Growing Resilient in Irish Magdalene Laundries: An Analysis of the Justice for Magdalenes’ Oral History Project (2013) and Kathy O’Beirne’s Autobiography Kathy’s Story: A Childhood Hell Inside the Magdalen Laundries (2005)

Abstract

AbstractIn this chapter, I analyse the testimonies of some survivors gathered in Justice for Magdalenes’ Oral History Project (2013) and Kathy O’Beirne’s autobiography Kathy’s Story. A Childhood Hell inside the Magdalen Laundries (2005). The narrative focuses on the life of one Magdalene survivor during her confinement and after her release, where the concepts of vulnerability, resistance and resilience gain strength. As an international political forum, the Project allows us to see how Magdalene Laundries, employed as instruments of power, rendered thousands of women in a vulnerable and precarious condition which they are still fighting to overcome. Following Judith Butler, vulnerability is part of resistance, and it is through our speech and bodily acts that we can resist social norms and precarity. Considering resilience and resistance as complementary concepts, this chapter explores how these women resisted vulnerability and if they were offered help in the aftermath of their release.