Kitchens

Cooking, and the routine of daily meals was a critical part of the daily regimen for the Magdalene Women, and a key marker of the passage of time throughout the day.  As such, the Kitchens & Refectory spaces feature prominently in the testimonies of many women interviewed.

“…you know. But I always remember the cockroaches. Seriously like. I couldn’t believe it and I’ve never really seen cockroaches since. The place was riddled with cockroaches. And do you know that the cockroaches used to live in the flour? And we had to use that flour still to make the bread and the cakes for us?”

O’Donnell, K., S. Pembroke and C. McGettrick. (2013) “Oral History of Lucy”. Magdalene Institutions: Recording an Oral and Archival History.
Government of Ireland Collaborative Research Project, Irish Research Council, p.33.

Sean MacDermott St Magdalene Laundry by Atlas of Lost Rooms on Sketchfab

[To view reconstruction sources, click here]

“…did I ever tell you that I tried to commit suicide in there? I took two bottles of Benylin cough mixture but I woke up the next morning! (Laughs) I couldn’t believe it! It just put me to sleep! It was obviously…it wasn’t cough mixture they probably just put something into the bottles. You know, so. Yeah I was so disappointed when I woke up the next morning! (Laughs)…There was…in the kitchen…the kitchen was huge and there was…all the presses were all up on the walls and there was loads of bottles of cough medicines and different types of medicines and I remember robbing the two bottles of…and nobody noticed.”

[Interviewer] “And why d…why did you try to commit suicide?”

“Because I hated it. I absolutely hated it. I…the beatings I couldn’t, I…I oh my God I just can’t…”

O’Donnell, K., S. Pembroke and C. McGettrick. (2013) “Oral History of Lucy”. Magdalene Institutions: Recording an Oral and Archival History.
Government of Ireland Collaborative Research Project, Irish Research Council, p.37 

The kitchens and refectory were located at the junction between the Dormitory annex and the main Convent Building facing onto Sean MacDermott St.

Historian Jacinta Prunty notes that in 1910:

‘Pride was also taken over the refectory, ‘a large, bright, healthy, cheerful room’ with ‘hot and cold water and every want amply supplied’.  The basement kitchen was similarly extolled in 1910 due to recent investment: the scullery had been extended and a meat safe, lined inside with white tiles…had been built.  New also was a ‘large white enamelled trough, with hot and cold water taps for the washing of vegetables.’  The basement floors were newly tiled, the heating pipes had been renewed, the boiler replaced and, it was declared, ‘the whole surroundings in perfect order and neatness.’  

Jacinta Prunty, The Monasteries, Magdalene Asylums and Reformatory Schools of Our Lady of Charity in Ireland 1853-1973, Dublin: Columba Press (2017) p. 294

“You might get a boiled egg. That’s what we got in Gloucester Street. If you got anything else I can’t remember…Still do like, and every time I boil an egg it always reminds me of Gloucester Street…”

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, p.99..
Courtesy of the Irish Architectural Archive

The 1954 survey of the site by W.H. Byrne & Son Architects, notes that in the corner of the room marked ‘Kitchen’ there is a small ‘Lift’

This lift is a key object in a memory by Martina Keogh:

“Two slices of bread cut in half you’d get. I remember the bread strike, I’ll always remember it. Dorothy Flanagan and myself decided we’d go into the k…we’d hide in the kitchen part in the dor…in the…the…the ref…the refectory it was called, where we’d sit…the dining room, or refectory, and then we knew the…we knew the kitchen, the pantry was there, and we knew there was a thing you could pull up and you could get into the kitchen. We said we’d go down and rob the bread, and then we’ll keep it and min…give it to the other girls, you know, the younger girls that we…because they’d give the older women a little more than they’d give us, and because the bread was on strike so we’d only…we were only getting a half a slice of bread, and we were made to do the same work for that half a slice of bread for your breakfast and your tea, you know. 

So of course, we didn’t realise, and we were there and next of all, whatever t…they were all gone up and anyhow, and we …I went to go in, and wasn’t the bloody thing locked that you go down…everything was locked. So, we were stuck where we were, and weh ad to g…we had give ourselves up. We got bleeding battered the next morning, we did. 

I think I got about 20 clatters from the leather strap for doing 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.99- 100.
 
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