Magdalene Laundry victim receives 70k compensation.

A woman denied an education and left malnourished after being forced to work at the age of 11 when her father died has won a battle for compensation.

Mary Cavner, 80, who lives in Hampshire but grew up in County Cork, was sent to work in one of Ireland's notorious Catholic-run Magdalene Laundries.

She said her six years at the workhouse affected her "throughout her life".

She was initially told she was ineligible for compensation but will now receive €76,000 (£69,500).

The Magdalene Laundries, which were initially institutions for what were described as "fallen women", saw 10,000 young females pass through them between 1922 and 1996.

The women and girls toiled behind locked doors, were unable to leave after being admitted and received no wages.

In 2013, then Irish Prime Minister (Taoiseach), Enda Kenny, formally apologised on behalf of the state for its role in the scandal. 

Mrs Cavner, a mother-of-five, was initially denied compensation and the payout comes almost 70 years after she was first placed in the Good Shepherd Convent in Sunday's Well, County Cork.

She was separated from her siblings and despite only being 11 when she arrived, she received no teaching from the nuns and experienced long-term hunger while working into the night looking after babies, cleaning, working in the laundries and preparing meals for the nuns.

"They held me there and worked me until I was nearly 18," said Mrs Cavner, who now lives in New Milton.

"We weren't allowed to talk or associate with anybody else.

The Irish government said 770 former residents of the laundries have so far been awarded more than €29.8m (£27.32m) in compensation.

However, Mrs Cavner said she was told by the authorities she would not receive compensation because the laundry she worked in was not eligible under the government's redress scheme.

A lengthy legal battle ensued and she complained to the Irish ombudsman, which went on to recommend that the redress scheme be extended.

"I had never mentioned what happened to me to my husband or my children, so it took all of my courage to admit what I had been through and then they called me a liar," Mrs Cavner said.

"My experience in the laundry left me unable to communicate properly.

"I have had really low points as they have made me live this again and to be accused of not telling the truth made me feel rejected."

Two survivors of Ireland's Magdalene laundries have spoken of their experiences. Marina Gambold was taken to a laundry aged 16 by a priest. She remembers being forced to eat off the floor.

Maureen Sullivan, now 60, was sent to a Magdalene laundry in New Ross, County Wexford, at the age of 12.
About 10,000 women passed through the laundries in the Irish Republic between 1922 and 1996, a report has revealed.

Marina Gambold was orphaned when she was eight years old after both her parents died. She lived with her grandmother for a couple of years but when she was 16 she found she had nowhere to go.

The priest then took her to the Magdalene laundry.

"I walked up the steps that day and the nun came out and said your name is changed, you are Fidelma, I went in and I was told I had to keep my silence," she said.

"I was working in the laundry from eight in the morning until about six in the evening. I was starving with the hunger, I was given bread and dripping for my breakfast every morning,

"We had to scrub corridors, I used to cry with sore knees, housemaids' knees, I used to work all day in the laundry, doing the white coats and the pleating.

Ms Gambold also spoke of what happened on a day when she broke a cup.
"One day I broke a cup and the nun said, 'I will teach you to be careful'.

"She got a thick string and she tied it round my neck for three days and three nights and I had to eat off the floor every morning.

"Then I had to get down on my knees and I had to say, 'I beg almighty God's pardon, Our Lady's pardon, my companion's pardon for the bad example I have shown,' she said.
Ms Gambold also spoke of a time when a nun locked her out in the cold overnight.

"Another thing I will never forget is the evening I ran out on the balcony which was all glass on a winter's night," she said.

"She locked me out there for two nights me and two other girls and I nearly died of the cold."

Ms Gambold was in the laundries for about three years. She left when she was 19 and left Ireland.

"When I came out of the convent I was determined to get out of Ireland.

"I was 19 years of age then and had a nervous breakdown. I lived in England for almost 30 years before I moved back with my husband.

"Most of the time I have cried bitter tears, especially when I had nobody, pain never goes away.

Maureen Sullivan's mother remarried after her father died and Maureen claims she was abused by her stepfather. The nuns noticed, called in a priest and convinced her mother that Maureen would be going to a "lovely school".

She said she never saw her school books again, was forced to work night and day, seven days a week, and was given a new name, Frances.

"What an evil thing to do. I never did any wrong. I was an innocent child and a nun told me I could trust her to tell her my story. I trusted her and what a fool I was. I mean when you look back now," she said.

"You were brought up then to think you could trust a nun or a priest but they did a lot of wrong by me and very many other people."

Ms Sullivan said her day began at six in the morning, and finished at nine at night.

She would have to scrub and polish floors, work in the laundry and then make rosary beads and knit Aran sweaters.

"Everything was taken from me; my name, my rights as a child to go out and play with other children, my rights to communicate with other people," she adds.

Maureen Sullivan spent two years in New Ross, then further periods in a laundry in Athy, County Kildare, and another in Dublin.

She said she had virtually no contact with her mother - just four visits in five years.

"I was coming up on 16 and my mother came up and said 'Maureen, do you not think it's time you should be getting paid now', so, I said it to the reverend mother and the next morning my case was packed and I was left at Heuston station with £5 in my hand," she said.

"Back to the town that I was abused in. And nobody cared about me or what happened to me."

Maureen Sullivan said she left the laundries unable to communicate properly, with low self-esteem and virtually no education.

Widowed twice, she said she found it hard to trust people.