'It is torture': Magdalene laundry survivor distressed after receiving poison pen letters

Maureen Sullivan received more than 10 abusive letters while members of her family have also received similar correspondence. Picture: Noel Sweeney

A survivor of a Magdalene laundry has revealed she has been receiving poison pen letters for three years over giving interviews about her story.

Maureen Sullivan, aged 74, from Carlow, has received more than 10 abusive letters while members of her family have also received similar correspondence.

She spent five years moving between institutions, including laundries in Athy, Co Kildare, and New Ross, Co Wexford, as well as one on Dublin's Sean MacDermott Street — the last to shut its doors in October 1996.

In the letters written in pen and seen by the Irish Examiner as well as her correspondence with gardaí on the matter, Ms Sullivan has been called a bigamist and a liar, and that she has made up a lot of her story.

She told the Irish Examiner: “It’s the same handwriting all the time and it seems to be after I do interviews.

“Whenever I speak publicly about my story I get these letters in the door at my home, the most recent one was last week. I have reported them to gardai.

“I have to admit I would rather be back in the laundry than put up with this, I was close to ending my life over these letters; they are unwarranted, hurtful, and cause me huge distress. 

It is torture, because it leaves you on the edge the whole time. You want to share your story but on the other hand, you worry what’s coming down the line if you do.

One of the letters sent to Ms Sullivan's home on April 17, 2025, was in response to her 2023 book Girl in the Tunnel.

“For some reason that really pains a person or persons that I am public with my story, because it takes a lot to write down horrible things, buy a stamp and go to the post office and post it," she said.

“They claim they have papers where the nuns said I was 14 going into the laundry, but I have my papers that say I was 12. But this is a particular point of annoyance for the letter writer.

“I have also been accused of being a bigamist. I am not a bigamist.

“I am a long-time divorced woman who married again and my husband and ex-husband are both now deceased."

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Ms Sullivan said many survivors are "troubled" and that there are disagreements within the community. "This is the fault of the fractures they felt in their lives as a result of what the State did to them."

“However, I’ll tell you the truth — the letters are destroying my life again and this is the time where I need to be sitting back and enjoying the last phase of my life.

“I am not a perfect person, I don’t believe anyone is, but I’ve told my story over and over for my own healing, for others who couldn’t talk and so that our stories are never forgotten”.