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CHILDHOOD INTERRUPTED: GROWING UP UNDER THE CRUEL REGIME OF THE SISTERS OF MERCY
In 1950, Kathleen O'Malley and her two sisters were legally abducted from their mother. The rape of eight-year-old Kathleen by a neighbor triggered their removal. Kathleen's mother successfully prosecuted the man, but it was her daughters who received a much harsher sentence when they were committed to Mount Carmel Industrial School in County Westmeath, Ireland. It was run by the Sisters of Mercy order of nuns, who also ran the notorious Magdalene Homes. Kathleen and her sisters were subjected to beatings, humiliation, hard labor, and near-starvation, until they were finally permitted to leave at the age of 16. Childhood Interrupted is Kathleen's inspiring, profoundly affecting story.
244 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2005
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews
July 28, 2015
I give this book five stars although it had several grammatical errors, because I simply couldn't put it down!
A nun once told Kathleen that her mother was more sinned against than sinning, and I couldn't agree more. This book had me in tears as I thought about how Kathleen's mother must have felt. She was a single mother who was doing a fine job raising her daughters. Although they were poor she gave her girls everything they needed. Her only crime had been to have children outside of marriage.
Many people who grew up in these industrial schools were robbed of their lifes potential. Like Kathleen they were brainwashed into believing that they were the lowest of the low. It's sad that so many children were abused in the name of God, and so many families were torn apart for nothing more than being poor. They said Kathleen's mother was destitute, yet her mother provided more for her daughters than the industrial schools ever had. This book will make you angry, and then it will make you cry, and when your finished reading it you will have an ache in your heart for the people who went through these institutions.
A nun once told Kathleen that her mother was more sinned against than sinning, and I couldn't agree more. This book had me in tears as I thought about how Kathleen's mother must have felt. She was a single mother who was doing a fine job raising her daughters. Although they were poor she gave her girls everything they needed. Her only crime had been to have children outside of marriage.
Many people who grew up in these industrial schools were robbed of their lifes potential. Like Kathleen they were brainwashed into believing that they were the lowest of the low. It's sad that so many children were abused in the name of God, and so many families were torn apart for nothing more than being poor. They said Kathleen's mother was destitute, yet her mother provided more for her daughters than the industrial schools ever had. This book will make you angry, and then it will make you cry, and when your finished reading it you will have an ache in your heart for the people who went through these institutions.
August 13, 2010
I got this book early this morning and I picked it up on the way to work. I couldn't focus all day for reading, and just now finished it!
It was such a moving story about Kathleen O'Malley and her life in the "justice" system of Ireland in the 50's and 60's. She was taken from her loving, caring mother and put into a sort of "religious workhouse" for orphans all because she was born out of wedlock. She was raped and then put back into another prison-like confinement until she was 16. She she spend almost her whole adult life still in this prison due to the brainwashing she received at such a young age.
I was really really glad to read this book. It's nothing something easy to digest (sort of like A Child Called "It") but it did make me rethink my own childhood and how good I've had things.
I love Kathleen's candid take on her whole life. She has accepted what happened to her, and now wants to share with the rest of the world. Raising awareness for these things is just so important, I find. Plus, it makes me feel justified to be anti-institutions, especially religious ones.
It was such a moving story about Kathleen O'Malley and her life in the "justice" system of Ireland in the 50's and 60's. She was taken from her loving, caring mother and put into a sort of "religious workhouse" for orphans all because she was born out of wedlock. She was raped and then put back into another prison-like confinement until she was 16. She she spend almost her whole adult life still in this prison due to the brainwashing she received at such a young age.
I was really really glad to read this book. It's nothing something easy to digest (sort of like A Child Called "It") but it did make me rethink my own childhood and how good I've had things.
I love Kathleen's candid take on her whole life. She has accepted what happened to her, and now wants to share with the rest of the world. Raising awareness for these things is just so important, I find. Plus, it makes me feel justified to be anti-institutions, especially religious ones.
