I Laura Angela Collins am writing to you on behalf of my nan Angela Collins and my mother Mary Collins. My mother Mary and her siblings Teresa Collins and Angela Collins was all taken from their mother Angela by the state and Catholic Church.
My family were travellers and although social services reports states that all three of Angela's children was well looked after, you took my nan Angela Collins and forced her into the magdalene laundries in peacock lane, cork which was run by the sisters of charity. She worked 27 years of her life, she was forcefully medicated and was given brain shock treatment. She was advised by doctors that she should have her womb removed, the nuns took her back to the magdalene laundries and made her work a further 10 years before she died of ovarian cancer. She was refused the treatment she needed by your church as she was under your care. Angela was dumped in a mass grave in St. Finbars cemetery.
My mother Mary at the age of two and half was forced into an abusive industrial school which was under the sister of mercy. She was physically and sexually abused and had to face racism on behalf of where her mother and herself had came from. She was made to visit her mother from the age of seven in the magdalene laundries where she faced more abuse, she visited her mother for 11 years of her life while under the churches care.
Angela Collins my mothers sister was made to enter a laundries run by Good Shepard's covent at the age of fourteen. She left and after years of searching for her family she couldn't take no more of the past and pain and committed suicide.
Teresa Collins was adopted and still to this day badly affected by the separation of her mother and having to go to the laundries from her school to sing to her mother although she didn't know she was her mother, she would later find out that the women she would sing to was her mum.
My mother has contacted cork council on behalf of removing her mother from the mass grave so she can place her in a single grave in her mothers hometown. She wishes to give her mother back the freedom your church had taken. She was told she would need permission from all living relates which she has and also the church's permission. She has asked verbally and written for permission from the nuns for the permission to dig on their land and exhume my nan from the mass grave but we have been ignored.
I today, Wednesday 15th 2015, read an article regarding the church requesting to exhume and rebury "little Nellie" aka Ellen organ in a place where every one can pay respect because you view Nellie to be really religious and holy.
I ask you bishop why is my nan still classed as the scum you viewed her when you took her? When she is just an ordinary women and mother and a women who also practised and believed strongly in the religion that kept her as a slave. The religion that put their hands on her baby's body to cause scars and pain, the religion who still today holds her freedom from her and her family's right to pay their respects in a dignified place,
Why does everyone get to pay respect to Nellie, yet my mum doesn't have a place to pay respect to her own mother without being reminded of the abuse and pain and separation you made her and her mother have to go through. I question the motives of the church with Nellie, when they ignore the victims they caused.
My nan is not a fallen women, she was a strong women who fought for 27 years for freedom and sadly didn't receive that. She may not be a saint in your eyes, she may not be as holy as you would like her to be but she is my mothers mother and my nan. She was a human being and mother, a sister, a nan and a great grandmother and she may not matter to you but she matters to my family and she deserves to have justice and freedom.
I'm reaching out to you to contact me and try and heal the process of which your church has caused for the victims. Please give my mother the permission she has always deserved to remove her mother from the mass grave which fills her with painful memory's and reminds of the lack of freedom her mother had and still has.
A poem I have written regarding the Irish government and Catholic Church and my nan who was forced into the magdalene laundries and had her three children stolen from her wrongly.
Under everyone's nose the Irish state and Catholic Church was stealing women and children from their own homes. Some were families that were made to feel ashamed, so they handed their children to the church to learn what was classed as the right ways. Some was based on discrimination, which the whole nation had a place within. Upholding the catholic law, your a whore, if you've had a child out of marriage, you were classed as a lowest form of human, you were looked upon like a savage.
Keep us a secret and try let no one know, take away our names and all we had known, take our children, then put our body in a hole! The ignored screams and cries of children & women behind the holy walls, No one cared because it was classed to be their fault.
Trying to uphold the holy ways, everyone feared to put a foot out of place or they would be sent to an institution in holy chains. Mocked and abused, used for financial gain, many caused so much pain but still people choose to bury Ireland's shamefully ways.
Women forced on medicated to keep them sane, women lay in mass graves, children made to go through pain, but still today, the government is trying to hide their ways and no real apology is in place. They excluded the women's children although they carry theirs and their mothers pain. Their attempts to hide Ireland's shamefully past will not last, they may have tried to cast us away but survivors and their children's voices are here to stay.
A travellering girl with a travellers soul, the travellers way was all she had known, gypsy blood is what run though her vains and they tried to make her feel ashamed, no women was aloud to live their life their own way, everyone had to uphold the holy way or they were sent to the magdalene laundries in holy chains made to clean Irelands, dirty, shamefully, stains.
