Ireland and the Magdalene Laundries

Claire McGettrick is an Irish Research Council postgraduate scholar at the School of Sociology in University College Dublin. Claire is also an adopted person and survivors' rights advocate. She is co-founder of Justice for Magdalenes (now JFM Research) and Adoption Rights Alliance. She coordinates the Magdalene Names Project, which has recorded the details of over 1,600 women who lived and died behind laundry walls. Katherine O'Donnell is Assoc. Prof. History of Ideas, UCD School of Philosophy and is a member of Justice for Magdalenes Research. O'Donnell has won prizes for her teaching, including the UCD President's Gold Medal for Teaching Excellence (2007) and the British Universities Learning on Screen Award (2014). Dr Maeve O'Rourke is Lecturer in the faculty of Law at NUI Galway. She has acted as voluntary legal advisor to Justice for Magdalenes Research since 2009, and she is a co-director of the voluntary Clann Project. James M. Smith is Associate Professor in the English Department and Irish Studies Program at Boston College. He is also a member of the advocacy group Justice For Magdalenes Research (JFMR).Mari Steed was born in the Bessboro mother-baby home in Cork, and was one of more than 2,000 children exported from Ireland to the US. In 2003, Mari co-founded Justice for Magdalenes (now known as Justice for Magdalenes Research) and she currently serves as the group's Committee Director.