Wednesday, August 30, 2006

Critique of various articles promoting 'Kathy's Story'.

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In the following articles Kathy repeatedly speaks of getting the word 'penitents' removed from a 'mass grove in Glasnevin cematry, she also states that women that died in the Magdalene laundries were wrapped in sheets and 'dumped' in mass graves.
Only after the Sisters of Charity issued a statement to say the stone refered to is actually a tribute to the 'Ladies of Monto', and does not refer to magdalenes did Kathy's statements change to 'monument'.She is also quoted in the article by the Irish Catholic as stating (when questioned on 'mass graves'), 'what mass graves, you'd want to get your facts right, I never said that'.( this was after the nuns stated there are no mass graves for magdalenes).

The porpose of the hunger strike originally was to get the word erased, then changed to getting her mothers letters. Considering she was only in St Annes Kilmacud for six weeks, the one letter from her mother wasn't altogether over emotional.


The meeting she speaks of with the justice minister, was to our knowledge actually totally different to Kathy's report. The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity appealed to the Minister to intervene and get Kathy's allegations investigated by the state, unfortunatly, it would seem, there was a serious lack of cooperation (not by the sisters), and the investigation went no where. The gardai in Harcourt St press office might be helpful to any journalist researching this.
The 'hungar strike' was not 3 days, it was, according to our information (from media sources), not even one - Kathy was brought a take away by friends, and allegedly brought sandwiches with her.
There seems to be also a little confusion as regards the alleged rape that allegedly resulted in a child, some sources quote Kathy as saying it was a priest, others most definitly quote her as saying it was a lay visitor.

Kathy states she was 8 when she went to St Annes in Kilmacud, but documentation has her there at 11 in 1968. This would seem more correct as she was born in 1956.
The earliest she could have been in a laundry is 17 - which would be 1973.
Which leads to another strange discrepency, in almost all of the earlier reports she is 43 in 2005, but she is in reality 50 this year, why the difference.

There are other annomolies, the RIRB claim, the alleged donation to the charities etc.
The allegations against her father are as horrific as the allegations against the psychiatric hospital, the nuns, the lay visitors who raped her etc, how can the publishers say they have verified these stories ?, they didn't approach her family.
Read the stories below.
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The News of the World

May 8, 2005

MAGDALEN SURVIVOR KATHY O'BEIRNETELLS OF HER NIGHTMARE CHILDHOOD


RAPED BY A PRIEST, WHIPPED BY NUNS

Michelle O'Keeffe

A MAGDALEN laundry survivor has revealed the horrifying abuse she suffered before and after she was locked in the institution.

Kathy O'Beirne, who has scars on her body from years of beatings, has told the Irish News of the World of the nightmare she lived through as a child.

Kathy, in her 40s, of Clondalkin, in Dublin, endured thrashings from her father as well as sexual abuse from two boys before being sent away.

Then Kathy, aged only ten, was repeatedly RAPED by a priest and regularly WHIPPED by nuns.

When she reported the abuse she was sent to a MENTAL HOSPITAL. Now brave Kathy is fighting for the word "penitent", meaning sinners, to be removed from the mass Magdalen grave in Glasnevin cemetery.


Kathy said: "I was consigned to a hell of beatings and abuse. Tears replaced laughter, pain replaced pleasure. It was one long scream of suffering which has haunted all of my adult life."

Kathy, who was the oldest daughter of nine children, was not only beaten by her father but often locked in the shed.

She said: "My father Oliver, a builder's labourer, presented an image of respectability. He went to Mass every day and was a daily communicant. But at home he was a cruel and violent man. He regularly beat me with his belt. The buckle would cut into my legs and the flesh wounds often turned septic.

"One night he held my hand in a pan of hot grease-the pain was unbearable."

At the age of five, two boys began to sexually abuse Kathy and on the eve of her First Holy Communion one raped her.