The travelling girls soul was never let go, she worked 27 years, she was left to die and faced every humans worse fears. She now lays in a mass grave, it was to late for her to be saved because of the way the so called holy church behaved, now her daughter is left carrying hers and her mothers pain, a suffering that will never go away, until the day they meet again in a better place.
On the 22nd of September we will be holding another demonstration!
The magdalene women that lay in the mass graves children deserve justice, the children of the women deserve their mothers inheritance for the time they worked in the laundries if their mothers was taken unlawfully!
My nan Angela had her three children taken from her on behalf of racism and prejudices. She was an Irish traveller and unmarried mother although records state she was a good mother they took her away from her three children.
They are still trying to ignore the dead women as if they didn't exist because they dumped them in a hole! They are still trying to ignore the children who had their mothers taken from them wrongly to be locked away and put in a grave.
Children mothers have been taken and some murdered and yet they are trying to ignore the women who worked and died because of their neglect and abuse!
The children deserve an apology and their mothers inheritance which their mothers work in years of slavery for!
We can not be fooled by all the commission the government puts out there to excluded and occupy our brains with. We must seek for full justice and that is opening a full investigation into Ireland's care system regarding both mothers and children! We must stand and support each other for a full and needed outcome!
I for one will not be fooled as is why on the 22nd of September, I will be shouting louder then I shouted last time, I will be making my voice heard for those that cannot speak for themselves! Even if we stand alone as a family, we will have to do so!
For decades many individuals have been fighting on behalf of their justice and their mothers justice.
The Irish government has continued to exclude many people by opening different commissions into the abuse that took place within Ireland because of the governments and catholic church's crimes but instead of looking at the mother, children and baby homes as a whole, by simply just looking into all those in the care system that consisted of mothers and children and that was run by the Catholic Church and funded by the state they instead have continued to exclude and leave survivors out of apologies.
On the 15th of July 2015, survivors of the magdalene laundries, mother and baby homes and the children of the mothers who was taken from them and the families of the survivors stood strong together to show the government we are together and we are one and although we were separated from our mums and loved ones all because of their mistakes and prejudices the survivors will not give up on behalf of their justice!
Children of the women who entered the magdalene laundries and the women who was forced into the mass graves should receive an apology to their next of kins and their mothers inheritance that has been stolen from them, that they worked for, should be given to their children!
The government also needs to let families rebury their loved ones if they are laying in a mass graves and children who were part of any home and who had their mothers stolen of them deserve an apology on behalf of having their mother taken! Wether that be them being illegally adopted! Being born and having to stay 4 years of their life's in mother and baby homes which some children have had to suffer that long in them hell holes or the children of the magdalene women or children that was forced to visit the magdalene laundries to see their mothers for some 11 years! They all deserve justice for what they were put through!
On the day one mother shared her experience regarding forced adoption and her heartbreaking experience regarding the search for her son. She spoke with such strength and acknowledged all those that were involved! She also said, "When you see a cross, a black dress, a collar, look to the ground and look to the women in the mass graves" which was a powerful and truthful statement, it brought shivers to your spine when she carried on to say "children and their grandchildren and great grandchildren have no where to pay respects to the women who lays in mass graves without being reminded on the abuse and suffering!"
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-oHhkYIZqE4
The nuns and priests who are criminals have been able to escape the country with their freedom intact, although many of them abused and sexually abused many children and women, some had even went on to work in UK hospitals, they hide their past with the help of the government and still have their freedom, while freedom for people like Mary Collins mum, named Angela Collins, who lays in a mass grave with 72 other women has had her life shortened by the neglect of the church and is not even allowed the simple freedom of being buried by her loved ones in a single grave which Angela's daughter and family has requested but they are refused because the church owns the land, although it is possible. They sadly ignore their requests for permission.
When will the government stop wasting money and look into the care system as a whole. They need to look at everyone's case individually but look at it has a whole. So no one that suffered because of the faults of the government and Catholic Church is excluded and is left fighting on behalf of theirs or their mothers or sisters, or aunts, brothers, fathers, uncles justice and are not left for decades fighting for what they deserve because they wasn't under a place with a certain name, although it is like the others they are having a commission into or leaving children fight on behalf of their mothers justice because they are dead! The government needs to open one big commission into the care system!
Clearly within the care system which consisted of women and children their was a lot of wrongs that needs to be made right. Unless Ireland acknowledges and apologies for the past, there will never be a good future and them prolonging suffering for families and excluding people that has suffered is not helping but causing more suffering and more anger!
