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Nuns May Sue RTE Over Sex Abuse Claim on Radio Show
Irish Independent, August 4th, 2005

AN order of nuns is considering suing RTE after the Vincent Browne show carried an interview with a woman who claims to have been physically and sexually abused while in a Magdalene laundry, a claim denied by the order in question.

The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity has confirmed that it has asked lawyers to examine the transcript of the interview with Vincent Browne as well as the contents of the book, 'Kathy's Story', on which the interview is based.

Meanwhile, it has forwarded a complaint about the interview to the Broadcasting Complaints Commission.

The move by the order is the latest in a series of disputes it has had with Ms Kathy O'Beirne (45) who says she was in the order's now closed Magdalene laundry at High Park, Dublin, from the age of 12 to 14.

Ms O'Beirne has said that while in the laundry, she was repeatedly raped and became pregnant. She claims she was also resident at a Magdalene laundry on Sean McDermott St.

In her book, Ms O'Beirne does not name any of the laundries in which she says she was incarcerated. However, on 'Tonight with Vincent Browne' on June 22, she mentioned the laundry at High Park.

Ms O'Beirne says that in her book she did not name any of the four orders which ran the Magdalene laundries because she fears she might be sued. However, she claims she has already received settlements from two of the men she says sexually abused her, and that she has documentary evidence that she was a resident in a laundry.

A spokesperson for the order has confirmed to the Irish Independent that both the book and the transcript of the interview with Vincent Browne have been sent to their lawyers.

However, he would not say that this would necessarily result in a law suit.

Following the interview, all four orders that ran the laundries denied that Ms O'Beirne was ever a resident in one of their laundries.

The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, who ran both High Park and Sean McDermott St, said: "We can categorically state that Kathy O'Beirne did not spend any time in our laundries or related institutions. We met Kathy O'Beirne in the last year for the purposes of clarifying this with her."

They also said that "no pregnant girls ever worked in the laundries operated by us and no child was ever born in any of our premises".

The order also challenges Ms O'Beirne's contention that there is a mass grave for "penitents" located at Glasnevin cemetery.

They say: "In fact, we have no grave at that location and the photographs produced by Kathy O'Beirne of a large stone cross in the Glasnevin cemetery actually depict a monument rather than a headstone of a grave."

David Quinn
Religious Affairs Correspondent

Letter in Reponse to Independent Article, Henrietta Thornton-Verma, 9 August 2005

Sir,

My mother was incarcerated in Magdalene laundry from the early 1970s until 1996. She then lived out her days with the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, dying in 2003. I was informed of her death, not by the nuns, but by a chance hearing of RTE's 'Liveline' show on October 7, 2003, months after her death. On the show, I learned that my mother had been buried in a mass grave in Glasnevin cemetery. The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity's representatives later contacted the show to make a correction; they maintained that their plot in Glasnevin was not a mass grave, it was a communal grave.

On Tuesday, August 2, 2005, I learned from the front page of your newspaper that my mother is not in that grave, as the Sisters now maintain that it is not a grave at all, it is a memorial. Perhaps the Sisters would now like to let me know, via a public forum of course, where my mother is in fact buried?

Henrietta Thornton-Verma,
Jackson Heights,
New York

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