The Fallen: The Lost Girls of Ireland's Magdalene Laundries and a Legacy of Silence

by Louise Brangan

A haunting and brilliantly researched history that interrogates the culture of shame in Ireland and tells the full story, for the first time, of the women confined within the walls of the Magdalene Laundries in the 20th century

Everyone familiar with Ireland’s history has heard of the Magdalene Laundries, places where “fallen” women were sent for reform, but few understand that the Laundries were part of a larger carceral system in Ireland. There were prisons and also asylums, industrial and reformatory schools, Mother and Baby Homes, and County Homes, each of which operated alongside the Magdalene Laundries. All together this system confined more than one percent of the Irish population, a staggering rate that outstrips the current rate of mass incarceration in the United States.

The Magdalene Laundries targeted women, and the actions that could necessitate a woman’s reform were vast: wearing a short skirt, smoking, defiance, or pregnancy out of wedlock. Women were taken off the street, admitted by their families, or sent by the state. Once a woman entered the system it was almost impossible to leave.

Louise Brangan pulls back the curtain on the insecurities of a young nation, showing that Ireland believed that if women could be controlled so could an entire populace. She shares the stories of the girls who were kept there: Eileen, born into a Mother and Baby Home; Carmel, forced to take a new name when she entered the Laundries; and Brigid, so broken by twenty-seven years of confinement that she discovered she was unsuited to life in everyday society after her release. These stories taken directly from the historical record restore the dignity of the women who were sent away and re-contextualize the decades that the Laundries acted as a de facto jail for Irish women.

This has remained one of the darkest and most misunderstood periods of recent history. The Fallen compels readers to not only confront this shameful past but to ask a deeper question: What do we choose to remember?

Genres: Nonfiction, History, Ireland, Religion, Historical, Feminism

1 pages, Audio CD

First published April 30, 2026

Reviews

[Liralen · Rating 4 out of 5]

In 1951, when the Laundries were at their height, for every one hundred thousand males, twenty-seven were in prison[...] While for every one hundred thousand females, seventy were in a Laundry. These were not peripheral: They were Ireland's main carceral institution. (loc. 179*)

The Fallen traces the history of Ireland's Magdalene Laundries, the last of which did not close until the mid-1990s. If you haven't heard of the Laundries, the short version is that they were just that—laundries—except run by nuns and staffed by women who had been consigned to the Laundries for infractions real and imagined.

Pregnancy outside marriage, yes, but mostly for being lively girls, abused and abandoned daughters, or because their families were pulled apart for not fitting the mold of what a family should be. (loc. 3247)

Brangan is careful to draw a distinction between the Laundries and the Mother and Baby Homes that also operated; there was certainly overlap between the women and girls who spent time in them and in the Laundries, but fundamentally the Mother and Baby Homes were there to hide women's pregnancies, and the Laundries were there to punish women and girls who had transgressed.

For Brigid, having played fast and loose with school rules, it was a life sentence. Adult men sentenced [for] murder in the twentieth century were rarely expected to serve more than seven years. Somehow, by the 1940s, the mildest transgression of girls and young women caused more outrage than the taking of a life. It was Brigid's mother who finally came to liberate her daughter. By that point, she was thirty-nine years old. (loc. 523)

I've read about the Laundries before, but everything I read adds something new. Brangan is determined to hold the nuns who ran the Laundries accountable in her words, but she's also clear that it's not just the nuns, or the church, who hold responsibility. The Laundries always reflected the mores of the society around them (loc. 2131). Take that and extend it a bit more broadly: the residential schools in Canada (and elsewhere); the troubled teen industry in the US; the way women have always been punished for stepping outside the lines.

I highlighted so many things in The Fallen—there's so much history wrapped up in how the Laundries came to be and how they evolved over time. At first I found the history a little dry, but then it became clear just how important it was to the overall picture. And then of course there are the personal stories, which Brangan pulls largely from existing testimonies, and the broader cultural context, and it's just...a lot of food for thought.