A survivor had quoted, it's the rolling ball effect, not just the person suffers but their children does and their children's children have because they have had to grow up watching their parents suffering and they are still fighting for justice meaning the suffering continues for many. Some children have had to grow up with a parent that suffers with depression or alcohol or drug abuse to numb the pain to forget what the church and government put them through, they have had to grow up with a lack of family and having to keep their parents secrets and not explain their history.
When will they give survivors the justice they deserve and help ease the suffering for those survivors and their children and their family's by letting them try to forget about the past and not always be fighting on behalf of it and that starts with an apology and when they look into things as a whole and apologise to all the children and women who was part of the care system that the government and church created to degrade, abuse and use financially as their slaves!
Everyone on the day of the protest was saddened. It is 2015 and still many people are left to suffer because of the governments and church's wrongs!
Justice for all magdalene women and children will be standing outside the Dàil in Ireland to demand an apology onbehalf of the dead women and children.
The Irish government cannot committ crimes and get away with it.
Angela Collins, died in the magdalene laundries after working 27 years because she was not given the medical treatment the doctors recommended.
Angela's now lays in a mass grave with 27 other women and the church refuses to let her family rest her in a dignified place.
The children of Ireland and the dead women has been ignored. We will make our voices heard so that the Irish government views us as a whole and not separate and apologies to the forgotton children of Ireland.
We won't stop the fight until the Irish government and Catholic Church does what's right.
We are together. We are one! But separated from our mums.
On the 15th we want change and we will not stop until we get it. All is welcome to come and make their voices heard.
Email documentation of correspondence with Steven O riordions team, also Micheál Martin TD, Mr O Keeffe and the Irish human rights commission.
Forgotten maggies- the beginning of all the lies.
Date: Fri, 15 Jul 2011 12:08:35 +0100
From: gerboland
Subject: Final email re: ‘The Forgotten Maggies
To: To media and general public,
‘The Forgotten Maggies’ is being screened on Wednesday 20th July on TG4 9.30pm. Over five and half years ago I began this project and I hope that you will take the time out to watch this documentary. I hope you will see beyond the 52minute piece and see the blood, sweat and tears that have gone into the making of this self funded documentary and campaign. I hope you will look beyond this as entertainment and see the reality Magdalene Women face on a daily basis in their search for justice. I have done as much as I can to help these Magdalene Women and I hope that the media and Irish society will give the Magdalene Women a real voice and let the truth be known.
RTE Guide pick of the week on Wednesday – ‘The Forgotten Maggies’
Ger Boland. From: mary collins <marycollins To: gerboland
Sent: Sun, 24 July, 2011 15:08:51
Subject: RE: Final email re: ‘The Forgotten Maggies
Hi Ger. How are you I believe the Documentary went well to this day I haven’t had a copy of the charity single. For Legal reasons if anything is put up on website can the women’s name be blocked out on both documentaries. I have my ticket booked for september so l will see you then. Well done. Mary
From: gerard boland <gerboland> Date: 28 July 2011 16:26:47 BST
To: mary collins <marycollins>
Subject: Re: Final email re: ‘The Forgotten Maggies
Mary, Thanks for the email. I hope you are keeping strong. The documentary went down very well and the estimate viewing figure was three hundred and sixty four thousand people on its peak!! Massive figures. I will see you in September. Steve or Maureen might have a spare cd to give you then perhaps.
Talk soon,
Ger. From: marycollins
To: kantuckie
Subject:
Date: Thu, 23 Feb 2012 14:27:34 +0000
Just a reminder of our conversation concerns about charity single not have a yearly/ print out statement given to every surviour and there families. I not part of your group this was my choice but I am part of the charity single and documenty any money that is made should be accounted for yearly. Happy new year
From: mary collins <marycollins> Date: 23 February 2012 14:37:46 GMT
To: <gerboland>
Subject: FW:
Hi Ger This IS what Isent to Steve Let me known when you find my tape. regards Mary Mary got no further reply from Steven O Riordion apart from a abusive message not regarding her tape he stole, but he tried to intimidate her for speaking the truth!
