New calls for sculpture to mark Magdalen women - Irish Independent

FRESH calls have been made for a permanent sculpture to be put up in Galway city in memory of the women of the Magdalen Laundry.

The calls mark International Women's Day today.

The Magdalen Laundry in Galway was one of 10 in Ireland set up to chastise and correct women who bore a child outside marriage, or who left abusive husbands or home situations.

Galway City Cllr Billy Cameron wants to fasttrack the project to set up a memorial to the women held in the Magdalen Laundry from the 1800s to 1996.

"Like the Famine or the Troubles, the episode of the Magdalen Laundries will be remembered in the history of the State," said Mr Cameron. "They have left a communal knot in the stomachs of Irish women.

A Galway group has designed a sculpture. It is an abstract design depicting a woman with her hands moulded in the shape of a cross to remember the women of the Magdalen Laundry in the city and left a sour feeling in the wider community.

In all 30,000 women worked in Magdalen laundries across the country.
AVRIL HORAN