kort oversættelse

De fleste forbinder Irland med græsbevoksede bakker, hyggelige pubber og århundredskamp for selvstændighed.
De færreste derimod kender til en ting, som har skæmmet Irlands historie:
Magdalene-anstalterne.
institutionerne som blev dannet af nonnen, og som også fungerede som vaskerier, var beregnet for piger, der blev gravide
uden for ægteskabet, eller hvis opførsel blev betragtet som seksuelt udfordrende. Pigerne blev spærret inde på anstalterne,
hvor de arbejdede uden løn 264 dage om året.
Man mente, da institutionerne blev grundlagt i midten af 1800-tallet, at man ved at udsætte pigerne for ydmygelse og afsavn rensede dem
for synd og dem lige så hvide som de lagner de skrubbede. Paradoksalt nok gjorde man dem en tjeneste:
i livet efter døden ville de ikke komme i døden.
Frygten for at blive kendt som "ex Maggie" gjorde at ingen som flygtede, eller som kom ud legalt, talte om deres fortid.
Det sidste magdalenevaskeri blev først nedlagt i 1996.

Most people connect Ireland with grass covered hills, cosy pubs and centuries of fighting
for independence. Only a few on the other hand, know of a thing which has scared the
history of Ireland: The Magdalene Asylums.
The institutions, which were run by nuns, and also functioned as laundries, where also
intended for girls who became pregnant out of wedlock, or girls whose behaviour were
considered sexually provocative. The girls were locked up in the asylums where they
worked 264 days a year, without pay. It was believed, when the institutions were founded, in the middle of the 18th century, that by exposing the girls to humiliations and
deprivations cleansed them of their shame, and washed them as white as the sheets they
scrubbed. Paradisiacal the girls received a favour: in the afterlife they would not go to hell.
The fear of being known as an “ex-Maggie” did that nobody who escaped or those who were let out legally never talked about their past. The last Magdalene laundry was not closed until 1996.