Subject: Michael McLoughlin, Managing Director To, Michael My name is Mary Collins I live in London. I have been informed that Steve o Riordain is planing to publish a book on the Magdalene laundries which I am not happy about. I met Steve o Riordan years ago when he was doing research for his university. He came to my home and filmed me for the forgotten maggies. In the forgotten maggies he did not tell the true story of how years ago I had a services for my mum with my young children present I gave him all my records stating the state involvement in putting me into a industrial school and my mum was admitted into the laundries by a doctor. In the documentary he pretends to be fighting for the truth when he already knew the truth with the records I had. With out my permission he requested my mother medical records from the mercy hospital in cork and had them send to his house he pretended he was my son.Steve has used and abused me verbally all because I wanted the truth. I object strongly to the book, he used me for his documentary but the night of the apology in the dial the children got excluded also the dead women The children of these are living with the scars of the laundries my mum is in a mass grave in Ireland and the cork county council has given permission for her body to be exchumed I witnessed so much abuse, Regards Mary
The endless fight for justice – Micheál Martin TD and the human rights commission and Mr O keeffe.
Mary Collins:
Dear Mr Martin,
I was very pleased to have had the opportunity of meeting you following the meeting which took place in the Dail recently during which the Taoisach made his apology to all women who had spent time in a Magdalen laundry.
When we met , I explained to you the reason I was at the meeting . This was because my mother Angela Collins RIP had spent 27 years in the Magdalen laundry at Peacock Lane in Cork run by the Sisters of Charity. Having run away, my mother was taken to Peacock Lane by the Gardi and put directly to work in the laundry. I was two and a half years old at the time and was placed in an industrial school by the courts. My older sister, Angela RIP, was taken to the Good Shepherd Magdalen Laundry, Sundays Well , by the police aged 14 years. Sadly she committed suicide. My younger sister ,Teresa, was adopted in Cork City and went to a school directly across the road from the Peacock Lane laundry where my mother had been incarcerated . Several times my sister , Teresa, was sent across to the laundry with fellow pupils to sing to the women , completely unaware that she was actually singing to her own mother. I was taken to visit my mother at Peacock Lane Laundry regularly from the industrial school , by train, accompanied by the matron of the home. During those hour-long visits I sat there around the table and just looked at my mother and was never allowed to touch her. My mother always had a companion with her whose name was Mary Ellen, another inmate. This went on all through my childhood until my mother died in 1988. During each of those visits described above, the matron of the home was present and she kept kicking me and pinching me under the table while I was visiting my mother. The nuns had told her to try to get me to speak to my mother but this was impossible because my mother was drugged up. This hidden abuse by the matron went on for years. On the way back to the industrial school on the train, the matron hit me and punched me every time and kept reminding me of the reasons that I was being taken to visit my mother. The matron said that it was to show me the state my mother was in who was classed as ‘dirty ‘and they did not want me to turn out like my mother. On arriving back at the industrial school, I was stripped naked, pillows were put over my head, they tried to suffocate me: I was beaten senseless ; my head was bashed off walls and I was put out to sleep with the pigs for the whole night. All this was done solely because my mother was in a Magdalen laundry in Peacock Lane and because she had me out of wedlock and was a bad person. I took my case to the Redress Board and received an award. The Board stated they could not take into consideration the abuse I suffered as a direct consequence of my mother’s incarceration in a Magdalen Laundry and of my being a child witness of it. The Solicitor who acted for me has full details of the boards decision regarding this aspect of my case. Because the Redress Board considered that it was not within their remit to take account of the abuse I suffered because of my mother’s status, I plead with you, Mr Martin, to use any influence you have ; 1) to bring my type of case within the remit of the current Magdalen Laundry Fund and
2) that my case and that of my mother’s should be seen as indivisible
3) that I should be compensated for all the Psychological damage done to me;
4) that I should receive compensation for my mother’s slave labour and
5) for burying my poor mother in a mass grave with 73 others at St Finbarre’s Cemetery.
Over the years I have been trying to prove that the State was involved in my case , and that my abuse and that of my mother were part and parcel of each other. When I reached the age of 16 , the sister in charge of the home wrote to the Education Minister asking that I should be given an extension, purely because my mother was in Peacock Lane Magdalen laundry- this fact is on record. Finally, over the years psychiatric reports have referred to the damage done to me seeing my mother institutionalised. The Psychiatrist who prepared my psychiatric report for the redress board stated that I was the most disturbed of all the applicants he had assessed because my abuse was intrinsically entwined with my mother’s life , behaviour and my birth. .
Thank you Mr Martin for giving me your card and for your kind words that evening ; it was a great comfort to me and I thank you in advance for any help you may be able to give me .
Yours sincerely, Mary Collins
Micheál Martin TD: Dear Mary,
Thank you for your email. I was very glad to have had the opportunity to meet with you in the Dáil recently and to listen to your story.
Since receiving your letter I have written to the Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, on your behalf, asking that he examine the details of your case in relation to redress.
I am currently awaiting a response from the Minister and I will be in touch again once a response has been received.