After that she was labelled as "a child with a troublesome mind" by a psychiatrist and a social worker in Ballyfermot. She was soon carted off to an industrial school where she was put to work.

Kathy recalls: "I was not allowed to go to the classroom-I had been demoted from pupil to slave. This school was a training ground for the Magdalen laundries. The quicker the nuns got them accustomed to slave labour, the better they would fit into the laundry regime.

"According to the nuns, this was our punishment for being wicked sinners. This penance, they informed us, was the only way to save our souls and keep us from the hell fires of the devil.

"Many of the girls in the school, including myself, were so traumatised that we would frequently wet the bed."

Kathy remembers with horror the day a priest in this State institution raped her.

She said: "At first, the priest pretended to be kind to me and said that he would help me to get out of the reformatory school and back to my home. But after a short while, he started touching me.

"He would reach under his robe and rub himself at the same time. It got worse and worse until one day he followed me into the dormitory and forced himself on me.

"On two other occasions he locked me in an office and raped me. I decided I had to tell someone. Instead of trying to help me, a nun told me that I needed my mouth washed out, that I was evil and would burn in hell.

"The week after I spoke to her, I was taken to a city hospital. I remember the bang of the big doors closing behind me. I was ten years old and because I had dared to tell the truth I was now trapped in a psychiatric hospital."

In the hospital Kathy was given daily doses of largactil, which was used to treat schizophrenia, and injected with a horse tranquilliser called Ketamine.


Kathy also suffered electric shock treatment. She said: "The pain from the electric shocks was terrible. It was like lightning shooting through my body. My body was jerking about on the table and I was shaking and screaming.

"When you got upset, they would try to shut you up by giving you electric shock treatment or more drugs."

Kathy was also sexually abused by lay people who visited them in hospital.

She said: "They would come in and pick a child to take out for the day. We were supposed to be taken somewhere nice but often this was just an excuse for them to sexually abuse you. I was taken out a few times and this happened to me.

"Some of the staff also abused us. They would usually come into the dormitory and touch you under the bedclothes."

The News of the World
May 15, 2005

JAIL WAS EASY AFTER MAGDALEN NIGHTMARE

Michelle O'Keeffe

Part 2 of our devastating series I was happy there, says abuse victim

THE clap of a cop's hand on teenage runaway Kathy O'Beirne's shoulder filled her with dread.

Terrified she would be sent back to suffer more physical and sexual hell in a Magdalen laundry, the 15- year-old begged for mercy.

And in a strange way, she got it. For instead of being handed over to the brutal Magdalen nuns, delighted Kathy was thrown into Mountjoy jail for shoplifting.

"I remember my time in Mountjoy as one of the happiest periods of my childhood," said Kathy. "Prison was a breeze compared to life in the Magdalen laundries."


Kathy, now in her 40s, was nabbed with pal Patricia after the pair nicked a raincoat each from a Pennys store in Dublin.

The girls had been living on the streets for several weeks after fleeing the Magdalen laundry where they slaved.

Desperate to put yet more distance between themselves and their tormentors, Kathy and Patricia picked phone box locks to get enough money for some passport photos.

But then the heavens opened and the teenagers turned to shoplifting to stay dry.

After nervously glancing round to see if they had been spotted, Kathy and Patricia strolled out of Pennys wearing stolen raincoats.

With childish logic, the girls left their worn-out coats in the shop.

But in their haste to avoid being caught, the youngsters forgot all about the passport snaps tucked in their old coat pockets.


It was all gardai needed and they were quickly arrested.

At the time, their tender years were not a bar to being jailed-and they were sentenced to three months in the clink.

Yet instead of fearing being caged, Kathy WELCOMED it. She explained: "Nobody ever hit or abused me while I was in prison.

"I had new, clean clothes and I got three square meals a day.

"We were supplied with sanitary towels, soap, toothpaste and toothbrushes. I even used a hairdryer for the first time in Mountjoy.

"The work in prison was also nowhere near as tough as that in the laundries. And I went to school while in prison-which was the first time I had been in a classroom in a long time."

It was a far cry from the hell Kathy suffered after being sent to a Magdalen laundry at the age of ten.

Already an abuse victim, Kathy hoped she would be protected by the nuns who took over as "family".

But instead she was brutally beaten and worked to the bone, then raped by a lay visitor when she was 14.

Kathy revealed: "I was singled out by a visitor much older than me. He gave me sweets and cigarettes and seemed to take a real interest in me, asking me questions about my life during walks in the grounds.

"But then one Sunday he led me up to a big green shed in the grounds, pulled me down on the ground, put his hand over my mouth and raped me.

"Months later, after being in the height of agony for three days, I gave birth to a baby girl."

But instead of sympathy from the nuns, they branded Kathy a sinner- and after three months took the tot off her and sent her back to work.

Distraught Kathy, who now lives in Clondalkin, Dublin, recalled: "The irony was that we turned out to be at even greater risk inside these institutions, where we were supposed to be protected, than out.

"There were many girls who had been raped and become pregnant after they had entered the laundries.

"None were allowed to keep their babies. They had to leave them and go back to the laundries.

"These girls spoke about the babies being collected once a month and driven to the north of Ireland to meet a ship going to America. The nuns considered the Maggies, as the girls were known, as sinners who were heading straight for the fires of hell."

Kathy's own child, who she named Annie, was not sold to a rich American. But only because the tot was too ill. "My little girl had been born with a rare condition," explained Kathy.

"I was told she wasn't well enough to be put up for adoption and that she would stay in the care of the nuns.

"On her tenth birthday, Annie finally lost her battle for life and left this world behind her."

Tots were not the only ones to die. Many of the women forced to work in the laundries also passed away.

And Kathy is now campaigning to have the word "penitent"-meaning sinner- removed from their graves.


She said: "Every time I visit the Magdalen graves at Glasnevin I feel a wave of revulsion about the headstone, which declares that all the girls who were buried there were penitents, or sinners.

"I am desperate for this to be removed or for another more fitting and sensitive memorial to be erected on the same site.

"I am determined these girls will be given some dignity in their final resting place."



DON'T BELIEVE A WORD: Kathy is determined to end the stigma surrounding the numerous girls who died at the Magdalen laundry.

She is campaigning to have the word 'penitents' -meaning sinners-removed from their graves, as shown on the headstone here.

Kathy has even threatened to go on a hunger strike unless the young women, who were worked so hard in life, are shown dignity in death.


The Mirror

June 7, 2005, Tuesday

I'M NOT AFRAID OF ANYONE NOW.. I'M READY TO DIE TO GET JUSTICE FOR THE VICTIMS;
KATHY TELLS HORROR TALE OF SLAVERY & ABUSE IN MAGDALENE LAUNDRIES

BY MICHAEL DOYLE

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Kathy O'Beirne was only eight when a psychiatrist diagnosed her as a "child with a troublesome mind".

She had suffered years of physical and mental torture at the hands of her cruel father.

And on the eve of her first Holy Communion she was violently raped by two older boys near her home in Clondalkin, Dublin.

She was just seven years of age.

But this was just the start for the oldest girl of nine children.

AT eight she was locked up in a reform school run by a religious order and was raped by a visiting priest

SHE was then transferred to the children's unit of a psychiatric hospital to undergo terrifying drug and electric shock treatment to make her "forget"

AT 12 she was sent to a Magdalene Laundry where she slaved in horrendous conditions, receiving regular whippings from the nuns and sexual assaults from lay visitors, and

AT 14 she gave birth to a baby girl, Annie, after being raped. Her daughter had a serious health condition and died at the age of 10.

Now Kathy, 44, has come forward to lift the lid on the evil committed during one of the most disturbing chapters in Irish history and to tell her harrowing story in the hope that more will be done to help the survivors of institutional abuse.

