The Fallen

Work, work, work. Pray, pray, pray.

Following independence in 1922, Ireland began to chase a dream: to become the perfect Catholic nation. But purity had a price. The women and girls who did not conform – the wayward, the poor, the disabled, the abused – were purged from the streets and detained in a network of facilities, from Mother and Baby Homes and asylums to industrial schools.

The Magdalene Laundries represented the deep end of this regime of social control. Thousands were sent to these institutions; each were perceived to have fallen in some way. Once locked inside, their hair was shorn off, their names were erased and they were put to work. They washed, they scrubbed and they prayed, labouring in often indefinite captivity in an attempt to salvage their souls.

This is the forgotten story of Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries, told through the voices of those who endured them, the nuns who presided over them and the communities who lived alongside them. Drawing on survivors’ testimonies, Louise Brangan dismantles long-held myths about what the Laundries were, who was sent there, and why. Unflinching and compassionate, she recovers the lives of six women: Eileen, Carmel, Nora, Catherine, Brigid and Katie.

When the gates of the last Laundry closed in 1996, Ireland moved on. Or so it seemed. This has remained one of the darkest and most misunderstood periods of recent history. The Fallen compels us not only to confront this shameful past, but to ask a deeper question: what do we choose to remember?