No one explained to Carmel what was happening. Nor did she ask. There were no rewards for curiosity in Catholic Ireland. (loc. 432)

Would recommend to anyone who has heard of the Magdalene Laundries and wants to know more, and also to people generally interested in the odder intersections of religion and women's history. And I'll leave you with this:

Some women at Sunday's Well were made to line up and repeat this after the nuns: "I am nobody, I am nobody, I am nobody." (loc. 1552)

*Quotes are from an ARC and may not be final.

Thanks to the author and publisher for providing a review copy through NetGalley.

[Kasa Cotugno · Rating 4 out of 5]

Difficult to read in places, this account of the infamous Magdalene Laundries is complete as well as harrowing. Louise Brangan has carefully researched not only the history of these establishments, but also that of Ireland, its genesis and the forces that made such a cerceneal system possible. Beautifully written, she also includes personal histories from some of the women who found themselves, often without having committed any crime or misdemeanor, locked up and made to perform what is essentially slave labor. Should they gain access to the outside world, many are ill equipped to do so since they've had no guidance early in life. This would be classed as fictional if it weren't horribly true.

[Sierra · Rating 5 out of 5]

So so important to learn about parts of history that were swept under the rug like this. I really commend Louise Brangan for her courage to dive deeply into this subject and clear up the misconceptions.

[Danna · Rating 3 out of 5]

The Fallen sets out to document the history of Ireland’s Magdalene laundries. Importantly, Brogan differentiates between the laundries and, perhaps the more well-known, mother-and-baby homes of the mid- to late-1900s. Like many others, I had thought them one and the same prior to reading The Fallen.

In this case, The Fallen refers to the women sent to the laundries because they’ve fallen from societal grace. However, unlike the mother-and-baby homes, most of them were not sent there pregnant or because they were birthing illegitimate children. Instead, they have bent the rules of society in some way, maybe for something as unavoidable as being birthed to poor parents.

The Fallen starts with a more comprehensive history of Ireland’s landscape and why the laundries came to exist. Frankly, I was bored by this and, while I’ll admit it is important context, Brogan lost me in the first three chapters. The points are valid, but I also think it could have been summarized in a shorter introduction chapter. I picked this book up because of my interest in the women and their stories, which don’t start in earnest until about 25% in.

Overall, this book is well-researched, informative, and a bit dry. If you’re interested in the topic, you’ll likely enjoy it, but if you’re someone looking for nonfiction that reads like a story, you probably won’t. 2.5 stars rounded up.

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

[Abbeigh · Rating 5 out of 5]

I feel as though it would be wrong to call this a ‘review’. ‘𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐅𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐞𝐧’ is a raw, hard hitting, eye opening truth about what happened to many woman and girls in 20th century Ireland in The Magdalene Laundries, into the years that followed there ‘closure’.

This book is a stark look at the dystopian views, politics and oppression of the time (and into present day). The unethical environment that these women and girls had to endure was monstrous; stripped of their names, rights and dignity, purely for existing in a place where censorship of the media and politics, by both church and state, meant their narrative was written for them.

𝐋𝐨𝐮𝐢𝐬𝐞 𝐁𝐫𝐚𝐧𝐠𝐚𝐧 has immaculately researched, curated and given voice to a topic that has been in dire need of having the record put straight about what these Laundries really meant for the women & girls that were sent to them. She has helped give them a voice, where even as late to the present day, there are those that choose to look away and deny.

It’s impossible to put into words what Louise has so eloquently published, so all I can do is implore you to pick up a copy of this book yourself.

“𝙏𝙝𝙚 𝙙𝙞𝙧𝙚𝙘𝙩 𝙙𝙚𝙨𝙘𝙚𝙣𝙙𝙖𝙣𝙩 𝙤𝙛 𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙨𝙞𝙡𝙚𝙣𝙘𝙚 𝙞𝙨 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚𝙩𝙞𝙢𝙚𝙨 𝙘𝙤𝙡𝙡𝙚𝙘𝙩𝙞𝙫𝙚 𝙛𝙤𝙧𝙜𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙞𝙣𝙜.”

Thank you to Vintage Books for my early copy to read and review; these are all my honest thoughts and opinions.

[Paul M · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well written and researched.
Infuriating as expected.
Lots of interesting Irish history beyond the story of the Laundries and the horrendous behavior of the church and the society.

[Christine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Disclaimer: I received an ARC via a Librarything giveaway.

