Magdalene Laundry - Christy Moore

Joni was an unmarried girl

Just turned twenty-seven

When they sent her to the sisters

For the way men looked at her

Branded as a jezebel

She knew she was not bound for Heaven

She’d been cast in shame

Into the Magdalene laundries

Most girls went there pregnant

Some by their own fathers

Bridget got her belly

From the parish priest

They’re trying to get things white as snow

All of those woe-begotten-daughters

In the steaming stains

Of the Magdalene laundries

Prostitutes and destitutes

And temptresses like Joni--

Fallen women--

Sentenced into dreamless drudgery …

Why do they call this heartless place

Our Lady of Charity?

Of charity!

These bloodless brides of Jesus

If they could just once glimpse their groom

They’d drop their stones concealed behind their rosaries

They wilt the grass they walk upon

They leech the light out of a room

They’d like to wash those girls down the drains

Of the Magdalene laundries

Peg O’Connell died today she was a cheeky girl

They just stuffed her in a hole!

Surely to God you’d think at least some bells should ring!

Joni thinks she’ll die there too and that they’ll tramp her into the dirt

Like some lame bulb that never will bloom

When the springtime comes