Yours sincerely,
Micheál Martin TD Subject: FW: The Magdalen Laundry Fund,
To Whom it concerns.
My name is Mary Collins. mother Angela Collins. in the last few day I have seen very upsetting coverage of the babies and the graves in Tuam. My reason I am emailing is my mother was a single parent in the ninty sixty and we also came from a travelling back ground. It has not surprised me in the least this has happened to children why because i was nearly killed in the home because of my mother sins. You see I was stolen of my mother because we lived on the side of the road in a caravan. I was taken to a county home with my mother who escaped with me they captured her and imprisoned her in a Magdalene laundries for twenty seven years. Al do I was taken of her I spent most of my childhood going to see her I visited these laundries and was abused treated like a dog. True out my childhood no one ever touched. me because of who I was Iwent to Dublin last year and sat with the nun who is in a hospice she remembered me. I requested for my mother to be exhumed she in a mass grave I want her to be buried in her own home town, She promised to get back to me, I was also in the dial the night the government apology[ to the women he left the children out. I came back to London angry. I would also like the redress board claim opened up why because I was not compensated for the abuse I suffered over my mother and visiting the laundries as a child.also the nuns placed her in a mass grave knowing to well she had children all my human rights have been taken away from me. If I visit the grave the suffering of my mum is there, I should be compensated for the years my mum worked in the laundries plus the emotional damage it has done to me seeing these women. All over the yeaSr I had my records and no one believed me. Iam asking for my redress board claim to be re opened and be compensated for all of this. I lost my big sister she died on Christmas day suicide why because she was put in a Magdalene laundry at the age of sixteen. I will be complaining to the united nation. I also want the women who abused me and many children to be extradited back from america to stand trial for the torture she committed on to me the irish government allowed her to go to america even when children complained to the redress board regarding her, this email is from some in the Irish eyes is the lowest and dirtestest person in life. The Irish government has left me down also the traveling families.
From Micheál Martin TD Subject: Re: The Magdalen Laundry Fund, Dear Mary,
I am emailing to follow up on our correspondence of March 11th in relation to your concerns regarding your experience of residential institutions in Ireland and redress. Having written to the Minister on your behalf, I received a response today which I attach for your reference. In his letter, the Minister outlines that deciding the scope of the redress scheme does not fall within his remit. He advises that Mr. John Quirke, President of the Law Reform Commission has been requested to report on the establishment of the scheme and its parameters. He outlines also that the Government has decided that the redress scheme will not be extended to the families of former institutional residents who are now deceased. Yours sincerely,
Micheál Martin TD Subject: MY MOTHER
Dear mr o keeffe I am writing to ask if we could meet to share my sad exeperiences wth you regarding my mum and sister who spent time in the laundrys.My mother and l were admitted in to midleton hospital l was sent to a childrens home and my mum was sent by a doctor to the laundries for twenty seven years .My big sister was sent to another laundry at the age of fourteen and spent three years there sadly She took her life my younger sister was adopted.My mother was forced to sign the adopting papers in exchange for me to go and see her when l was aged seven. l live with the pain l went true over having a mother in the laundries.lt make me sad to hear people disrespecting these women whose lives where taken away from them.You see my sixteen year old son was dignosied with a rare disorder and needeed a bone marrow transplant this time last year and it was the first time l had any feeling for my mum as l know it must of been hard for her to have lost her children l knew they were no bodies growing up and they are still been treated that way. l have alot of hurt in side me and its made worse because no one will say sorry If some one hurt your family sorry would help the healing/Look forward to a reply my phone number is ******** london YOURS SINCERLY M COLLINS. Subject: RE: Letter from the Irish Human Rights Commission
My mother, Angela Collins, worked, lived, and died at the age of 57 in a Magdalene Laundry in Peacock Lane, Cork, on January 27, 1988. She was admitted there on the word of a doctor and her children were taken from her and sent to various institutions. When she died, she was buried in a lage communal grave in Cork with 72 other women from the Peacock Lane Laundry. (I and my three children have since erected a separate, memorial plaque in her honour.)
I, Mary Collins, am Angela Collins’ daughter and I want recognition from the Irish Government for my mother and for what happened to her family. I have given all the details of my case to the Irish Government’s inquiry into theMagdalene Laundries at a meeting with Justice Minister Alan Shatter in September 2011.
But now I am gravely concerned that my mother’s case will not be included in this inquiry and I wish to intervene to make sure that it is included before the final report is issued, probably before the end of the year.