In the new series ‘The Testaments’, there is a scene where a young woman who just had her first period has to tell her father. She does this publicly, kneeling before while a group of men, all old enough to be her father, watch. The point of the scene, besides highlighting who exactly is in power, is that a woman’s fertility -her ability or inability to reproduce isn’t her own there, despite the celebrations that the young woman in question had with her friends. This is not something that is new or surprising. Even today, in many parts of the world, including may parts of America, a woman really has not right to choice and is judged on her purity – however that term may be applied.

Brangan’s book details a time in Ireland, not very far removed, when women who were deemed impure or unfit, regardless of whether they had had sex, where sent to places where they could be easily controlled and monitored. She presents the laundries for what they were and separates them off slightly from the Mother and Baby homes. While she does take issue with inflation of numbers that some movies or reports use, Brangan’s book does not whitewash or hide what happened.

Brangan loosely follows the lives of some of the women that were forced into the laundries, each one for a different reason. Before she embarks on these personal journeys however, she details the start of the laundries, at least in regards to being used to police and control women. She also give the reader a tour of politics and the conservative “traditional” movement that lead to the emphasis on women in the home, among other things.

One does wonder if any of that was also a reaction to colonization.

When Brangan does follow the women the book really shines. The book’s chapters reflect the various stages of joining, living in, leaving, and dealing with memories of the laundries. Not all the women were told why, some of them were simply taken. Escape was not really an option because society itself was arranged against you.

The most interesting part of the book is the after, and how some how some of the women would talk about their experiences. Even when talking to family members who knew about the past, the past was hushed up and politely ignored. Fictions were maintained.

And those fictions also seemed to occur at the heart of government, where when there was an overhauling of various systems, the laundries were kept because of their ability to “deal” with women. It wasn’t just religion but also patriarchy using religion, as it so often does.

Brangan’s style is easy enough to read – personal but factual. She doesn’t shield the reader from the horrors but she also does not use the horrors to shock or titillate the reader. She gives a lenses that looks at all levels, including how the nuns themselves operated in terms of the rules that were laid out for them. One leaves the book not only with a sense of what happened but how it happened.

[Regan Slaughter · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5 Stars
The Magdalene Laundries were the last stop for so-called "fallen" women in 20th century Ireland. Any number of things could get a woman committed to a Magdalene Laundry; the most common in the public imagination was becoming pregnant out of wedlock, but in practice many women were committed for cutting school too much, wearing skirts that were too short, aging out of state institutions, or just generally being too "high-spirited." Once a woman entered the laundry they were forced to do hard industrial labor for no wages under conditions that were intensely emotionally abusive, and was not allowed to leave until someone came to claim her or the nuns felt she was reformed. For many of these women, forgotten and hidden away, that time never came. And the Laundries were only one part of Ireland's carcel system, which even as it boasted about its low prison population held around 1% of its population institutionalized.

After independence, Ireland started on the endeavor of nation building, and hung much of its modern national identity on the purity of its people, and especially its women and girls. This fear that girls could cause the corruption of the nation led to a culture of shame and silence, and droves of young women immigrating or being institutionalized. Brangan does and excellent job tracing not only the full history of the laundries, but also their context in both the past and present. She delves into a history of injustice that had been intentionally repressed, and attempts to create a more complete record of the truth.

This is, overall, a very approachable work of nonfiction. It highlights several girls who spent time in the laundries through the decades, and uses this human element for both primary source material and a narrative that is easy to digest. Her dedication to context also means that the reader does not need much knowledge of Irish history at all to understand the information being presented. My only major complaint is that Brangan is often not very clear about when events are happening. She will transpose the stories of girls who were in the laundries decades apart on the same page, sometimes making it difficult to trace the evolution of the institution. That being said, I do consider this a very solid history of the Magdalene Laundries, and would recommend it for people interested in Irish history, or women's history.

[Janine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is such an eye opening book, exposing what a country when deducted to religion and morality can do to ensure that women are kept in their place - under the guise of protection - and erased from society. While many know of the Magdalene Laundries, many do not know other institutions used to incarcerate women or their history, cruelties and secrets. This book tells it all.

