The Fallen

The Magdalene Laundries and Ireland’s Legacy of Silence

When the gates of the last Magdalene Laundry closed in 1996, Ireland moved on. Or so it seemed.

'Enraging . superb' JOHN BANVILLE, Guardian
'Remarkable' Sunday Times
'Groundbreaking' MICK CLIFFORD, Irish Examiner
'An extraordinary gift . both an education and a page-turner' DOIREANN NÍ GHRÍOFA
'Highly readable and intelligently engaging' FINTAN O'TOOLE, TLS
'Indispensable' ANNE ENRIGHT
'A terrific unearthing of Ireland's shadowland. A landmark book' RORY CARROLL
'Vivid, fluent and deeply compassionate' Irish Times
'Powerful . authoritative, passionate' Mail on Sunday

Following independence in 1922, Ireland began to chase a dream: to become the perfect Catholic nation. But purity had a price. Throughout the twentieth century, thousands of women and girls who did not conform – the wayward, the poor, the disabled, the abused – were sent to the Magdalene Laundries. Each was perceived to have fallen in some way. Once locked inside, their hair was shorn off, their names were erased – and then they were put to work. They washed, they scrubbed and they prayed, labouring in an attempt to salvage their souls.

Published to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of the last Laundry’s closure, The Fallen is the forgotten story of the Magdalene Laundries, told through the voices of the women who endured them, the nuns who presided over them and the communities that lived alongside them.

Unflinching and compassionate, Louise Brangan draws on archives and survivors’ testimonies to dismantle long-held myths about what the Laundries were, who was sent to these places of violence and secrecy, and why. As we move from the past into the present, Brangan compels us not only to confront this shameful history, but to ask a deeper question: what do we choose to remember?

Winner of the 2024 Royal Society of Literature Giles St Aubyn Award

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