IRELAND
Irish Examiner
By Conall Ó Fátharta
Irish Examiner Reporter
New research has cast “serious doubt” on one of the key findings of the McAleese report concerning the length of time women spent in Magdalene laundries.
The research, undertaken as part of the Justice For Magdalenes Research (JFM Research) Names Project, comes as the group reiterated its call for Magdalene laundries to be included in the Mother and Baby Home Commission of Investigation.
According to the McAleese Report, 61% of known entries spent less than a year in Ireland’s 10 Magdalene institutions.
However, JFMR say their research based on comparisons between Magdalene grave records and electoral registers, “cast serious doubt” on this assertion.
The research found that 63.43% of the women who appear on the electoral register for the High Park laundry from 1954-55 also appear on the laundry’s headstones at Glasnevin Cemetery — indicating that they spent a minimum of nine years confined there. Some 61.43% of the women from 1955-56 were there for a minimum of eight years.
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