A Constant Reminder

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Protesters, including Mary Smith (above) who was in the Magdalene Laundry in Sundays Well in Cork, demonstrate outside City Hall last night as Dublin City Council decided whether to sell the last laundry premises.

Last night.

City Hall, Dame Street, Dublin 2

Following a vote last night at Dublin City Council o preserve the site of the last Magdalene Laundry, Social Democrat Councillor Gary Gannon, who campaigned against the sale of the site to an hotel chain, said:

I’m delighted that my fellow councillors supported my motion to block the sale of the Magdalene Laundry site at Sean McDermott Street. This Laundry is a site of national historical importance and its sale to the Tokyo Inn hotel chain would have been an act of cultural vandalism.

Tonight’s decision paves the way for the preservation of the site as a place of remembrance and learning.

There is now a responsibility on government to listen to the views of elected representatives, survivors and their families, and develop plans for the site that recognise and value the social, cultural and personal history that it symbolises.

This building provides us an opportunity to create a physical space where future generations can touch the walls and know that what occurred in these institutions were not exaggerated.”

Last night: A Victory For Women And Survivors

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24 thoughts on “A Constant Reminder

  1. millie st murderlark

    I think a museum would be no bad thing. We have an ugly, shameful history in this country. We’d do well to never forget one of our darkest and ugliest periods.

    1. SOQ

      I agree. But not just Magdalene, for all the victims. A place where future generations can come to learn about what actually happened.

      Anyways, good work Gary.

      1. Freedom

        What’s good about it? This is moronic

        They should knock it and turn it into a hotel
        Bring jobs in

        He was on the radio waffling about women doing low paid work the other day. What a condescending person

    2. scottser

      i dunno millie, i reckon the only way to banish the dark is to let some light in. would it not be better to see kids running and playing round as normal in a well designed and supported housing development rather than establishing a museum of our misery? by all means have a remembrance garden and a memorial but i believe that life is for the living and healing begins with finding joy in something.
      the biggest sin though is leaving it as it is.

      1. rotide

        This, so much this.

        I can’t see how leaving it as it is helps heal at all.

        Also spoiler, noone is going to go to a museum there.

        1. Nigel

          This is the point where they should throw it open for submissions from artists, architects, historians, survivors, the general public and find some really special vision of how to develop it nd turn it into a lasting memorial, but preferably a living one as scottser suggests.

      2. millie st murderlark

        A lovely idea scottser. I honestly couldn’t fight with that.
        I think that’s the kind of thing that would resonate best with people.

    3. Clampers Outside!

      Agreed Millie, but that is a huge building and unnecessary for a memorial when it could be used for social housing, IMO.

      There were laundries all over the country, there are other sites that could be used for a memorial. Gannon is fixated with this one, IMO, because it’s in Dublin, his ‘area’ for want of a better word – he’s a DCC councillor North Inner city. I believe his logic for a choice of site for a memorial is based around his local parish pump.

      1. postmanpat

        Most of whom are probably still charlie church auld wans who would gift it back to the church in their wills anyway. What annoys me about all of this is that most adjusted secular people would just want it sold off and used for job creation , housing or what have you. Its the religious dopes that seem to want a shrine made and run at a loss at the states expense (not the church , never the church) , so they can compartmentalize their conflicted guilt about still identifying with the very organization that caused all this suffering. its the secularists that are making the future a better place free of this kind of thing, not a bunch of god fearing mass going plebs that want a stupid museum.

  2. rotide

    I find this astonishing. Fair play that a huge city site was prevented from becoming a hotel but there is no talk of actually using this site for anything other than some sort of vague memorial.

    If this was Leo or Murphy people would be literally baying for blood that it hasn’t already become social housing.

    1. Brother Barnabas

      except they’ve already said that it would cost more to properly convert this to social housing than it would to construct the same number of social housing units from scratch

      selling it and using the proceeds to construct social housing somewhere surely makes sense

      1. scottser

        this shouldn’t be a ‘common sense’ or a ‘cost’ issue. it’s way more important than that. it can be done properly and sensitively and if someone is worried about the bill, well i can think of a number of people to send it to.

    2. Freedom

      Why is that fair play?

      Visitors to the city want to stay in the city centre

      The quicker most of old Dublin 1 is razed to the ground the better

  3. Ger Mc

    Use it for social housing . No need for it to be turned into a museum cos no one is going to visit it . Turn a negative into a positive and do something that can be seen as a tribute to humanity.

    1. Nigel

      No turn it into 40% social housing and turn the rest over to private developers because now is not the time for half measures it is the time for one third measures.

    1. Gearóid

      2 abstained, I think 5 voted against. Read it in the IT earlier but they didn’t list who voted what way, or not at all. I’m also curious, so if anybody knows, please post it.

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