{"id":3523,"date":"2018-01-17T11:53:22","date_gmt":"2018-01-17T16:53:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mhc\/?post_type=tribe_events&p=3523"},"modified":"2018-02-20T13:39:20","modified_gmt":"2018-02-20T18:39:20","slug":"books-afterlife-irelands-magdalene-laundries-academic-advocacy-restorative-justice","status":"publish","type":"tribe_events","link":"https:\/\/umaine.edu\/mhc\/event\/books-afterlife-irelands-magdalene-laundries-academic-advocacy-restorative-justice\/","title":{"rendered":"A Book\u2019s Afterlife: Ireland\u2019s Magdalene Laundries, Academic Advocacy, and Restorative Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"
The lecture is free and open to the public.<\/p>\n
JAMES M.\u00a0SMITH\u00a0<\/strong>is an Associate Professor in the English Department and Irish\u00a0Studies Program at Boston College. His book,\u00a0Ireland\u2019s Magdalen Laundries\u00a0and the Nation\u2019s Architecture of Containment<\/em>, was praised by Colm T\u00f3ib\u00edn as essential reading \u201cfor anyone interested in the fear and cruelty surrounding women\u2019s sexuality in the Ireland of the recent past.\u201d The Magdalen laundries were workhouses in which many Irish women and girls were effectively imprisoned because they were perceived to be a threat to the moral fiber of society. Mandated by the Irish state beginning in the eighteenth century, they were operated by various orders of the Catholic Church until the last laundry closed in 1996. In 1993, a public scandal was triggered when the remains of 155 inmates, buried in unmarked graves on the property, were exhumed, cremated, and buried elsewhere in a mass grave. Smith\u2019s work with archival materials and survivors is, in Colum McCann\u2019s words, a \u201cbrilliant, art-driven examination of a story, or history, that needs to be told over and over and over again, lest it be forgotten or allowed to seep into the ambient noise.\u201d<\/p>\n