WEBVTT

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Emily, you're coming with me now.

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No, no!

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You don't have any choice!

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I haven't done anything wrong!

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Imagine if you were abducted and
held prisoner against your will;

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if you had your possessions taken;

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your hair cut;

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your clothing removed.

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If you were forced to wear a a uniform;

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and answer to a new name ...

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For Gabrielle O' Gorman, 
and thousands of women in Ireland,

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this was a reality.

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At the age of 17, Gabrielle was
working at a Roman Catholic convent,

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looking after young children.

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But the nuns disapproved of her behaviour.

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I was working with the children in the
convent, probably there about 4 months,

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and I think they thought that
I was getting a bit wild,

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and I was going out with boys,

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and I was going out with a particular
man that they didn't really like.

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We had a date, we went out and
I decided to stay the night.

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When I went to the convent the
next day, they had my case ready,

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and with a policeman, and they said,

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'Gabrielle, we're taking you somewhere safe.'

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The 'safe' place was, in fact, one of
the infamous Magdalene Laundries,

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which were run by Roman Catholic
religious orders in Ireland.

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Here, women they deemed
'sinners' were sent,

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supposedly to earn forgiveness.

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It is estimated that at any one
time during the 20th Century

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there were up to one thousand women
locked up in these laundries.

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Now, Gabrielle is returning
to the Dublin laundry

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for the first time since
she was a teenager.

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It remained open until 1996,

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but is now derelict and hazardous,

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so she must wear safety gear.

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It feels really weird,

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it feels almost claustrophobic.

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You can hear the alarm thing
going off. After all these years...

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...just look at it ...

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... dark, dingy ...

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... horrible.

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This is the room where I first came,

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the day I came in with
all my stuff in my case,

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and the nun said,

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'Take off all your clothes Gabrielle,

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you wear this uniform'.

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I said, 'No! I am not wearing that!'

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And I was screaming and saying, 'I am not
staying here, I want to get out now!'

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But nobody listened.

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Kind of the feeling is really
still there now and I...

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Eventually they took me
out into the laundry

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and that's where I saw all the women
working with the steam and the rollers,

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and I can feel the smell, 
the carbolic soap in particular.

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I immediately sat there and I was crying.

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I thought, 'Where am I,
what am I doing here?'

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There were girls in there as young as 9,

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that maybe were attractive,

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and they didn't want
them to have boyfriends,

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or they needed them to be part of
the laundry to work in as slaves.

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Most of the laundry was delivered by vans,

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and it was usually from the local
colleges, schools, hospitals.

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I remember seeing some of
blood and that on the sheets.

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The women, they worked from six in the
morning all day, just doing the laundry,

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and they sang hymns as
well while they worked.

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They never would be allowed to talk,

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and you'd always find
the nuns walking about,

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making sure everybody
was doing the work.

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It probably was 12, 13 hours a day.

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Then they'd have their meal
and they would go to bed.

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The nuns were very cruel,

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and a lot of the women also became
very aggressive towards each other,

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because that was the environment.

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If you didn't do what you
were told, you were punished.

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You'd have to do a public apology
and you'd have to kiss the floor.

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The only time the nun would speak
to us, she'd say, 'Kneel down.'

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If you didn't toe the line, then
they would really break your spirit

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and they wouldn't let up.

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They used to get us women to write,

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maybe to your mother or a relative.

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I now know that those letters
never went to the families.

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So you'd think, 'I haven't had a reply.'

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You got that feeling of
nobody wants you anyhow.

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Being here now,

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it gives me that real feeling of
total isolation, abandonment.

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It's never actually left me because
I've had always those nightmares,

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going back and waking up thinking,
'I'm there'.

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All I wanted to do was get out, 
but there was no way out.

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It was high walls, glass on the walls ...

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...it really was run like a prison.

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This here,

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that's what they would do
if anybody came to the door,

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because they'd never open the
door unless they knew who it was,

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and if they went through a door,
it was always locked.

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You really got that
feeling of being locked in.

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I had been planning to
get away for six weeks.

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I watched when the drivers
would come in every day,

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and I know it was about 2 o' clock,

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and I said to my friend Joan,

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'Right, be ready 2 o' clock!'

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And we saw the door open,

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and I said, 'Come on, charge!'

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We ran and we ran and all
the women were stopping me,

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but I just pushed anybody away,
out of my way.

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Joan was behind me, I was saying,
'Come on, come on, come on!'

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My friend said, 'We'll go to my auntie',

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so we go to her auntie who lived nearby.

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As soon as her auntie saw us,
she gave us something to eat,

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and then she rang the police.

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The police came along, picked us up

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and took us straight
back to the Magdalenes.

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Gabrielle was woken early the next
morning and taken by two nuns

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to the much larger
Good Shepherd Laundry in Limerick.

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Here they left her, promising 
she would only be there for a week.

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My first impressions of Limerick...

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...truly awful.

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I had to wear the uniform then,

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and they said, 'You will no
longer be called Gabrielle,'

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'you will now be called Stella.'

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I think you can become
institutionalised very quickly

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when your control is taken away,

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you've been given a different name,
you're made to wear a uniform.

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They kept tricking, 
they would trick you.

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'Well, if you do this, then after
that, we'll let you go on Monday.'

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Two and a half years later - still there

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and always on the promise
that they'd let me go.

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A lot of the women died in there.

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I know there was times
where you'd see somebody

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and then you'd never see them again.

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You'd say,'Ooh, where
is' say, 'Margaret, or Mary?'

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They'd say, 'Oh, she's very ill, 
she's in the infirmary',

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but it turns out now, that
they were just buried ...

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... they were just buried without
a funeral or anything.

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After two and a half years,
locked up against her will,

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Gabrielle was finally released.

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I really feel that Ireland and the Church

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should hang their heads in shame.

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I hope now that the dreams
that I used to have,

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not being able to get out,
that now hopefully will go.

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If I was now 17 again, my advice would be

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don't let anybody take
that control from you,

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because it can affect your life.