TALK: JUSTICE FOR MAGDALENES

Dr. Katherine O’Donnell, Associate Professor, UCD School of Philosophy

Dr. Maeve O’Rourke, Lecturer in Human Rights at the Irish Centre for Human Rights, NUI Galway

From 1922 to 1996 more than 10,000 women and girls were incarcerated in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries. Operated by four religious orders in 10 locations around the country, these for-profit institutions detained individuals against their will and forced them to work long hours, unpaid, under abusive and humiliating conditions. These institutions committed some of the most serious systematic violations against human rights in Ireland in the 20th century.

The Boyne Music Festival has partnered with the West Cork Chamber Music Festival to commission a musical work to honour those women who were so gravely mistreated by church and state in the Magdalene Laundries by giving voice to their experience. The commissioned work, “The Magdalene Songs”, brings together three prominent Irish composers, Rhona Clarke, Deirdre Gribbin and Deirdre McKay to create a collaborative song cycle for mezzo-soprano and piano. Each song in the cycle expresses an aspect of experience of an individual survivor and texts for these songs have been extracted from interviews conducted and provided by Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR) (http://jfmresearch.com/).

The Boyne Music Festival is delighted to welcome two members of JFMR for this pre-concert talk. Dr. Katherine O’Donnell and Dr. Maeve O’Rourke will give background to the Magdalene Laundry institutions and discuss their advocacy work for survivors.

The premiere of “The Magdalene Songs” will follow in the evening concert at 8pm.