I just saw this documentary today. It was on the same DVD movie as "The Magdelene Sisters" and is the true story of the 4 young women whose stories were told in the movie. The movie was emotional, but for me, seeing the documentary was far more emotional because it was the real people when they were older at the time the documentary was made which was in 1987 I think.
All the stories left me in tears, but Christina's story got to me the most. I cried along with Christina when she talked about having too give up her baby and how much she longed to see him when she was kept prisoner in The Magdeline Asylum. You could tell that even years later when she was an old lady, by the way she still cried, that her experiences at the Asylum and the loss of her son, had deeply affected her. Her still very beautiful blue eyes filled with tears at the mention of her son. I was also greatly emotional when she mentioned about when she told the nun that she wanted to see her son and the nun was going to beat Christina with a belt, and Christina told the nun that she had been promised she would get to see her son and if she got to see him that was all she was asking and if the nun hit her, she would kill her, and Christina said she was prepared to do that and go to prison, but insisted she had to see her son, the nun backed off and she was allowed to see her son, but it didn't show you that part.
Someone said in another message here that the last time Christina saw her son, he was 10 months old, but I got the impression from the documentary that he was older than that, perhaps 8 or so, because Christina asked one of the orphanage girls next door if they knew her "boy" so I would think by that time her child was not a baby. Christina breaks your heart and you can see the deep sadness on her face in the documentary, which was filmed 57 years after she had her baby. I was so glad to learn in the documentary that Christina was finally re-united with her son but not till she was and old lady and only because she knew she was dying. It must have been a great moment when she saw her son after all these years. She kept it secret from her family that she had a son when she was young. If only she had gotten to know him much sooner.
Martha's story was also very sad. She said she never married because she could never allow anyone to have power over her.Its understandable, but she seemed like a fine woman who deserved love in her life. Brigid's story was also sad. She was disillusioned after being sexually abused by a priest at the Magdelene asylum. Phyllis's story was also sad. She left the catholic church after her bad experiences. After seeing this documentary and the movie, what strikes me as more obvious than anything was the backward attitude of the day, especially bad in Catholic Ireland because of the priests and dogma of the Catholic church having such a strong hold on catholics.
It always seemed so unfair to me that the girls who got pregnant and ended up in the Magdelene Asylum had to take full responsibility for getting pregnant as if they got pregnant by themselves and the boy who got them pregnant had no blame attached to them and just carried on their merry way as if they were innocent bystanders. I thought it took two people to make a baby. The girl always had to suffer alone, yet she was only one half of the "sin" as the Catholic church called it. Blatant sexism of the time. I am glad we have moved on since then.
The nuns and priests of Magdalene asylum should have been put in jail and given life sentences for the damage they did to those girls who either made a mistake or many did nothing at all to deserve such a life of horror, cruelty and sexual abuse. The future lives of most of the girls were destroyed. To the ones who survived, they deserve a lot of credit just for the fact that they survived and that is their greatest triumph. To any of the Asylum laundry girls who survived that horrific hell hole, I salute you. I hope you had some happiness in your life. Your pure spirit got you through.