Madam, - The letters from Tadg Ó Scanaill and Paul Gray (August 28th and 29th) will evoke a spectrum of response from people who lived and worked in Ireland 25 and more years ago. It is true that it is wrong to blame all the workers (nuns and others) in the Magdalen laundries for the huge suffering that the inmates endured. But suffer they did.
I began post-graduate training in obstetrics and gynaecology in Dublin in the mid-1970s. I regularly visited one institution that cared for women with crisis pregnancies. They were isolated and very vulnerable people.
But the refuge that they found in many of our institutions did not seem to me to include compassion. It was made very clear to me, and to the mothers-to-be, that they were considered sinners - guilty, dirty sinners.
And what has changed 30 years later? Women and girls with crisis pregnancies now deal with their crises in a number of different ways; for many, the choice will be to travel to the UK for an abortion. As with 30 years ago, the problem is not dealt with openly in our society.
It is wrong to blame the nuns for all the suffering of previous generations of women shunned by society. They share some of the blame; so do we all. We still do. - Yours, etc.,
WALTER PRENDIVILLE,
South Circular Road,
Dublin 8.