sullivan.
Girl in the Tunnel
is published by Merrion Press €16.99
Read more
Memoir: journey to the heartwood
A new chapter for Granard as Ireland’s first ‘booktown’
By the time I left New Ross and went to St Michael’s in Athy, I was already a broken person.
I didn’t rebel there at all, I asked nothing, I kept my head down and got on with it. I had given up. I did my work, ate and went to bed. I abandoned all ideas I had of who I was or what I thought. I said nothing.
I was given the never-ending job of pressing the starched clothes. Starch isn’t common these days, but it was normal then to mix starch powder with water to form a loose jelly that you would dip clothes into, then wring the mixture out and hang them up to dry. Just before they were fully dry you would press them, almost to set the starch into the cloth.
For adults, not children
That starch and me, we were not friends. My skin reacted to the mix by breaking out in dermatitis, small splits in my over-dried skin that left my hands raw every day. And there was no break from the work to let it heal, so I lived with that every day. I was in constant pain. On top of that, working the press meant I burned myself regularly. The machines were designed to be used by fully-grown adults, not small-sized children.
It was difficult for me to avoid the steam as I held the corners of the clothes to get the right fold without making dents in the fabric. Marks were not tolerated.
One morning, I was working slowly, as I had open sores on my knuckles and also a case of something like tendonitis in my elbow, so I couldn’t fold well.
Girl in the Tunnel is Maureen Sullivan's story of love and loss as one of the youngest known survivors of the Magdalene laundries
Suddenly I heard a sound and the corner of my eye was lashed with something. It felt like a bee sting and my hand flew up expecting to find a pulsing stinger on my cheek. But then again, the same lash on my cheek. The supervising nun, the old harridan, was whipping me with the end of a wet pillowcase that she had picked up off the pile next to me.
I gasped and put my hand up, but she flicked it again and caught me across the bottom lip.
‘Stop!’ I cried out.
‘Work!’ she said, and I got straight back to it, faster than before even though it was intensely painful. My lesson was learned faster there than it had been in New Ross.
Maureen as a child
That flick became familiar in Athy. Sometimes you wouldn’t be able to work out why you got it and you’d fidget around, changing your position, your hands going faster, higher, until it stopped. Some of us would respond with tears, some with yelps and some – like me – would show no reaction if we could help it.
Mother
My mother came once as Athy was close and she managed to get a lift. We talked for a while, very politely.
‘Oh!’ She said suddenly and rummaged in her bag, pulling out one of those thin, flat Dairy Milk bars you don’t see anymore.
‘Your granny sent you that up,’ she said.
I didn’t want to ask, but I did.
‘How is Granny?’
‘Well, your granny misses you something fierce, girl,’ my mother told me. ‘She’s always going on. Won’t let up to bring you back,’ she said.
I was touched, but I swallowed all my emotions as best I could. I missed my granny.
‘I tell her you’re getting your education,’ my mother said. ‘She is proud of that.’
I wanted to cry. I wasn’t getting anything but hit and slapped and overworked and treated like a slave, but I held my tears back.
When I recovered, I said, ‘Tell Granny I miss her. Tell her I miss her so much.’ The muscles in my chin pulled in and I breathed in and out to calm myself. I didn’t want to cry.
Maureen as a child, the picture features on the front cover of the book
I saw something cross my mother’s face, regret perhaps that it was my grandmother I missed that much and not her. I did miss my mother, but there was never time for love or affection in her home – she had too much to do and too many of us.
The nun began to clear the table as we sat there and my mother made small talk about prayers and good turns that she thought would impress these holy women. I watched the chocolate bar being lifted onto a tray and carried out by one of them, with the empty cups and saucers. I told myself I’d get it at dinner time, the way we sometimes got a biscuit. But I never did.
Edited extract from Girl in the Tunnel, My Story of Love and Loss as a Survivor of the Magdalene Laundries by Maureen Sullivan.
Girl in the Tunnel
is published by Merrion Press €16.99
Read more
Memoir: journey to the heartwood
A new chapter for Granard as Ireland’s first ‘booktown’
This is a subscriber-only article
SHARING OPTIONS: