IRELAND
The Irish Catholic
by David Quinn
April 27, 2017
Nuns in Ireland have been so stereotyped in Irish public debate that they have been reduced to the role of the villain in an old-fashioned Hammer horror movie.
The archetype of this villainous nun is the character played by Geraldine McEwan in The Magdalene Sisters, which Irish TV channels love to air. As played by McEwan the head nun, Sr Bridget, is full of vicious intent.
In one scene we see her shaving the head of one of the girls with sadistic relish and then she beats two girls on the back of the legs with a cane until welts appear. (By the way, the official report into the Magdalene laundries conducted by Martin McAleese spoke to 100 former inmates of these institutions. They experienced mental cruelty but none reported experiencing or witnessing anyone being beaten or having their heads shaved).
In any event, ‘Sr Bridget’ is now the image of nuns many people have fixed in their heads when they think of nuns at all. It is no longer the nuns of The Sound of Music, much less real-life nuns like Mother Teresa, or Sr Consilio here in Ireland who has spent her life caring for addicts, or all the other nuns helping to care for countless number of people across the country.
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