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Justice 4 all women & children was founded in 2015 [1] by a Irish Traveller Laura Angela Collins on behalf of those who lay in mass graves across Ireland like her grandmother Angelina (Angelia) Collins and her mother Mary Teresa Collins Who survived a abusive Industrial Schools in Ireland.

Organisations history

In 2003 Laura’s mother Mary Teresa Collins a survivor of a abusive Industrial Schools in Ireland who partook in the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, the documentary 'The forgotten Maggies 2009' and who was child vistor from the age of seven to her mother in St Vincent's Magdalene Laundry in cork, held a rememberence service in St. Finbarr's Cemetery for her mother Angela Collins who spent 27 years as a inmate in St Vincent's Magdalene laundry and for the women who worked and laid beside her in the mass grave, she placed a angel and heart shaped stone beside the mass grave site.    

File:Collins family Magdalene laundry mass grave. Cork.jpg

In 2003 the Collins family placed a heart and Angel next to mass grave for Mary Teresa Collins mother Angela Collins and held a service for the 72 Magdalene women who was put in St Vincent’s mass grave in cork.

On the 27th January 2003, Mary and her three children were in attendance with the women who had worked in St Vincent's Magdalene laundry. Mary had known these women from her arranged visits up to the Magdalene laundry from her industrial school from the age of just seven years. Mary had to ask the Religious Sisters of Charity if these women could attend at the time as they was still living within the building of St Vincent's in cork formerly ran as the laundry by the order, in which was later renamed to St Vinvents Centre for those with intellectual disabilities which was still being run by the Religious Sisters of Charity.   The women stayed within the building under the Relgious Sisters of Charity operation until standards at the centre was deemed so low via a HIQA report in 2017. Mary Collins was still visiting the women to invite them to yearly remembrance events under the Sisters of Charity in year 2017 and also in 2018 when it had been handed over to HSE.

When Mary presented herself to the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Redress process she tried to get all the interlinked institutions included. Such as the Magdalene Laundries in Ireland, Mother and baby homes Ireland, and the County Homes (Ireland) however the Irish government was deeming them as private. [2] After years of survivors fighting for justice to be seen, at the last minute they put gagging orders onto survivors and gave the religious order protection from prosecution. [3][4]

Mary Collins and her daughter Laura Angela Collins have been fighting for the right to the removal of her mothers remains from the mass grave in which is under ownership of the Religious Sisters of Charity who neglected her mother and continued to put her to work after she was recommended a hysterectomy ten years before she died of cancer to the womb. Medical neglect has been noted by survivors of the Magdalene laundries however like the mass graves, it has never properly been investigated. Angela Collins medical records showed they did not even care for the ages of these women - they claimed Angela had aged just three years over the period of eight years.

Angela while in the laundry was refusing to sign adoption papers for her youngest daughter baby Bridget for 5 years, until they used Mary at the age of seven who was in the industrial school and stated that she would start to get arranged visits if she signed the papers. So baby Bridget was adopted within cork and attended the school beside her mothers laundry, where she was in the school choir. The choir of girls would attend the laundry to sing to the women, baby Bridget was unknownly singing to her mother in the crowd. Both the girls older sister was sent to Sunday wells Magdalene laundry Cork aged just 14, she left the laundry and sadly committed suicide on Christmas Day. [5]

Angelina Collins (renamed Angela within the institution) spent 27 years of her life in St Vincent’s Magdalene laundry in cork ran by the religious sisters of Charity. Behind her is the school where her youngest daughter baby Bridget who was adopted attended in which was also ran by the religious sisters of Charity, which was besides the laundry.

The last Magdalene laundry stopped its oppertations and is said to have closed its doors in 1996, however the women in many cases stayed under the reglious orders, within the same dorms, on the same land and within the same buildings and the religious orders arranged their burial circumstances.   The last women buried in the mass grave Mary's mother Angela (Angelina) lays is within in cork was put into the site in year 1997. Mary has been calling for a full criminal investigation into the laundries and the mass graves.

After Mary partook in the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, she went on to protest the streets of Ireland for hers, her mothers and sisters justice, she also partook in the documentary The forgotten maggies 2009 [6] although Mary campaigned hard for acknowledgment [7] within the state issued ‘Magdalene apology’ they excluded the dead women and their children. It was just issued to the living working residents. [8]

Mary continued to try have her mother case acknowledged and then St Marys mother and baby home in Tuam hit the headlines. [9] Tuam was the area in which Marys mother in reports was trying to get back as she escaped the county home before the Garda stopped her and brought her back to the order. [10] Marys mother was living in Tuam before Travelling to Midleton in cork where she was taken from the side of the road of being a “itinerant”.

Rilantu Mincéir (Irish Traveller) Survivors.

Mary Teresa Collins and her daughter Laura Angela Collins wanted to ensure the full uses of these interlinked institutions was exposed to the public and so that awareness was brought around the large number of unacknowledged Irish Travellers who lay in mass graves across Ireland. Marys daughter Laura researched extensively the institutions and her community and published her research into the institutions mass grave, Irish Travellers, the 1963 commission of itinerancy report and the impact on Survivors Travellers mental health. [11]

Traveller history has been largely unrecorded. The Scottish Child Abuse Inquiry has appealed for witnesses to come forward and give evidence, as its investigations into historic child abuse by state, voluntary and religious institutions in Scotland gathers momentum.

Many Scottish Traveller children where taken from their familes and placed in voluntary institutions - or 'Industrial Schools ' - run by organisations such as the Quarriers and Barnardos. The systematic abuse began at the start of the Twentieth Century and continued up to the 1960’s with many of the children also being forcibly migrated abroad – mainly to Canada. [12]

Ireland had a similar regime towards the native Rilantu Mincèirí (Irish Travellers) using institutions as a method to cleanse Irish society. [13]

St. Vincent’s Magdalene laundry, Cork

• St Vincent’s Peacock Lane” was established by a lay person Mr Nicholas Therry in 1809. St Vincent’s Peacock Lane was established by a lay person Mr Nicholas Therry in 1809.  
• St Vincent’s Peacock Lane” was established by a lay person Mr Nicholas Therry in 1809. The Religious Sisters of Charity were invited to Cork and became responsible for its operation in 1845.  
• St Vincent’s Peacock Lane” was established by a lay person Mr Nicholas Therry in 1809. The capacity of the Magdalen Laundry at Peacock Lane was approximately 110 and the occupancy varied from 104 in the years 1922 and 1932 to approximately 80 in the 1970s. The capacity fell to 60 following refurbishments to the institution in 1986.  
• St Vincent’s Peacock Lane” was established by a lay person Mr Nicholas Therry in 1809. Women from St Vincent’s Magdalene laundry are buried in St. Finbarr’s cemetery cork.   St Vincent’s Peacock Lane” was established by a lay person Mr Nicholas Therry in 1809.