When Ireland was a new country in the early 20th C, it created laws to control women under the belief if women could be controlled, the rest of Irish society would be controlled as well. This thinking was based on the mythical view of the Blessed Virgin Mary as the purest form of womanhood. The government worked with the Catholic Church to make use of convent facilities as places to send young girls susceptible to the sins of the pagan world where they could be reformed. Besides the laundries, they used prisons, asylums, industrial and reformatory schools, Mother and Baby homes, and County homes for this purpose and legalized their use as part of its carceral system. At one time 1% of the Irish population was confined to these outstripping the “current rate of mass incarceration in America.”

The book presents stories of several women who were confined to these institutions and their horrific stories of what they endured. What was most cruel was how the nuns running these places strove to dehumanize the girls and women by changing their names, dressing them in rags, and forcing them to do dangerous work. The last home closed in 2013. By statistics reported in a recent Irish report, over 10,000 women died and were erased from memory.

This is a well researched and written book. It begs the mind of how such cruelty could be done by a government but in today’s America that is exactly what the white Christian nationalists want. White men who feel emasculated by women joyfully await this as I heard one young man stare recently. This is why a book such as this is so important. In today’s Ireland abortion is legal. Why? Because as history has shown you cannot enforce religion on the people.

Highly recommend.

I’d like to thank NetGalley and Simon & Schuster for allowing me to read this ARC.

[Denise Nolson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully written, important, powerful & eye opening book on the history of the Magadalene Laundries in Ireland & the institutionalised abuse & slavery suffered by the women & girls who disappeared through their doors. It's not an easy read, nor should it be, I found myself at different times experiencing sadness, horror, despair & rage at the very deliberate & yet careless way both society, their families, & the religious orders judged, demonised, & discarded these W&G as worthless, while at the same time the laundries profitted from their ceaseless labours in terrifying & harmful working conditions

Louise Brangan's book provides important political & social context, which gives insight into how Irish society collectively closed it's eyes & allowed this cruelty to happen right in front of them, rightly without excusing it, because there is no rationale for throwing away generations of potential lives.

Am I judging with eyes from now people from the past? Yes. Because some things are intrinsically wrong, whenever in history they occur. Throwing your daughter away as sinful because your husband or son has abused her? Wrong. Snatching young girls in respectable jobs off the street because you judge they might not be 'moral', based on zero evidence? Wrong.

There is mention of comparison of the laundries, & the mother & baby homes, having similar effects to the Holocaust on thousands of Irish W&G, and this is not wrong, or an over statement. There are still unknown bodies in mass graves.

It's deeply shameful the Catholic church has never recognised it's own culpability & cruelty, let alone apologised or offered redress as requested by the Irish government.

A thought provoking, detailed and incredibly well researched book, would recommend to anyone interested in social history

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

Louise Brangan does an incredible job bringing to light the horrid injustices that were done to young Irish girls locked away in Magdalene Laundries between 1922 thru 1996. We have all heard about the disturbing history of Ireland and the church when it came to girls that found themselves with child, or in trouble with the law but I had no idea it was a place that housed girls that had been raped, abused, orphaned, deserted by their parents or just didn’t fit the mold of society. It was really a place to silence and hide the dirty parts of society. As one girl couldn’t understand why no one looked for her after she was basically kidnapped by a couple nuns while working at her place of business. These girls lost their childhood, teenage years and some even their adult years. And when they were finally released, some had such a hard time adapting that they voluntarily came back to the laundries. It is heartbreaking to hear these stories. What is most appalling is the interviews Brangan has with the nuns who worked with these girls. Many of them didn’t feel remorse for how they treated the girls because it was sanctioned by the church. The silence was so loud but nobody chose to intervene and stop it.

This is a must read for everyone to raise awareness that things like this do happen and when they do people need to stand up against such atrocities.

Thank you NetGalley, Louise Brangan, and Simon & Schuster for providing this eARC for review.

