Award- winning documentary maker Aoife Kelleher spoke to David Hennessy ahead of returning to Irish Film Festival London with Testimony, the feature length documentary about the Justice for Magdalenes campaign.
Aoife Kelleher’s documentary Mrs Robinson, about Ireland’s first female President Mary Robinson, was the opening film of last year’s Irish Film Festival London.
This year she returns with Testimony, the new documentary about the Justice for Magdalenes campaign.
Testimony follows an extraordinary group of women whose fight to hold the Irish government to account for abuses in the Magdalene Laundries, Mother and Baby homes and forced separation of families, took them all the way to the United Nations.
The Magdalene Laundries, operated by religious orders with state complicity, housed what they called ‘fallen women’. Until the 1990s they degraded and dehumanised these women, keeping them imprisoned, subjecting them to forced labour and subjected them to physical and emotional abuse.
The stigma followed them through their entire lives long after they left the brutal institutions.
The Mother and Baby Homes were just as bad with unwed mothers coerced into giving up their children. They were also known to have high infant mortality and to subject the children in their care to vaccine trials.
Aoife Kelleher spoke to The Irish World to look ahead to the festival.
How does it feel to be back at Irish Film Festival London?
“It’s hugely exciting.
“It’s really a home from home as a festival.
“There’s such an extraordinarily warm, engaged Irish community in London so it’s always a joy to bring a film to the festival.”
Was it hard going making a film on such a topic? I imagine there were harrowing details..
“I think the hardest aspect of Testimony was getting it up and running.
“It was a project that was very special for me and it was while making One Million Dubliners (2014) that I had been introduced to the story of the Magdalene graves in Glasnevin which had been moved from High Park.
“It was a story that I was really hoping to include in One Million Dubliners but obviously when Shane MacThomais died, it was no longer possible to include it in that way.
“It really felt like unfinished business.
“I had met with Claire McGettrick from Justice for Magdalenes research during the process of making One Million Dubliners.
“Myself and Claire and Maeve (O’Rourke) and Catherine and Jim and Mari had really been in touch for over a decade by the time we got this film fully funded.
“So honestly once it was up and running, it just felt like a privilege to be making this film and to be telling these stories.”
The title is very apt, Testimony. These women were kept silent for so long and now finally their testimony is being heard..
“It was a term that came up again and again over the course of making the film: The fact that survivors’ testimony, women and children who had been through the Laundries, the industrial schools and the Mother and Baby Homes, that the testimony was so central to the work of Justice for Magdalenes and that women and children’s testimonies throughout the commissions of investigation into these institutions was often overlooked or disregarded and not treated as the evidence that it was.
“In giving survivors a platform to tell their stories, it felt like this was a further outlet for their testimony and also the fact then that often, as part of the process of gaining redress, women and survivors in general were often asked or it was often imposed upon them that they couldn’t tell their own stories.
“Once they accepted redress, they were prevented then from telling their stories in public so there’s an element of rebellion here too in actually owning their stories and putting forward their testimony in spite of those restrictions.”
As much as Testimony tells the story of how what happened in the Magdalene Laundries came to light, it strikes me that it is as much about how some sought to keep it covered up or did not want it coming so much to the surface. That’s so unsettling for me..
“Yeah, absolutely.
“I couldn’t agree more.
“I do think that Ireland is sorely in need of a process of truth and reconciliation that we’ve seen take place in other countries like South Africa and Rwanda where all of these stories are brought out into the open and there’s much more of a sense of collective acknowledgement.
“I do think it’s a process that is beginning now with the work that’s being done in Sean McDermott street but I do still think that we’ve a long way to go.”
I’m sure there was responsibility involved. What was your experience of talking to the survivors? Did you find they were so grateful for the opportunity to finally tell their stories, as hard as it may be?
“In some cases survivors still felt a huge amount of stigma and one of our contributors Madeline wasn’t sure in the beginning whether she would include her face and her name because she was still concerned that her family would be shocked and appalled by what she had been through.
“She still felt that element of taboo.
“She still felt that stigma.
“She still felt the lingering effects of oppression.
“She’s someone who really felt that she had to build a life for herself in London to kind of remove herself from all of that shame.
“There was a sense of that lingering shame.
“It took a while.
“It took several meetings and really it wasn’t until the day of filming that Madeline decided that she would try to go face to camera and try to own her story.
“In the end that ended up being a really positive experience for her and since filming the interview, she has publicly told her story of her son William who passed away really tragically shortly after his birth in Bessborough which was a hugely traumatic experience for her.
“I don’t know if you could describe it as gratitude really.
“I think there is that lingering shame.
“I think there is that lingering stigma and I think that people want to tell their stories.
“In Madeleine’s case she wants justice for her son, she’s still trying to obtain that just because she’d been seeking a coroner’s inquest into William’s death.
“I think that there’s a sense that people want these stories to be told in a way that will be productive and purposeful.
“I think that actually it’s very difficult for them to revisit these experiences.”
Many of them came over here. You just mentioned Madeleine making her way to London. Philomena Lee also came over here. The film also features Elizabeth Coppin, a UK-based survivor we have featured in The Irish World. Did you find they simply had to leave the country that had given them so much trauma?
“I think that each case is very different.
“Philomena was actually sent away by the nuns to England and to a convent in England.
“Elizabeth broke out of the laundry where she was incarcerated and escaped to England whereas Madeline had had gone to England to hide her pregnancy and returned in the aftermath really a very traumatised young woman.
“So in each case, it’s different.
“And you can see now that, certainly in the cases of those women and with Gabrielle as well, another one of our contributors who went to England after leaving a laundry, they have hugely complex relationships with Ireland.
