WHEN Maureen Sullivan, aged 12, confided in a nun that she’d been sexually abused by her step-father for over three years, she was expecting help. But the people who were supposed to care for her d…
One of the youngest people to have been held in a Magdalene laundry in Ireland, she was just 12 when she arrived at the Good Shepherd-run establishment at New Ross, Co Wexford, in 1964.
“She offered me some and I explained to her the terrible things that were happening to me in the home.” When there were big orders in, they’d often be working up to 9pm at night, having been up since 6am. Often, they were whipped or stabbed in the back with crucifixes to force them to work harder.“They just didn't care.
“My bag was packed that evening and I was left at Euston Station the next morning to go back to Carlow,” she recalls.“I was left on the streets. I was homeless from that day. I couldn't go back to my home again.” “I tried, but it has affected me so much. I could never have that beautiful thing that people have out there between a man and a woman and have a happy relationship.In 1988, things came to a head for Maureen and she tried to kill herself.
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