Cork actress in Small Things Like These movie fully behind 'national site of conscience'

Margaret Mc Kinney (second from left), daughter of the late Rosie McKinney, a Magdalene survivor and campaigner seen in the framed photograph, with Maureen Sullivan (left), Dianne Croghan, and Patricia Twomey, Magdalene Laundry survivors, with Joe Costello former Labour minister for state outside the Seán McDermott Street former Magdalene Laundry whic is to become a national memorial and research centre. Phioto: Moya Nolan

Cork actress Patricia Twomey who starred in the critically acclaimed film Small Things Like These said she is “fully behind” the plan to transform the former Magdalene laundry on Dublin's Sean McDermott Street into a National Remembrance Centre.

The 77-year-old from Blarney Street played Sr Frances in the movie, which starred fellow Cork native Cillian Murphy, and praised campaigners for helping make the museum a reality.

Planning permission has been granted to the Office of Public Works (OPW) to turn the State’s last Magdalene laundry, which closed almost 30 years ago, into a "national site of conscience”, with a memorial and research centre at its heart.

“It is important to keep these records and history safe,” Ms Twomey said. “I am fully in favour of it, the records are recognised worldwide.

“I want to see them waterproofed and fireproofed too because they have to be preserved always so that we never forget what went on in this country”.

Ms Twomey. who is a survivor of domestic violence, also praised her parents Patrick and Nancy who helped her rear her daughter, when she returned to Cork from the UK in 1970 as a single mother.

“My daughter is mixed race; her father was Nigerian,” she said. “There were five black children in Cork then that we knew of, so it was a really difficult time for lone parents.

“Thankfully I only had two incidents of racism which I confronted head on. My parents were very supportive, my father had left the priesthood and got married and he would not put up with racism or any mistreatment for single mothers.

We lived near the Good Shepherd, and I remember we used to think the nuns were so good to the elderly women for caring for them — little did we know what was really going on.

She said being in Small Things Like These was a “proud moment” in her career.

“I was very lucky to become part of the film, that’s thanks to Maureen Hughes,” she said. “The only thing I was afraid of was that some people coming to it would have flashbacks and would have to get up and leave.

“I am Sr Frances in the film, and I bang the door in Cillian Murphy’s face, which got a bit of a laugh. But it was a lovely film to work on with a powerful message.”