Dormitories
Once of the spaces on the site most connected with the stories and memories of the Magdalene Women is the Dormitory Wing, where they would have slept in between shifts working in the laundry.
The Dormitory Wing still stands, although it is increasingly perilous condition as the site remains vacant and it continues to deteriorate. It is unique on the site as being the last remaining structure connected with the Magdalene Women themselves, with the possible exception of the Ri Villa Hostel for teenage trainees.
“…and we were shut…brought upst[airs], then we were put into a room and then upstairs…I think about seven or half-seven we were put to bed. It was like prison really…and the doors were locked behind us and we were put into this big huge dormitory done…divided with a partition, you know and you weren’t allowed talk or nothing.”
[Interviewer] “And how many were in the dormitory?”
“Ah about fifty, I’d say…I’d say about twen…fift…no, more, I’d say around fifteen on each side…”
O’Donnell, K., S. Pembroke and C. McGettrick. (2013) “Oral History of Martina Keogh”. Magdalene Institutions: Recording an Oral and Archival History.
Government of Ireland Collaborative Research Project, Irish Research Council, pp.27- 28.
“The first day when I went to Gloucester Street I refused to take off my clothes, I refused to do anything. I just sat and cried and wailed and screamed, nobody took any notice of me. But I remember the dormitories, they were absolutely horrible. They were like…like prison they weren’t cells, it was a big dormitory with a hundred…loads and loads of beds and, people used to wash in cold water, carbolic soap, I remember that.”
O’Donnell, K., S. Pembroke and C. McGettrick. (2013) “Oral History of Mary”. Magdalene Institutions: Recording an Oral and Archival History.
Government of Ireland Collaborative Research Project, Irish Research Council, p. 13.
This wing was originally designed and constructed between 1868-74.
( Shaffrey Associates Architects, Conservation Report: Covent [sic] Lands: Sean MacDermott Street Lower, Dublin, 2007: p.7)
Prunty notes an additional dormitory was completed around 1893, although this may be an extension to the original.
Jacinta Prunty, The Monasteries, Magdalene Asylums and Reformatory Schools of Our Lady of Charity in Ireland 1853-1973, Dublin: Columba Press (2017) p. 293)
Furthermore, Prunty also records that by 1910:
‘to allow for a total of 115 beds, ‘the roof of the dormitory had to be raised, another storey added, and a good deal extended, and to the broad stair case, which only reached half way, two flights of stairs were added.”
This figure gives some indication of the numbers of Magdalene Women in Sean MacDermott St at this point in time.
Prunty, (2017): 293-4
“We were all up at the very top of the building and every door locked…behind us. The door…you wouldn’t have been…once you were put into that dormitory you could not leave ‘til the next morning. The door down there and the door there was locked.”
[Interviewer] “Were you able to talk when you…?”
“No, no, no, oh Jesus no. You couldn’t…once you went in there…you weren’t…the older women that was in charge of the dormitory…you couldn’t because they would tell on you. And you would be…you would get a beating so it wasn’t worth it..”
O’Donnell, K., S. Pembroke and C. McGettrick. (2013) “Oral History of Martina Keogh”. Magdalene Institutions: Recording an Oral and Archival History.
Government of Ireland Collaborative Research Project, Irish Research Council, pp.51- 52.
Between 1967-8, it is recorded that:
‘The dormitories are renovated to provide each girl or women their own personal space to some extent.’
Prunty, (2017): 531
This is also seen in the 2001 survey which shows the rooms having been subdivided into individual ‘cells’.
