Do Penance or Perish: Magdalen Asylums in Ireland,Used

Do Penance or Perish: Magdalen Asylums in Ireland,Used

In Stock
SKU: SONG0195174607
Brand: Oxford University Press
$21.81
Quantity
Add to wishlist
Add to compare

Processing time: 1-3 days

US Orders Ships in: 3-5 days

International Orders Ships in: 8-12 days

Return Policy: 15-days return on defective items

Payment Option
Payment Methods

Help

If you have any questions, you are always welcome to contact us. We'll get back to you as soon as possible, withing 24 hours on weekdays.

Customer service

All questions about your order, return and delivery must be sent to our customer service team by e-mail at yourstore@yourdomain.com

Sale & Press

If you are interested in selling our products, need more information about our brand or wish to make a collaboration, please contact us at press@yourdomain.com

Frances Finnegan traces the development of Ireland's Magdalen Asylumshomes that were founded in the midnineteenth century for the detention of prostitutes undergoing reform. The inmates of these asylums were discouragedand many forcibly preventedfrom leaving and sometimes were detained for life. Put to work without pay in adjoining laundries, these women were subject to penance, harsh discipline, enforced silence, and prayer. Their hair was cropped, and they were made to wear drab and shapeless clothing. Forbidden to mention their past lives, their children taken away, the inmates themselves were referred to as children and forced to address the nuns as 'Mother.' As the numbers of prostitutes began to dwindle, the church looked elsewhere for this free labor, targeting other 'fallen' women such as unwed mothers and wayward or abused girls. Some were incarcerated simply for being 'too beautiful,' and therefore in danger of sin. Others were mentally retarded. Most of them were brought to the asylums by their families or priests. Unbelievably, the last of these asylums was closed only in 1996. Drawing on previously unpublished material, Finnegan presents case histories of individual women and their experiences in Magdalen homes, which claimed some 30,000 women in all. She looks at the social consequences of such a system, and ponders how it was able to survive into the late twentieth century, right through the feminist campaign for women's rights. Do Penance or Perish is the first study of this shameful episode in Irish history.

⚠️ WARNING (California Proposition 65):

This product may contain chemicals known to the State of California to cause cancer, birth defects, or other reproductive harm.

For more information, please visit www.P65Warnings.ca.gov.

Recently Viewed