Mary Norris
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Mary Norris (aged 70 in 2003) was sent to a Magdalene laundry run by the Good Shepherd Order in Cork, Ireland in 1949 at the age of 16. She spent two years there. The laundry closed down in 1994.
She was removed from her mother at the age of twelve, as her mother was having an affair, and those in authority thought she was a bad example. The family was split up; the boys and girls were sent to different places run by different religious institutions.
At the age of sixteen, Mary was sent to work as a maid but was returned to the orphanage after she went to a cinema without permission. She was then sent to a laundry in Cork. She reports that the way she was treated at the laundry amounted to slavery, and that the girls and women were forced to work ten hours a day every day except Sunday. She reports also that her name was changed to Myra, as the nuns felt she did not deserve the holy name of Mary, and that she was told falsely that her family had abandoned her.
When Mary had been in the Magdalene laundry for two years, a concerned aunt in America tracked her down, and removed her from the laundry. She was reunited with her mother, brothers, and sisters. Her brothers had been with the Christian Brothers — an order which has also in some cases been found guilty of abuse. They were both alcoholics at the time of their deaths. One died as a result of a fire, the other as a result of murder. Her sister emigrated.