I believe it will be too late to intervene after the report is issued and I am seeking your help in intervening to pursue my mother’s case to ensure that she is included. In her life she suffered so much because the State failed to act to ensure her freedom and dignity and welfare and that of her family. This timethe Irish State must not ignore her again. I have been fighting over many years for such recognition for her.
I am seeking your help so that this final effort will succeed and her life, her suffering and her death will be acknowledged in the Irish Government’s report. It is also important to note that we were a Traveller family and because of that I believe we suffered and were maltreated even more. Therefore I believe it is especially incumbent on the Irish Governmnet to ensure justice for my mother. From Irish human rights:
Dear Ms Collins,
I refer to your recent e-mail of 1 June 2012 in relation to your concerns about the fact that your mother was in a Magdalene Laundry. In order to be of assistance, I thought it would be helpful if I were to briefly outline the two functions of this Commission, as governed by the provisions of the Human Rights Commission Act, 2000 (the Act), which may be of particular relevance when persons contact the Commission with their concerns. These are: (1) the Commission’s Enquiry Function – any person can request, under section 9(1)(b) of the Act, that the Commission conduct an enquiry into a relevant human rights matter, and/ or; (2) the Commission’s Legal Assistance Function – any person can apply, under section 10 of the Act, to the Commission for assistance in connection with legal proceedings involving issues of human rights. For your further information, a copy of the Act together with a copy of our Information Note Regarding Requests for an Enquiry and Applications for Assistance in Connection with Legal Proceedings, which provides more detail on how these functions operate, are available on our website (www.ihrc.ie). I trust these documents are of assistance to you. It should be noted that there is no entitlement to have an enquiry request or an assistance application granted by the Commission. Such decisions are within the discretion of the Commission. It is important to note that the Commission is not a court and cannot operate as an adjudicatory body in respect of a complaint of a human rights violation. The Commission does not have the power to overturn court or tribunal decisions, or to award remedies or compensation to people. In order to assist the Commission in considering the matter, it would be helpful if you could advise the Commission on several preliminary points:- i. Can you please set out in detail your mother’s history in a Magdalene Laundry (the name of the laundry, how she entered, why she remained in the laundry and when she died, your contact with your mother during, where your Mother is buried and whether you have a death certificate for her, any dealings you have had with the religious order concerned, and any other details that are relevant); ii. Can you please give an account of your own life experience (where you were born, how you were separated from your mother, when were you placed in an industrial school and the name of the school, what contact you had with your mother during her life, any relevant details in relation to your Father, details of any siblings, and any other details you consider relevant); iii. Please indicate what outcome you are seeking in contacting the Commission; iv. Please advise if you ever spent time in a Magdalene Laundry, and if so please provide details; v. whether your request to the Commission is that it conduct an enquiry into the matter (please specify the precise subject matter to which any enquiry request relates); vi. whether your request to the Commission is that it grant assistance in connection with legal proceedings in respect of the matter (please specify the precise subject matter of any contemplated legal proceedings); There is an important issue that you may wish to note before making an enquiry request or application for assistance. At present, the Minister for Justice, Equality & Defence is preparing draft legislation to provide for the merger of this Commission with the Equality Authority into a single statutory body. This new body will likely be called the Irish Human Rights and Equality Commission. As the draft legislation has not yet been published, we are unclear as to the exact details of the merger and as to when this new body will be established. What is clear is that this Commission will cease to exist in its current form. Unfortunately, as we need to give priority to the considerable number of enquiry requests and legal assistance applications we have pending at the present time, we cannot give you any assurance that, if you were to make a request or application, the Commission would be in a position to make a decision on same prior to the merger taking place or indeed thereafter. The Commission sincerely regrets any inconvenience this current situation may cause for you.
I look forward to hearing from you at your convenience. Please feel free to telephone me on ******* to discuss the matter further, should you so wish.
Yours sincerely, sinead. Human Rights Commission From Mary: Dear Sinead.