September 28, 2007
This book was a disappointment because I went into it with a huge interest. I had heard about Irish industrial schools and was told that this book gave a great first hand account. It certainly does, but the execution of the prose and the development is extremely weak. Kathleen O'Malley is without a doubt an astounding woman with a measure of bravery I couldn't even fathom coming close to, but her horrifying account of being snatched from her mother and institutionalized in the corrupt Catholic run industrial school fails at gripping the reader and holding them through the short memoir. I found myself getting disinterested in the events as they repeated, and though a theme was the repetitive mundanity of her imprisonment, it was hard to stay focus or want to continue reading. Her language and use of slang is almost directly taken from McCourt, and its upsetting that such a powerful story is lost in the pages.
Needless to say, the book is essential for anyone studying Ireland, and is eye opening in knowing about this cruel and horrific institution that existed not to long ago. It is moving and heartbreaking, but you'll have to apply your own empathy and belief because the connection just isn't there for much of it despite its powerful reflection on human indecency.
Needless to say, the book is essential for anyone studying Ireland, and is eye opening in knowing about this cruel and horrific institution that existed not to long ago. It is moving and heartbreaking, but you'll have to apply your own empathy and belief because the connection just isn't there for much of it despite its powerful reflection on human indecency.
June 1, 2013
An honest account of one womans story but also touches on the ingrained abuse by not only the church but also the government in Ireland. This woman is not a writer, it seems most of her life was spent trying to undo the psychological damage the state put her family through. Her coping method for much of her life was staying silent and it took many years to accept what her experience had done to her. She is lucky to have been able to move on in life. She admits to being in the institutional mindset and how it still creeps into her life each day. I think it is courageous she was appointed a magistrate and was so open about her family's painful history. She never claims to be a writer, this is a story that needed to be told. She did so with her best effort and for that reason I gave it 5**s. Thank you Caitlin Ni Malley for your strength in writing this.
May 8, 2013
Kathleen O'Malley is a remarkable woman. She overcame so much – being taken away from her mother, being raped as only a young child, and suffering years of abuse at the hands of sadistic nuns. I'm not a violent person, but I wanted to go back in time and beat some of these nuns to a bloody pulp for the horrible way they treated the children. The only silver lining is knowing that eventually the truth came out. The suffering that these children went through can never be erased. However, this was really a story of survival because O'Malley managed overcome so much.it's great that she became a successful as she did. This was really a 3 1/2 star read rather than three-star.
May 31, 2010
What a terrible childhood this girl had. She was abused by so called holy people. I am happy that she is now living a good life after what she has gone through.
October 19, 2011
Kathleen is one of the daughters of a single mother in Ireland at a time when unmarried women are targeted by the social services. When Kathleen's new father dies in a fight, the authorities try to take the girls into care. After winning their freedom, the mother faces losing her children again when 8 year old Kathleen is raped by a neighbour. The girls are sentence to live in an industrial school run by brutal nuns until they are 16.
This wasn't my cup of tea at all. It was too descriptive about everything-every detail about the house, the street, the neighbours and neighbourhood and took an eternity to get into the story. By the time the real story began, I was already getting bored with the book. The story inside the school is brutal and cruel and I will never understand how Christians can treat children like this and truly believe that they are doing the children good. It disgusts me. This is not the best example of this type of book but it will interest anyone who wants to read about the industrial schools.
This wasn't my cup of tea at all. It was too descriptive about everything-every detail about the house, the street, the neighbours and neighbourhood and took an eternity to get into the story. By the time the real story began, I was already getting bored with the book. The story inside the school is brutal and cruel and I will never understand how Christians can treat children like this and truly believe that they are doing the children good. It disgusts me. This is not the best example of this type of book but it will interest anyone who wants to read about the industrial schools.
September 28, 2016
A sobering account of life in Ireland in the 50s for children taken away from their parents and placed in the 'care' of nuns. I've read official accounts, but this book takes us inside the mind and heart of a little girl of eight who's already been brutally raped by a neighbour and is now the victim of a cruel and sadistic regime. That she survived and made her way up in the world to become a magistrate is testament to her indomitable spirit and courage in the face of seemingly insuperable odds.
