I loved High Park when I was a kid. The rambling grounds of
the convent were just across the road from the quiet Dublin housing
estate where I grew up in the 1980s, and every Sunday my family went to
Mass in the convent chapel. The chapel was a pretty little Victorian
building; when I was very small, I used to jump slowly down the wooden
steps of the choir stalls and pretend to be Professor Yaffle from
Bagpuss.
Away from the cluster of convent buildings, the grounds were beautiful, with meadows full of wild flowers and a small herd of cows. We would go on nature walks, looking out for squirrels and gathering leaves and flowers. It was all rather idyllic, apart from the fact that we were playing in what had, for decades, essentially been a forced labour camp.
http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2013/07/depressing-not-surprising-how-magdalene-laundries-got-away-it
Away from the cluster of convent buildings, the grounds were beautiful, with meadows full of wild flowers and a small herd of cows. We would go on nature walks, looking out for squirrels and gathering leaves and flowers. It was all rather idyllic, apart from the fact that we were playing in what had, for decades, essentially been a forced labour camp.
http://www.newstatesman.com/religion/2013/07/depressing-not-surprising-how-magdalene-laundries-got-away-it