Joni Mitchell was threatened by Irish woman over her song about Magdalene laundries

Canadian singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell penned a song called 'The Magdalene Laundries'. Picture: Angela Weiss/AFP via Getty Images

Singer-songwriter Joni Mitchell has described how she was threatened by an Irish woman over a song she wrote about the Magdalene laundries.

The song, which was the sixth track on her 1994 album Turbulent Indigo, described how thousands of women in Ireland were locked up by the religious orders for “bad behaviour”, including having babies outside marriage.