Thanks for your reply this is the information you requested.My mum Angela Collins and her three children were kidnapped from the irish travelling community by a doctor at Middleton hospital. In a report it say she went in the most horrendous weather to tuam without any money she was brought back and commited to a laundry for life his name was doctor Mc Carthy who is dead Mother Angela Collins Admitted with MARY Collins on the 4th of January to midelton home in 1963 transferred to st of chartiy saint Vincent convent st Mary road peacock lane co cork. Daughter Mary was seperated from her mother given to the court Mary went to sacred heart school rushbrooke on 5/11963 she never say her mother again untill the mercy nuns and sisters if charity broke the court order and made me visit my mum at the age of seven I was abused physical and emotionally every time I visted the laundries they locked me out with the pigs and the black cat as I was the lowest in life because of my travelling background. Angela died on the 27/01/1988 from ovarion cancer she was made work while she was ill her blood count were only 9 in her medical records i have the hospital doctor recommend she have her womb and ovaries removed because of the blood loss which never happened she is buried in a communal grave st Finbars cementary co cork with 72 other women over thirteen years ago I returned to Ireland to find my mums grave contacted the sister of charity to have my mum exhumed from the grave this request was refused so they allowed me to put a head stone and have a service for her . .My mum had three child one of my sisters was adopted the other was fourteen years old she went to a good sherpeds in cork up the road from her mum she spend two years but commited suicide years later she never got to see her mum are her sisters again.I would like the commission to investigate Angela stay in the laundries why she was made to work when she was so weak her medical records can be obtained from the mercy hospital cork her Doctor was DR Dermot Gleeson convent view St Mary Road co cork he neglected my mum health. the ispcc Middleton hospital .How they took away my rights to my family how When I went to the redress board with my solictor Michel lanigan I was told in front of him there was no redress for the emotional suffering i endured visiting this laundry seen my mum drugged up and been treated like a nobody in life the award I was given has not been touched as it has not included all my suffering. . This has effected my life in everyway they took away my right to visit my mum in the grave yard without the permanent reminder of her suffering lying in a mass grave especially when the nuns knew she had living family.I want the commision to grand me assistance in connection to legal procudure for the loss of my family compensation for all of the suffering and what they did to my mum and sisters Please help me to make the goverment listen and they tell the truth about the laundries. I I would like to take a civil case against the laundries the Irish state stole the travellers children of them. I have all the information this is painful but im very angry as the truth has not been told. Over the years I have seen ministers reported the abuse to the police. I will never rest until the whole truth is told about my family.Please contact me if you need more information. The Mercy nuns sisters of charity and good sheperd were all one. Kind Regard Mary
Subject: Re: FW: The Magdalen Laundry Fund, Dear Ms Collins,
On behalf of the Minister for Children and Youth Affairs, Dr. James Reilly TD, I wish to acknowledge and thank you for your correspondence in relation to the Terms of Reference for the proposed Commission of Investigation into Mother and Baby Homes. Consideration of the broad range of views expressed in the process of engagement and dialogue undertaken to date will assist in achieving the widest possible consensus in the establishment of this Commission of Investigation. The Minister has publicly stated his commitment to establishing an investigation which is capable of effectively addressing these important matters in a sensitive and timely manner. The period of open consultation and the call for written submissions to inform the initial scoping work of the Inter-Departmental Working Group came to an end with the publication of the Group’s report on the 16th July. The large volume of written submissions received by the Department will form part of the careful deliberations as the Government finalises arrangements for the Commission. The Minister recently announced that Judge Yvonne Murphy has agreed to Chair the Commission.It is intended to pass all the submissions received to date onto the Commission for its consideration. Should you not wish to have your submission passed onto Judge Murphy then please e-mail: motherandbabyhomes@dcya.gov.ie before 15th August 2014 to notify us of this preference. The Department will request the Commission to treat your submission, and any personal information contained therein, with the appropriate level of confidentiality in accordance with data protection legislation. The Commission will be the means by which we can bring a true and clear picture of this part of our history into full public view. Accordingly, the Minister is anxious that the Commission be established with the requisite care and attention. There are challenges inherent in this task but the Government is committed to establishing an effective investigation process to face up to our past where not all mothers and their children were cherished equally and, most importantly, to learn from it. Further information regarding the Commission of Investigation, including the Report of the Inter-Departmental Group, is available on our website athttp://www.dcya.gov.ie. Information regarding the helpline services available to those affected by the recent revelations regarding Mother and Baby Homes and other Institutions, and contact details to assist those seeking adoption information and tracing information, are also available at this web address. Yours sincerely Liam Preston
Mother and Baby Homes Investigation Department of Children and Youth Affairs Steven O Riordion used Mary’s information and exculed her in the trailer but had the audacity to use her mums grave at the end of it. Steven O Riordion has used many women, you can find out more about the injustices his had caused at:
When will the past be left the past for these women, why at the aged Mary is, is she still fighting for what is right on behalf of herself, mum and children! Ireland truly is shameful! Give the women justice and let them live the rest of their life’s in peace! You can support us on Facebook at:
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Before the age of ten, I was explained what had happened to my nan, Angela Collins and my mother Mary Collins. Following to that we went to Ireland to visit my nan in the mass grave she was placed in. When we arrived we was greeted by a dirty, grey, head stone, that towered over me. It read many different women's names, I read the headstone while wiping away dirt, we soon came across Angela's name which was put up along with 72 other women's names.
