Mary Norris lived in one of the barbaric Magdalene laundries,
a place for "immoral" Irish girls, and now the subject of a film. She
tells Angela Lambert reality was "a thousand times worse" than the film.
"Those places were the Irish gulags for women. When you went inside their doors you left behind your dignity, identity and humanity. We were locked up, had no outside contacts and got no wages, although we worked 10 hours a day, six days a week, 52 weeks a year. What else is that but slavery? And to think that they were doing all this in the name of a loving God! I used to tell God I hated him."
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/04/1048962932185.html
"Those places were the Irish gulags for women. When you went inside their doors you left behind your dignity, identity and humanity. We were locked up, had no outside contacts and got no wages, although we worked 10 hours a day, six days a week, 52 weeks a year. What else is that but slavery? And to think that they were doing all this in the name of a loving God! I used to tell God I hated him."
http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/04/04/1048962932185.html