“They all still feel this huge attachment and love and yet there is that sense of rejection that they all feel as a result of these really harrowing experiences they’ve all gone through.
“Philomena’s story is well known and the way in which she was separated from her son, Anthony.
“Elizabeth was institutionalised for years due to no fault of her own because she had an abusive stepfather.
“And Madeline, as I’ve already mentioned, lost her child in a mother and baby home due to his tragic death.
“All of these harrowing experiences have really tarnished these women’s lives but I do think that it’s very important that there would be an Irish film made that really celebrates them, that honours these experiences they’ve been through and acknowledges their heroism in continuing to fight for justice.”
The film speaks about how women ran away from Laundries and were brought back by guards (despite having committed no crime). Were there surprises for you along this journey?
“I think the extent of state involvement is something that’s really shocking: How many stories we heard of women being returned to the Irish state by priests and being returned to institutions by members of the Garda Síochána and also by the ISPCC.
“The extent of the collusion between church and state, the extent of state involvement and the ways in which these women lost years and sometimes decades of their lives, I don’t think that ever ceases to shock.”
The film contains shocking and emotional accounts of treatment. There is Michael O’Brien’s emotional account of the abuse in the industrial school. There was also the survivor Mary who passionately confronted the Irish speaker at the UN hearing, were you moved by particular moments?
“I think that we all found it incredibly impactful and emotional every single time we watched Michael O’Brien speak on Questions and Answers.
“That’s footage that I would have been aware of for years.
“His account of his experience in an industrial school is just absolutely harrowing and the sheer raw honesty.
“We’re talking about someone who has been a prominent politician, who is a powerful pillar of the community being as vulnerable as he was and demonstrating how his whole life has been impacted by his experience.
“I don’t think I’ll ever be able to watch it without feeling emotion.
“Maeve O’Rourke became emotional just talking about Michael and that Questions and Answers broadcast.
“I don’t think anyone who has seen that footage could fail to be impacted by it.
“And Mary Harney.
“I mean Mary Harney giving her testimony in the United Nations in Geneva.
“I just think she’s such a powerful person.
“What an extraordinary woman.
“And yet her experiences in childhood and her separation from her parents, it’s just astounding that she can speak as eloquently as she can about experiences that are just so traumatising and so abusive.”
How have you found the reaction when you have screened it so far?
“We premiered at the Dublin Film Festival this year and it was amazing to have so many of the survivors present, so many of the members of Justice for Magdalene research present.
“It was a very moving experience.
“You could literally hear the emotion in the cinema.
“We hope it will have an impact on London audiences.
“We know that there will be survivors present at the screening so hopefully it will be a similar experience.”
How survivors themselves react to it is hugely important..
“Absolutely, Justice for Magdalene talked about the fact that their first decree to each other was that they not do any harm and we really kind of took our lead from them and from their approach to working with survivors.
“Everyone saw their footage in advance and had the opportunity to give feedback and to give us the all clear for its inclusion.
“That was a very important part of the process.
“I mean the last thing you wanted to do is to be re-traumatising people.
“I think that these are stories that are part of the fabric now of Irish history and they’re now on the secondary school curriculum and are being spoken about more and more.
“I mean this is not the first film on this subject but I think that it’s really important, while acknowledging how difficult it is for survivors just to tell their stories, it’s also really important that these stories stay in our collective consciousness, that they not be forgotten because we can never repeat the failures of the past.”
As one contributor alludes to, there very sadly could be more to be uncovered…
“Yeah, absolutely.
“The international focus on Tuam was very important and impactful in that it really pressurised the government into taking action but the reality is that there are mass graves like those all over the country.
“One of our contributors mentioned the fact that there are more unaccounted for who died in Bessborough.
“It’s wonderful now and very important that Tuam is being excavated but the idea that the excavations should end there or at that point we have uncovered all that there is to be uncovered is just not credible.”
You mentioned the international coverage there and that is depicted in the film. Without that international level of attention, it just not have been addressed like it was..
“In the early stages Catherine Corless was dismissed in Ireland and there was a general sense of incredulity in response to what she was saying she had discovered at Tuam.
“It really was only when the story gained international attention that the narrative began to change in Ireland too.”
Also shocking is the lack of accountability from some of these religious orders. I noted down from the end of the film that Sisters of Mercy have no problem whatsoever reiterating the fact that they are contributing anything to redress..
“I think more pressure needs to be placed on the religious orders to make appropriate redress to the survivors and I think that the extent to which certain reports and commissions of investigation have glossed over some of the horrors of the institutions has really facilitated the religious orders in shirking the responsibility that they have.
“Some of the orders have contributed to redress schemes but the fact that some of them haven’t is really appalling.
“I think that’s something that we really wanted to highlight in the film.”
Imelda Staunton narrates the piece, was she passionate about taking part?
“Imelda has huge Irish connections through her parents and so we reached out to her and she was delighted to take part.
“I think she did a really beautiful job.
“I’ve been a huge fan of her work in Peter’s Friends and Sense and Sensibility and everything she’s done.
“I’m just really a huge admirer of hers and it was wonderful to have her take part.”
Will you be at the London screening yourself?
“Yeah, very much looking forward to it.
“It’s always such a pleasure to screen in London and I’m very much looking forward to being there for the festival.”
Testimony screens at 9pm Saturday 15 November at VUE Piccadilly as part of Irish Film Festival London. Irish Film Festival London runs 12- 16 November. To book or for information, click here. Irish World readers can get 20% off by using the code, FRIEND.
TESTIMONY will be in UK and Irish Cinemas from 21st November with the support of the BFI, awarding National Lottery funding.
