Too Many Stories

June 17, 2019

Too Many Stories

Yesterday, I met up with Evelyn Glynn, who did her thesis on the Magdalen laundries as an art student at the Limerick School of Design. The result was an exhibition and a website, “Breaking the Rule of Silence,” http://www.magdalenelaundrylimerick.com/oralhistories.html for which she gathered oral histories from survivors. She’s in Galway now, and graciously offered to show me the Magdalene sites I was hoping to see.

She took me first to Bohermore Cemetery. She showed me the two rows of markers, 9 in all, for the Magdalene women. The names are listed, but there is nothing to indicate that they were in the Sisters of Mercy laundry. No reference to Sisters of Mercy at the grave at all. I have very mixed feelings about this. On one hand, maybe it’s good that at least in death, they are “merely” themselves and not shunned Magdalenes. On the other hand, I sort of want everyone to know and acknowledge the suffering of these women, abandoned and hidden away as they were (and are in many ways).

Evelyn took me next for a walk around the old Sisters of Mercy property. The laundry is gone, replaced by a big retail building, not by the apartments, as I had thought. As we walked around, she pointed out houses across the street from the original outside wall of the property, and she told me that she’s heard (it’s likely true but she doesn’t know for sure) that the houses originally weren’t allowed to have 2^nd-story windows facing the laundry and convent, because then they’d be able to see over the wall. She told me another story about a woman who escaped from the laundry in Limerick by climbing over the walls. She told me one of the women she interviewed wouldn’t allow her real name to be used because “she’s still afraid of the nuns.”

Then she took me back behind the property to a small yard where the “auxiliaries” were buried; these were women who started as Magdalenes, then stayed on as auxiliaries—employees who were basically one step down from nuns, but without taking vows. It makes a crazy kind of sense that some women would choose this: (1) Magdalenes were so stigmatized, they would have had few opportunities after working in the laundries; (2) Perhaps any kind of power is better than complete powerlessness; (3) One has to wonder about “Stockholm Syndrome” for girls who may have entered the laundry at 12 or 13.

ii.

Today, I took a bus to Tuam (pronounced “chume”). I knew this would be the hardest one. I won’t give you the history, but here it is, and be forewarned that it’s a gruesome story involving babies: https://www.thejournal.ie/excavations-tuam-mother-and-baby-home-4415983-Dec2018/

The actual site is hard to find. It’s back behind a playground, which is in the center of a housing development (called “estates” here in Ireland), surrounded by the backs of houses. You can’t see any of it from the roads. Understandably, many people in Tuam today are reluctant to have outside folks traipsing around in yards, looking for the site. And, they’ve been the focus of unfair and unjustified blame by some “outsiders” and media for having known about what was going on and not telling, or for knowing more now than they’re willing to tell.

The site was a very long walk from the bus drop. I stopped once at a Centra station (like Casey’s or 7-11), and the clerk gave me directions, but she was not friendly about it. After wandering around in neighborhoods at not finding it, I finally stopped a high-schooler and asked him. He pointed it out, and I finally was able to make my way between houses and get back into the playground.

On the way to Tuam, I had been messaging with Catherine Corless https://www.thejournal.ie/excavations-tuam-mother-and-baby-home-4415983-Dec2018/. She was almost single-handedly responsible for bringing the Tuam story to light, and it was a privilege to “speak” with her. She was kind enough to direct me to the site and tell me what I was looking for. She also pointed out that there were most likely remains under part of the playground and the grassy area near the site, too.

When I finally got there, I realized there was nowhere I could walk, where I might NOT be walking above the septic system that is STILL the burial place of the Tuam babies.

Two interesting coincidences happened at the Tuam site. (1) Although it hadn’t rained all day, it started raining while I stood at the site’s makeshift shrine, tying a blessing bag to a rose bush. It stopped raining as soon as I left the site to walk back to the bus stop. (2) Then, as I was standing in the small yard, just after I tied the blessing, I got very sick. I was cold, clammy, shaky, and faint. I was afraid I would pass out. I left the yard, walked back to the Centra, and bought a bottle of water. I must have looked ill, because this time the clerk was kind and asked if I’d found the site. I told her yes and thanked her for helping me find it.

I downed the water and walked back to the bus stop. I didn’t start feeling better until I got on the bus, and honestly, the farther I got from Tuam, the better I felt. I’m chalking the sudden illness up to dehydration and/or low blood sugar, although I’ve felt like crying since I left.

iii.

I got a taxi at the bus depot to get me back to the hotel. The taxi driver asked if I was on holiday. When I told him why I’m here, the first thing he said was, “Have you been to Tuam?” I told him I’d just come from there. He said he lives near Tuam, and then he started talking about it. He said the Bon Secours sisters had a morgue in their hospital there. He asked me, how would anybody know if they put babies in the coffins with other people? How will we ever know what all they did there in Tuam? Did I know they sold babies to Americans? What about those babies? They mightn't even know they came from Ireland! By that time, we were at the hotel. I said, “We may never know the extent of it all. The best we can do now is remember, and keep telling their stories.”