Waterford Institute of Technology is hosting a public event on Friday, 9 February, 2018 to launch the Justice for Magdalenes Research (JFMR, formerly Justice for Magdalenes) archive and searchable database. The event will take place in the Chapel, College Street Campus from 2 to 4pm.
The project is a collaboration between Waterford Institute of Technology and Justice for Magdalenes Research.
In August 2012, Justice for Magdalenes made its principal submission, "State Involvement with the Magdalene Laundries" to the Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalen Laundries (IDC). The submission consisted of a 145-page document which outlines comprehensive evidence of State complicity in the abuses experienced by girls and women in
Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries. It was additionally supported by 795 pages of survivor testimony and 3,707 pages of archival evidence and legislative documentation.
Thanks to funding from the Heritage Council Heritage Management Grant 2016, the extensive archival and legislative evidence which JFMR generated in formulating its submission has been digitally conserved. For the first time, this archive will be made available to the public via a searchable database housed by the Waterford Institute of Technology Libraries. The online database is freely accessible at www.wit.ie/JFMR.
Speakers on the day will include Claire McGettrick and Dr Katherine O’Donnell from JFMR; Dr Jennifer O’Mahoney, Principal Investigator of the Waterford Memories Project; and Kieran Cronin, Developmental Librarian at WIT Libraries, who managed the archival project.
This is a free event, open to the public.