[Linda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had not heard of the Irish laundries before reading this book. The secrecy surrounding them is no surprise given the hiding and shuffling of the priests poor behavior within the Catholic Church. These girls were thrown away by society and the sisters reinforced the belief by repeatedly demeaning them and telling them that no one wanted them, going so far as to not using their given name and renaming them new, unflattering names. When these girls died within the walls of the laundries they were buried in mass graves with no mention of their names. For close to one hundred years the laundries were operating under the same old rules. Having gone to a Catholic orphanage and later to elementary and high schools, the treatment of these young girls and women by the “good sisters” of all orders is much too relatable. My heart breaks for these women who were lost to society and should have lived full and beautiful lives. This ARC was provided by Simon & Shuster publishing via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Simon J Alvey · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a brilliant, and incredibly powerful book that is - to my mind - essential reading for anyone interested in the history of 20th century Ireland. The appalling stories that have been told of the Magdalene Laundries have held a grim fascination to me for at least 25 years. This book is successful in three distinct ways, firstly how well it places these abusive places into the stultifying context of post-independence Ireland, secondly its absolute focus on the truth, separating out the survivors of these institutions from the parallel abuses of the mother and baby homes whilst centering the testimony of survivors as evidence. Thirdly it very successfully makes the case for the importance of history and truth telling as a way of dealing with past traumas. The laundries have become a ghostly presence throughout Irish literature and culture in recent years, but it is this book that really gets to the brutal truth without the cheap sensationalism that can sometimes be present.

[Joann · Rating 4 out of 5]

A difficult topic thoroughly researched by the author and well presented. Having been raised Catholic, I can only too readily understand the secretiveness and barricades around the laundries and the women confined therein. What caused me to catch my breath is the reminder of the complicity of the Irish government at agreeing to the dictates of the church. Purity above all else, even at the expense of lives of the innocent. There is, however, hope that the issue is understood to the degree of never being repeated, even in a minor fashion.

[Rik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant book. Even with a rough idea of what went on it was still shocking. This is a very well written book that balances the cultural history with the facts and weaves personal testimony throughout. Has to be read to be believed, it's still stunning that this was happening so recently. This definately is a book with a view that pushes that view forcefully but is never preachy, just appropriately outraged.

[Laura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've seen movies about the so-called Magdalene Laundries, but this look at the actual institutions and how they were really not "mother and baby" places but forced labor for women (there were horrible places for unwed mothers, but not the laundries). And the ways girls got sent there, identities erased, with no hope for escape because these were not rehabilitation or correctional facilities, is just horrific.

They were not some product of "long ago!" That's the even more horrific part, that they were around as recently as the 1990s. It's also unclear if there will ever be true reconciliation for what the women went through, or punishment for the nuns who oversaw the laundries (several of whom were truly sadistic... was that because of who they really were or was it because of where they were? doesn't really matter in the end).

eARC provided by publisher via Edelweiss.

[Brendan (History Nerds United) · Rating 5 out of 5]

Well, this certainly ruined my day. This is not Louise Brangan's fault, unless you want to blame her for shining a light on a soul-crushing aspect of Ireland's society post-independence. Brangan looks at the Magdalene Laundries of Ireland in her book The Fallen. What were they? Well, prison without a parole date, basically.

Long, sad story short, post-Ireland's War of Independence, they went very, very Catholic. So Catholic that even the Church thought things were getting to be a bit much. What this led to was a purity culture that would almost indiscriminately toss young women into laundries (yes, where they did laundry) which acted as long term workhouses. These women would be forced into near total silence, without being able to create friendships, and held for indeterminate amounts of time. To put this in perspective, when I put the book up on my social media as my next read, an Irish friend responded:

"Jaysus Brendan, it’s a horrible tale. A true stain upon our nation." Can't really say it better than that.

Brangan has a complicated tale to tell, but she nails it. Parts are about Irish culture around this time, but she also focuses on specific women as they go through the laundries. What you are left with is a riveting but heartbreaking story. Highly recommend it.

(This book was provided as an advanced reader copy by Simon & Schuster.)

[Becca · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a PHENOMENAL book. It is superbly balanced, nuanced, thoughtful and most of all, understanding. The research that has gone into this is impeccable. Brangan weaves through the lives of a few of these women while so deftly painting a portrait of the layers underneath the surface of the Ireland we thought we all knew.

This one will stay with me.

[Melisende · Rating 4 out of 5]

Socially and mentally challenging history of a forgotten part of Irish history. This is a memorial to all who entered and were forgotten and stigmatised throughout their very existence.