She spoke exclusively to the Irish Daily Mirror just a week before the launch of her much-anticipated book, Kathy's Story: A Childhood Hell Inside the Magdalen Laundries.

Kathy said: "I feel my story had to be told. It was like a volcano inside me always ready to explode. So much evil was done there and there was a voice inside me shouting 'Justice'.

"Not just for me but for so many more.

"Ten years ago I wouldn't have sat here talking to you because I was too ashamed.

"But after a hard 11 years writing this book, and a second one I'm nearly finished called The Aftermath: Who am I?, I feel I've finally been set free.

"In the 50s and 60s the Catholic Church ran this country but they don't run it any more. When you think how afraid people were of the Catholic Church - I was afraid myself, I was terrified.

"I'm not afraid now. I'm not afraid of any priest or any nun, nothing.

"With all the people I have been afraid of, I couldn't meet anybody that I could be that afraid of again."

In her gripping book, Kathy recounts her tragic experiences in unflinching detail starting with the regular beatings and abuse she suffered at home by her father Oliver, a daily mass-goer who, she says, always painted a picture of "respectability".

She also reveals her love for her mother who endured years of mental torture at the hands of her husband although, despite his violent ways, he never lifted a hand to her.

But it wasn't until the reform school that Kathy's life descended into an unending nightmare.

The Magdalene Laundries were notorious workhouses that operated in Ireland throughout the 20th century.

The "Maggies", as the inmates were known, were forced to live a slave-like existence.

Kathy said the hardship she endured behind those walls nearly killed her and she had to open up. She added: "It ate away at me. I have a bowel disease. I've had eight major operations. I nearly died three times. "This bowel disease that I have killed my mother. It killed my daughter and it killed my relations.

"I'm always in and out of hospital but if that's all the suffering that I'm going to have to endure to get justice then that's what I'm going to do.

"We were done wrong to. We were innocent people and the perpetrators are getting away scot-free.

"So many of the young girls became pregnant, including myself, and we were branded as sinners. All the babies were taken to the North, put on a ship and sold off to wealthy American families.

"There is no way for the mothers to trace their children or for the children to trace their real parents if they ever find out they're adopted.

"My Annie wasn't because she was very ill but I did see her and she was well looked after."

She described a stint in Mountjoy Prison when she was 15 as one of the happiest phases of her teenage years.

She said: "Myself and my friend ran away from one of the laundries. We tried to shoplift a raincoat each from Penneys but got caught.

"The judge jailed us for three months but I didn't want to leave Mountjoy because I knew I'd be sent back to the laundry.

"I was treated like a queen in jail - I had dry clothes, three square meals a day and never had to worry about anyone laying a hand on me."

Her fight for justice will include a hunger strike outside one of the former laundries in a bid to have the word "penitent" removed from the mass Magdalene Laundry grave in Glasnevin cemetery, Dublin.

Kathy added: "It means sinner and that is just wrong. I have a letter from my doctor advising me not to do it but I'm prepared to die to get what is right.

"I firmly believe that the Lord let me survive, because thousands didn't, to get justice for me and everyone else who was done wrong to in those institutions."


The proceeds of the book are going to three charities - the Magdalen Graves, a children's hospital in Dublin and to Romanian children.


The News of the World

July 3, 2005

NUNS HID MY MUM'S LETTERS 36 YEARS

Michelle O'Keeffe
'They're abusing me again'

EVIL school nuns kept a cruel secret from Kathy O'Beirne as they physically and sexually abused her.

For 36 years she believed her mother Annie had abandoned her as an eight-year old child.

But Annie had written to her every week and sent presents which the nuns at St Anne's Industrial School in Kilmacud, Dublin, never passed on.

Then Kathy, right, who spent 21 years of hell in institutions including the Magdalen Laundries, discovered the truth when she read her dead mother's diary.

But the Sisters of Charity are still unreptentant. St Anne's School has been pulled down, but they still have the letters. And they wouldn't talk to the Irish News of the World this week about them.