January 16, 2008
This is a moving story of one person's experience of being sent to two of the Industrial Schools in Ireland, run by the Sisters of Mercy. It is terrible, heart wrenching and angry, just as it should be. Not for the faint hearted. It is worth bearing in mind that it is a memoir, not a novel, when it comes to the writing itself. But if you're interested in Ireland, its harsh history and the Catholic church, it is essential reading.
May 19, 2012
I started this book yesterday, and I couldn't keep it down until I'd finished.
It's a quick read, but also a difficult one, as the story is very very sad... I can't nterstand how children can have been treated that way for years!
The writing was not the best I have come across, but I understand that this story needed to be written and read. I don't regret reading it and I recommend it to everyone liking true story and not minding a sad one.
It's a quick read, but also a difficult one, as the story is very very sad... I can't nterstand how children can have been treated that way for years!
The writing was not the best I have come across, but I understand that this story needed to be written and read. I don't regret reading it and I recommend it to everyone liking true story and not minding a sad one.
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April 8, 2009For me a certain amount of Deja Vu in this narrative. The true story of a young Irish girl and her siblings who were taking away from their mother and put into a convent orphanage where they were thoroughly misterated and institutionalised. Chilling reading!
August 21, 2012
True Story set in the 1950's the care system for children in Ireland. Growing up undrer the cruel regime of the sisters of mercy is definately an eyeopener to those of us who are not aware of the Irish system from that era. Well worth a read.
October 28, 2015
Started reading this today when realised I have already read it!! Thank goodness I now use the Goodreads and I don't do this that often anymore lol. From what I remember this was a really good book but a very sad story.
November 13, 2012
I couldn't put this book down and finished it in two days!
July 1, 2013
Not the best writing, but a compelling story. An amazingly well balanced first hand account of life inside an Irish Industrial School and the lasting effects on individuals and families.
December 14, 2013
I loved the deep emotional feelings this story gave me. Reminded me alot of "Angela's Ashes" by Frank McCourt. It's very difficult for me to believe that places like this really existed.
November 19, 2014
I couldn't put this book down.It was terrible how these children were treated.Very good read but so sad.
March 29, 2021
Whenever I read a memoir detailing the horrors someone endured in their life, I immediately think of my introduction to the military and Alexander Solzhenitsyn's literature about Soviet prison camps. However, the author was put through the hell of a million boot camps and a hundred-thousand gulags.
Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt's childhood memoir came to mind because he and his family were so destitute also in Ireland and in the same period as Ms. O'Malley's memoir. The difference? McCourt's trials lessened and he made an organic escape whereas O'Malley was trapped in unwavering terror.
Rather than interrupted, I say O'Malley had her childhood stolen from her. Despite that, her account leaves nothing out. It gave me probably the worst feeling reading first-hand what something like she went through felt like.
She deserves all the credit in the world for speaking out. With courage and without vengeance, the book leaves a lasting record of her experience. One that we should not forget.
Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt's childhood memoir came to mind because he and his family were so destitute also in Ireland and in the same period as Ms. O'Malley's memoir. The difference? McCourt's trials lessened and he made an organic escape whereas O'Malley was trapped in unwavering terror.
Rather than interrupted, I say O'Malley had her childhood stolen from her. Despite that, her account leaves nothing out. It gave me probably the worst feeling reading first-hand what something like she went through felt like.
She deserves all the credit in the world for speaking out. With courage and without vengeance, the book leaves a lasting record of her experience. One that we should not forget.
July 18, 2018
Αποκλείεται να άντεχα να το τελειώσω αν είχα παιδιά. Όχι η καλύτερη επιλογή για ανάλαφρο καλοκαιρινό ανάγνωσμα Αλλά είπαμε δεν μπορώ να αντισταθώ στις βιβλιοθήκες των άλλων. Δυνατή ιστορία για την φρίκη την βιομηχανικών σχολείων στην Ιρλανδία του '50, για τα εγκλήματα των "ανθρώπων του θεου" και της ίδιας της κοινωνίας απέναντι στα παιδιά και στις γυναίκες. Η Kathleen O'Malley φαινεται να είναι ένας εξαιρετικός άνθρωπος αλλα ο αληθινός ήρωας και η μεγάλη μου αδυναμία σε αυτή την συγκλονιστική ιστορία είναι η μαμά της.
