IRELAND
Irish Times
BARRY ROCHE, Southern Correspondent
The treatment of women in the Magdalene Laundries was a reflection of the brutalisation of Irish society which had been tolerated for decades and is something about which Irish people should be “rightly ashamed,” singer Bob Geldof has said.
Geldof said the letters on the controversy published in The Irish Times were “eloquent and dignified” but said there should be no surprise about what was happening in the laundries as he believed it was well known throughout Irish society.
“The Taoiseach, Enda Kenny has apologised – but what has he to apologise for – it was our families, our parents who allowed children go into those laundries knowing full well what awaited them in there at the hands of the nuns,” he said.
“And the laundries are just another manifestation of the brutalisation of Irish society where kids were beaten and abused by Christian Brothers – it was dreadful, dreadful, dreadful but we all knew it was happening and what did we do?,” he asked.
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