We went back to Ireland as a family but this time we were on a mission, we had purchased a new head stone that read "Angela Collins, st. Vincent's, peacock lane, cork from 1961. Suffering life long separation from her children. Until her death in 1988. On the feast of St. Angela aged 57 years now at peace in her eternal home. Rip." We also placed an angel statue next to the head headstone. We cleaned up the the ordinal headstone and we said prays and paid respect to Angela.
Angela Collins worked 27 years within a peacock lane magdalene laundry. She died in the magdalene laundries and was placed in a mass grave. Angela Collins' daughter, Mary Collins, has been fighting for her mothers justice and for her justice as she would be made to enter the laundries to visit her mother where she experienced terrible abuse at the age of 7 years.
Mary Collins took part in a documentary regarding her mother Angela Collins and herself. The producer asked for the film of are remembrance for Angela, which he has failed to give back and didn't even use in his documentary, yet used my mums story and he published his documentary. After he got what he wanted which was the story he excluded my mum from the support group called "magdalene survivors all together" funny how the name speaks for itself. My mother suffered in and out of the magdalene laundries and within a abusive children's home within Ireland and her mum worked in a magdalene laundry for 27 years! He excluded a survivor for his own gain. Steven O riordion is not even related to the magdalene women, let alone being a survivor of it, so he stole off and excluded the women that mattered.
In 2013 an apology was issued towards the women. Steve O riordion did not want my mother at the apology, my mother couldn't get a ticket and not one of the women for "survivors together" spoke up on behalf of Mary Collins getting justice on behalf of her mum and herself, another women who was not part of that group got my mother a ticket and sat with her.
The Irish government apologised to the living women who entered the magdalene laundries. Instead of refusing the apology and telling them it's not good enough as they didn't included the families and women that lost their life's. Although it was so close to getting a perfect outcome that didn't excluded families and the women as the government had already agreed they did wrong, all we had to do was hold out a little longer but instead of pushing it, we accepted it to avoid prolonging it any further. So that some survivors who were alive but elderly could see the apology as they may not have ever heard it due to old age in some peoples in opinion.
Since 2013, 6 women has pasted away who was apart of the survivors together group, 1,663 people died in Magdalene laundries and are still without any form of apology today. Many family members have been left without justice. Around 250 women have accepted the offers of competition from the fund set up. Nearly €18 million has been planned to be paid out to survivors. They will also be issued with a health card, which hasn't been put in place yet, although the compensation systems have.
Steven O’Riordan, head of the group, said: “The biggest fear the women have is that most of their entitlements will be assessed. There is no guarantee they will receive extra benefits, as they will be assessed.”
The survivors together group fail to speak about the 1,663 people that died. Although they mention a memorial. The group says it is also unhappy about the delay in erecting a Magdalene memorial and museum on Dublin’s Sean McDermott Street, where the last laundry closed in 1996.
The 2013 Quirke report, which the government said it would implement, had recommended that a memorial be placed on the site.
“They seem to just want to delay everything,” Marie Slattery, a survivor of the Sean McDermott Street laundry, said. “Six women from our group have passed away… It’s upsetting.”
Let me ask, why does this matter even though dead women and families of these women haven't even received an apology!? They never speak about the dead women and families that sacrificed their apologies two years ago for them to have what they got and now actually try help fight for the dead women and families to get an apology! The only reason they use the memorial in my personal opinion is to pretend they care and to bring awareness to their health cards. If they really card about the women who lost their life's and that didn't get apologies why are they not speaking up about it and making people aware the dead women have been left without justice and also the families! So please answer my question of why a memorial matters? when those women and families haven't been given the simple justice of an apology on behalf of loosing their life and their family members losing love ones!
They say it's upsetting! It's upsetting that two years after the apology was issued that we are still fighting for the simple apology! Which mean more than a stone at this moment of time! The apology should come first! Yet they only care about appearance, only because your putting a memorial does not make up for the hurt and pain family's and women went through and does not compensate for an apology!
We should be fighting for an apology on behalf of those that lost their life's and suffered, not talking about medical cards or memorials when some women haven't even received an apology. It's have been two years since the apology and the families and women that lost their life's are still be ignored and still being forgotten and it's not just by the government!
A memorial should not be put up until all is resolved and all people involved has been given justice! Once the chapter ends! That is when it should be placed! It may have ended for you! But the fight continues for many! So It is not over!
