I interviewed the wonderful Sheila O'Byrne in her lovely house off Blarney Street. Sheila is a Magdalene survivor, 19 years of age when she was sent to St Patrick’s Magdalene Laundry on Dublin’s Navan Road in 1976 for the crime of being pregnant. #Magdalene
Sheila hasn’t seen her son since he was a little baby, taken from her arms and sold by the nuns. He’d be 41 now, wherever he is. Sheila is desperate to know where her little boy is. She never married, never had any other kids. “Not after what was done to me,” she told me.
Sheila lives not far from the site of the former Good Shepherd Magdalene Laundry in Sunday’s Well, and she is disgusted at the thought that a place of such horror might be concreted over and have an apartment block built on it.
Sheila was only allowed to hold her son once, for his Christening.
"Just to hold him in your arms once, and then he was taken.
"You bought everything in there. You’re working for them for free and everything in there you have to buy. The whole shebang.
"Just to hold him in your arms once, and then he was taken.
"You bought everything in there. You’re working for them for free and everything in there you have to buy. The whole shebang.
"My Daddy gave me the money to pay for the Christening. And then do you know what Mr Priest says?
"He said to me, ‘Well, Sheila, if you haven’t got the money, there’s other ways we can sort this out’. And he reached over and he touched my left breast.
"He said to me, ‘Well, Sheila, if you haven’t got the money, there’s other ways we can sort this out’. And he reached over and he touched my left breast.
"I said ‘You’re alright, Father, I have my money’. I had it right in my hand. I said ‘I’m paying in full.’
"And the nurse came straight in and took my baby off me."
"And the nurse came straight in and took my baby off me."