#Readathon18: Ένα φεμινιστικό βιβλίο (21/26)
11/14 Women Writers
Ενδιαφέρον που δεν θυμόμουν να έχω ξανασυναντήσει ποτε την Virago Press η οποια έχει την πιο bad ass καταχώρηση εκδοτικού οικου στην Wikipedia που έχω δει.Τελικα είχα δύο στην βιβλιοθήκη μου οπότε από βιβλίο από εκδοτικό που δεν έχετε ξαναδιαβάσει πήγαμε σε ένα φεμινιστικό βιβλίο που είναι ακόμα καλύτερο. Μπάτσε θαλάκι θα μου το πληρώσεις
#Readathon18: Ένα φεμινιστικό βιβλίο (21/26)
11/14 Women Writers
Ενδιαφέρον που δεν θυμόμουν να έχω ξανασυναντήσει ποτε την Virago Press η οποια έχει την πιο bad ass καταχώρηση εκδοτικού οικου στην Wikipedia που έχω δει.Τελικα είχα δύο στην βιβλιοθήκη μου οπότε από βιβλίο από εκδοτικό που δεν έχετε ξαναδιαβάσει πήγαμε σε ένα φεμινιστικό βιβλίο που είναι ακόμα καλύτερο. Μπάτσε θαλάκι θα μου το πληρώσεις
October 28, 2020
If I said I enjoyed reading this book it wouldn't be quite true, it was a very disturbing book but one that I couldn't put down. Having been raised a Catholic I was able to understand lots of what was happening and having been raised in care I understood the feelings of self-loathing and shame.
What I found beneficial, was being able to understand better, my own mother's story, who was also raised by these sisters.
What I find incomprehensible is the fact that the Catholic Church still hasn't fully admitted what went on nor apologised for it.
Well written book.
What I found beneficial, was being able to understand better, my own mother's story, who was also raised by these sisters.
What I find incomprehensible is the fact that the Catholic Church still hasn't fully admitted what went on nor apologised for it.
Well written book.
September 29, 2014
I had heard about the laundries but I had never heard about the industrial schools in Ireland. The author was removed from her home, along with her two sisters, when she was eight years old in the early 1950's. It is sickening to imagine that what was done to her and the other girls was supposedly done in the name of religion. Thank goodness that these schools have been shut down. Hopefully the Church has come to its senses when it comes to children who are poor and born out of wedlock.
May 31, 2008
I thought this book was terrible. The writing was horrible and the true account of her childhood was shallow at best. It's horrible that she was put in an orphanage, it's horrible that the was raped as a child, and what society did to her mother is horrible, but it's also horrible that her editor let this book be published in this condition.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
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August 1, 2011Another eye opening book on the abusivness of the Catholic Church in Ireland. After so many years of abuse it is good to finally see people opening up about the abuse they suffered from people who were supposed to be God's chosen. Kathleen O'mally demonstrates that even growing up under this regime you can still rise above it, no matter how hard it may be.
June 23, 2014
sad story of the life of a young girl in an industrial school run by tyrannical Catholic nuns and unfairly removed from her home by social services. Family relationships destroyed and child rape where the child feels punished. this is a true story of the authors life and how she coped with life after leaving the school at 16.
July 6, 2015
Disgusting what the Sisters of Mercy did to these children especially as they are Catholics. More of my sympathy went to the mother though due to certain sensitive subjects broached which I am against
August 11, 2015
I literally could not put this book down.
I absolutely loved it and went on such an emotional roller coaster with it.
There are grammatical mistakes and the writing isn't great, but the story makes up for it. It is shocking and a real insight into a time that a lot of children suffered through.
I absolutely loved it and went on such an emotional roller coaster with it.
