One artist whom I am extremely inspired by is the Limerick born, London based artist Maedhbh McMahon. McMahon created an installation in 2013 titled "All this in the name of Jesus". This included a large hand stitched ground plan of the good shepherd convent. She also made tiny dolls sized dresses out - each dress represented a different Magdalene Laundry, Institution and baby home.
I made contact with this artist and she was very helpful and inciteful. I decided to try and make contact as she does not invite media or reporters to her exhibition. I wrote to her asking many questions on her concepts and ideas behind her artwork as there is also no artist statements.
This is her reply :
Hi Elizabeth,
I will try and answer your questions but am a bit pressed for time right now as we're in the middle of an election.
I don't know if there are any reviews of my work in London, we never invite the media or reviewers as our work (I work with Farcry Productions and Gerard Mannix Flynn) is purely about putting 'taboo' issues out into the public so that the public can digest it and begin to discuss its impact on them.
I have been researching the Magdalene issue since 2003 when I first visited the Limerick Laundry. Although people think justice has now been done nothing has actually changed since then. The apology from An Taoiseach was forced, they put Martin Mc Aleese, a devout Catholic in charge of a bogus inquiry (not an independent public inquiry) that was an absolute insult to the women, their children and families. None of the evidence gathered legally and correctly by the Justice for Magdalenes group was included and the findings were of course exactly what we would expect. Since they announced the 'compensation scheme' (another shameful act by our Government and the Catholic Church) three of the Magdalene women have died - with nothing. (There are very few who have actually signed up for compensation so you're not even talking about the amount our Government would spend on petrol allowance in a year). No women have received money yet. It is as if they are waiting for them all to die off in full knowledge that these women are very elderly and they could have at least have made the last remaining years of their life worthwhile.
It is not that I am angry with the weakness of our Government. I am ashamed of them and their treatment of fellow Irish citizens and their contempt for the people who gave them the power to work on our behalf. If we cannot stand up and admit there were things wrong with what we did, how we acted and how we allowed ourselves condemn and contain women and children on this island in the past then we will learn nothing, but will carry the memories of that wrong with us wherever we go.
I don't want to shock people with my work. The key is to create safe places where people can come and sit and contemplate what happened. Hundreds of people came through the doors of our space in London. Many were children of women who had been locked up in Industrial schools, women who had been in Mother and baby homes, adopted people who had no idea who they were but thought perhaps one of the women on the wall could have been their mother....England is full of families that ran out of here. They found a safe place in England but many have never spoken about why they ran or what they left behind. I met a lot of children of these people over there who somehow by learning about what happened and how our country was run and contained by State/Church find some kind of explanation as to why their mother may not have been able to hug them or give them the affection they craved. It gives them answers. And whether those answers are the correct ones or not is between them and their mothers. But it allows people to begin to deal with the hurt.
I am from Limerick and have been to the Good Shepherd many many times and really don't think an art school of all things should be in there, not with former Magdalene women still on the grounds attached and not when the truth has actually been whitewashed. Its like housing an art school in Auschwitz.
If our State and its people had actually begun to deal with this issue perhaps it would be possible to reuse those buildings of containment but as they stand now to walk on those tiles that were scrubbed daily from 5.45am by women on their knees, who had committed no crime I think its wrong.
For me the Industrial School system, the Magdalene Laundries, the Asylums and Mother and Baby homes were all one system...there is no difference and it was a massive money making industry. It may take 30 years more for all the facts and truth to come out but it will eventually have to come out and we will as a Nation eventually all have to deal with it.
Everywhere I go these days I bump into people who have just discovered that they had an Aunt or cousin who was sent into a Laundry system. There are secrets buried in every family and they are carried in different ways.
Somehow we have to let them go and speak them.
All the best
Maeve McMahon
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