Derry woman: ‘Life in the Good Shepherd laundry was like being in jail’
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A Derry woman who as a child spent years in a Good Shepherd convent has likened the church run institution to a prison.
Caroline Magee was 11-years-old when her mother sent her to the Good Shepherd Home and Laundry on Dungiven Road.
She remained there for a considerable period from 1975-1978.
Describing that experience, she said: “It was like being in jail. When you went in the doors were closed and you weren’t allowed out.
“You went to bed when they said, got up when they said, ate when they said, bathed when they said and did your laundry when you were told.
); Lives could be saved : Woman with MS says adopted people should have access to medical history
“So many lives could be made better, saved, elongated, if doctors knew what they were testing for.” By Órla Ryan Saturday 6 Feb 2021, 10:30 AM Feb 6th 2021, 10:30 AM 24,939 Views 4 Comments
Sinéad Buckley
Image: Sinéad Buckley
A WOMAN BORN in a mother and baby home has said it’s vital for adopted people like her to have access to their birth and medical records.
Sinéad Buckley was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS) in 2015 when she was 43.
Now 48, she believes she could have been diagnosed with the condition earlier if she had access to her medical records.
By Sr Bibiana Densia
On 2 February 2021, the Mass to mark the World Day for Consecrated Life, which was scheduled to be celebrated at Sacred Heart Cathedral, was cancelled as a consequence of the extension of the Movement Control Order (MCO) imposed by the government. It created sadness and nostalgia for those of us who were looking forward to celebrate as we had done in previous years.
According to Br Thomas Paul, SG, chairperson of the Council of Religious (COR), Archbishop did suggest to have an Online Mass for the religious to celebrate the World Day for Consecrated Life but the COR instead decided to cancel it, thus giving liberty to religious congregations to celebrate it with and in their own communities.
Baby clothing and other items hang from a tree at a cemetery in Tuam, Ireland, where the bodies of nearly 800 infants were uncovered at the site of a former Catholic home for unmarried mothers and their children. The photo was taken Jan. 12, 2021, the day a commission investigating the treatment of women in such homes released its report. On Jan. 26, Northern Ireland s government released a 534-page report on mother and baby homes there. (CNS/Reuters/Clodagh Kilcoyne)
Killyleagh, Northern Ireland The young mother wrapped her baby son in a shawl and carefully pushed a letter to his adoptive parents into a bag stuffed with toys, sweaters and other clothes.
‘How many people in that grave have the right names?’
A Derry man shares his story of how the mother he never met spent 25 years in Good Shepherd Home and Laundry yet was buried under the wrong name in a ‘pauper’s grave’
The plot at Ardmore cemetery where 19 women are buried from the Good Shepherd laundry
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Bridget O’Connor was the sixth of nineteen laundry women to be buried in a communal grave at Ardmore Cemetery.
More importantly, she was a mother to four children.
But because she was not married those children were taken away from her.