The Magdalene Laundries in Ireland , also known as Magdalene asylums , were institutions usually run by Roman Catholic orders, [ 1 ] which operated from the 18th to the late 20th centuries. They were run ostensibly to house " fallen women ", an estimated 30, of whom were confined in these institutions in Ireland.
In , unmarked graves of women were uncovered in the convent grounds of one of the laundries. It was run by the Church of Ireland and accepted only Protestant women. It was founded in by Lady Arabella Denny. It closed in and was "Ireland's longest serving Mother and Baby Home. Ireland's Catholic-run Magdalene asylums survived the longest, through to Ireland's Magdalene laundries were quietly supported by the state, and operated by religious communities for more than two hundred years.
On laundries, James Smith asserts that the "Irish variety took on a distinct character". Andrea Parrot and Nina Cummings wrote, "The cost of violence, oppression, and brutalization of women is enormous" and in their struggle to survive, the inmates suffered not only physically, but spiritually and emotionally. In the late 18th century, the term "fallen women" primarily referred to sex workers, [ 11 ] but by the end of the 19th century, Magdalene laundries were filled with many different kinds of women, including girls who were "not prostitutes at all," but rather "seduced women.
Mary Raftery wrote that the institutions were failing to achieve their supposed objective: "the institutions had little impact on prostitution over the period," and yet they were continuing to multiply and expand due to their self-supporting free labour. Since they were not paid, Raftery asserted, "it seems clear that these girls were used as a ready source of free labour for these laundry businesses. Additionally, the state of Ireland and its government were heavily intertwined with religion.
Finnegan wrote:. The issue of continued demand for prostitutes was barely confronted, so absorbed were moralists with the disgraceful and more visible evidence of supply. And while acknowledging that poverty, overcrowded slum housing and lack of employment opportunities fuelled the activity Finnegan wrote that based on historical records, the religious institutes had motivations other than simply wanting to curtail prostitution; these multiple motivations led to the multiplication of these facilities.