There are grammatical mistakes and the writing isn't great, but the story makes up for it. It is shocking and a real insight into a time that a lot of children suffered through.
June 25, 2019
Wow
Very sad, There is 1 thing I do not understand with each and every one of these books on nun abuse. Why do nuns abuse kids?
Very sad, There is 1 thing I do not understand with each and every one of these books on nun abuse. Why do nuns abuse kids?
October 9, 2020
As much as I love my country of birth, the nuns and priests back in those days were so evil and committed such heinous crimes and got away with it
March 12, 2019
Sins of the mother
Six children with four men and only two of them were legitimate. Ms. O'Malley's mother was a rebel in the slums of 1940s and 1950s Dublin, whose children paid dearly for her brazen disregard fiercely Catholic and conservative Irish society. When eight year old Kathleen was interfered with by a neighbor and given a STD, she chose to prosecute and was rewarded with a dawn raid by social workers and the police to drag them off to family court. Eventually the state would take all of her children off her except one.
Kathleen's abuser got two years in jail with hard labor. She got eight years in a cold institution as a virtual slave. Dressed in rags, fed slop the dog wouldn't eat, beaten for every little thing, and given backbreaking work. That was her life until her 16th birthday when she was put out on the street with just the clothes on her back and a tiny suitcase. Her only crime was to have been born illegitimate into poverty and live in the same building as a pedophile. Yet the good nuns had never let her forget that she had only her mother to blame, so she and her older sister soon fled to England and to make their own way in the way.
She never fully reconciled with her mother and who could blame her. Her life had been one of continuous hardship and she'd spent nearly a decade being brainwashed. When given the chance to tell her story, she decided that she did if for nothing else to clear her mother's name. She succeeded.
Six children with four men and only two of them were legitimate. Ms. O'Malley's mother was a rebel in the slums of 1940s and 1950s Dublin, whose children paid dearly for her brazen disregard fiercely Catholic and conservative Irish society. When eight year old Kathleen was interfered with by a neighbor and given a STD, she chose to prosecute and was rewarded with a dawn raid by social workers and the police to drag them off to family court. Eventually the state would take all of her children off her except one.
Kathleen's abuser got two years in jail with hard labor. She got eight years in a cold institution as a virtual slave. Dressed in rags, fed slop the dog wouldn't eat, beaten for every little thing, and given backbreaking work. That was her life until her 16th birthday when she was put out on the street with just the clothes on her back and a tiny suitcase. Her only crime was to have been born illegitimate into poverty and live in the same building as a pedophile. Yet the good nuns had never let her forget that she had only her mother to blame, so she and her older sister soon fled to England and to make their own way in the way.
She never fully reconciled with her mother and who could blame her. Her life had been one of continuous hardship and she'd spent nearly a decade being brainwashed. When given the chance to tell her story, she decided that she did if for nothing else to clear her mother's name. She succeeded.
April 7, 2020
Just read this heartbreaking, well written book, one of those books I've had on the shelf and due to being isolated due to corona virus guidelines, have finally got around to reading. I could not put it down. This is a must read for anyone, but especially for those brought up in a Catholic environment in that era, as I was, where nuns and priests could do no wrong. Kathleen has bravely exposed the truth about their cruelty. Having been educated by these "angels" with their scowling, disapproving faces, which miraculously changed in the presence of people they wanted to impress, I've had an insight into their world. What talented actresses they were! Thankfully I was not subjected to the abject cruelty and abuse they were capable of, but can relate to the depths they would sink to in the name of their "faith". Kathleen is a truly talented author and anyone reading this book could not fail to admire her courage and strength. This book will remain with me forever. The book gives a very moving, first hand account of the terrible injustices served on innocent children and their loving mother in the "good old days!". This lady's childhood was not just interrupted, it was cruelly snatched from her and her siblings by evil women masquerading as "angels". Shame on them and well done to the author for having the strength to move on and make a success of her life. The book will make you angry, but inspired by a remarkable woman who overcame an absolutely terrible and painful childhood.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 51 reviews