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IT IS now more than 20 years since Patricia Burke Brogan’s powerful play, Eclipsed, received its premiere in Galway from Punchbag Theatre Company.

IT IS now more than 20 years since Patricia Burke Brogan’s powerful play, Eclipsed, received its premiere in Galway from Punchbag Theatre Company.

The Magdalen Asylum in Galway was founded in 1824 by a private person, Ms Lynch, and was managed by a society known as the Association of Ladies of the Saint Magdalen Society. At the request of the founder, the Sisters of Mercy became responsible for the operation of the institution following her death in 1845. The laundry and living quarters were separate from the convent/mother house in Galway. The living quarters included three dormitories, a kitchen, dining room, infirmary, recreation room, and a chapel. There was also a farm across the road.

Any service of remembrance for the women who died while in the former Magdalene Laundry in the city must include a civic service and an apology by the Mayor on behalf of Galway citizens.

THE DIFFERING reactions to the Magdalene Laundries over the years have been mirrored in the responses to Patricia Burke Brogan’s Eclipsed, which will have a staged reading in Galway next week.

A memorial vigil in honour of the women who were in the Mercy Magdalene Laundry in Galway city takes place this Sunday.

The grave for Magdalene women in Bohermore Cemetery must have the names of those buried in it inscribed on the headstone, to at least provide some posthumous dignity to the deceased.

The Sisters of Mercy should hand over property it owns on College Road to establish a commemorative garden for the women who endured time in the city’s Magdalene Laundry.

An apology goes “an awful long way towards healing” and the women who were in the Magdalene Laundries “deserve and should get” such an apology.

In an Ireland in which the only colours were black and white, when even the sunshine seemed a distant grey, hope was a rare commodity. And for those who were robbed of their innocence by circumstance and robbed of their freedom by a lack of compassion, days like this week must have seemed a million years away. When life seems on the verge of beating you down, you fall back on family, friends, beliefs, and authority figures.