Magdalene Laundries and the fight for accountability

Laura Angela Collins’ connection to the Magdalene laundries could not run deeper.

Her grandmother, Angelina Collins, later renamed Angela, endured 27 years of forced labour under the Sisters of Charity.

Despite being recommended for a hysterectomy years before she died, it was never performed, and she continued working while unwell until she eventually died of ovarian cancer.

She was buried in a mass grave owned by the religious order, who, Laura says, still refuse to take responsibility for her death.

Laura’s mother, Mary Teresa Collins, is a survivor of the industrial school run by the Sisters of Mercy, where her hair was roughly cut short, she was renamed Number 5, and suffered terrible abuse as a child.

Mary Teresa Collins (Laura’s mother) in Rushbrook Industrial school

Laura’s aunt was placed in the Bessborough Mother and Baby Home before being fostered and later adopted.

Both have lived with the trauma of these institutions, Laura said, while her other aunt, who was placed…

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