Panel: Ireland Confined Young Women in Workhouses

By Philip Reeves
NPR
February 6, 2013

http://www.npr.org/2013/02/06/171257465/irish-government-confined-young-women-in-workhouses

Ireland has expressed regret that thousands of women and young girls held in workhouses run by Catholic nuns were stigmatized by the label "fallen women." But Prime Minister Enda Kenny did not apologize for the state's involvement in decades of harsh treatment for women held in 10 Magdalene Laundries. He was reacting to a report that concluded the government oversaw the workhouses.