‘We Were Treated Very Badly, Treated Like Slaves’: A Critical Metaphor Analysis of the Accounts of the Magdalene Laundries Victims

Abstract

In the last decade, the Magdalene Laundries scandal has revealed endemic problems of Irish society. From 1765 to 1996, these asylums run by female religious congregations became prisons for prostitutes, single mothers, abused girls or young ladies allegedly prone to seduction. Forced into these institutions, those women had to work under pseudo-slave conditions. Drawing on the materials compiled by Justice for Magdalenes, we examine their verbalised experience from a critical discourse analysis angle. We thus aim to identify the ideologies that the metaphorical patterns used by the victims reflect, as they awaken to the trauma of their past. This analysis can help us to understand their construal of redemption and remorse, the blame attributed to the Catholic Church, their conception of womanhood, and their portrayal of cruelty and violence.