But Kathy, now 43, wants them back and along with hundreds of supporters she's planning a protest march on the Magdalen Laundry in High Park, where the letters are beingheld.

She said yesterday: "I suffered horrific sexual, physical and mental abuse by these nuns.

"Refusing to give my mother's letters to me for all these years is like abusing me all over again."




The News of the World

July 3, 2005

END KATHY'S SUFFERING

BRAVE Kathy O'Beirne was sexually and physically abused by brutal nuns for 21 years.

Now she is facing her abuse nightmare all over again.

Precious letters written to Kathy by her mum have been kept from her, by the so-called Sisters of Charity, for the past 36 years.

Now with her mum dead, these letters can, in a small way, help to make up for her lost years.

But the nuns refuse to hand them over. They should do the decent thing and not only return her letters but also publicly apologise to Kathy for the terrible trauma they have put her through.

She has suffered enough at the hands of the Sisters of Charity.
The News of the World

July 10, 2005




HUNGER STRIKE FOR KATH

A MAGDALEN Laundry survivor has gone on hunger strike in a bid to get letters cruel nuns have kept from her for decades.

Kathy O'Beirne, 43, won huge support yesterday as she led a group of protesters - other survivors from brutal schools run by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity.

They marched to the nun's High Park convent in Drumcondra.

And Kathy said her hunger strike would last until the nuns agreed to give her the letters from her mum they are still holding there.

The plucky Dubliner said she was prepared to die to get them.


Kathy, who was sexually and physically abused in institutions, was at St Anne's Industrial School in Kilmacud, Dublin from the ages of eight.

And her mum Annie wrote to her every week. But heartless nuns never gave her the letters.

Kathy said: "It is very sad that I have to starve myself to get back what belongs to me.

"I spent years as a child thinking my mum had abandoned me but all the time she had sending me letters of love."

Kathy also wants the nuns to remove the word 'penitents', meaning sinners, from a Magdalen monument in Glasnevin cemetery.





The News of the World

July 24, 2005


JUSTICE Minister Michael McDowell has agreed to help a Magdalen Laundry survivor who was on hunger strike.

Kathy O'Beirne, 43, began her protest in a bid to get letters from her mum that cruel nuns kept from her for 35 years.

The plucky Dubliner spent three days without food outside High Park convent in Drumcondra but the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity refused to confront her.

She finally came off the strike when she managed to arrange a meeting with Minister Michael McDowell who promised to look at her case.

Kathy, who was sexually and physically abused in institutions for 21 years said: "Those letters my mother wrote to me while I was at St Anne's Industrial School in Kilmacud mean the world to me and I want them back.

"I was only eight when I was sent there and I was left thinking my mum had abandoned me but all the time she had been sending me letters.

"I managed to arrange a meeting with the Minister for Justice on Wednesday so I came off the hunger strike. He listened to what I had to say and told me he would look at my case.

"I am disgusted they did not have the decency to meet me."

Kathy also wants the nuns to remove the word "penitents" meaning sinners, from a Magdalen monument in Glasnevin cemetery.



The News of the World

July 31, 2005


GIRLS NO LONGER 'SINNERS'

A MAGDALEN survivor was celebrating last night after someone erased the the word penitent from a monument to those who died in the infamous laundries.

Kathy O'Beirne has waged an 11-year battle to replace the monument which labelled the Magdalen girls as 'sinners'.

The plucky 43-year-old Dubliner even went on hunger strike but callous Sisters of Mercy superiors still refused to remove the penitent stigma.

Now, a campaign supporter sneaked into Dublin's Glasnevin Cemetery and chiselled off the words 'penitents' and 'asylum'.

Kathy, who was sexually and physically abused in institutions for 21 years, said: "I am over the moon. I feel fantastic. I am dancing with joy."

She said she has a bottle of champagne waiting for the culprit.

The News of the World April 16, 2006 Sunday

The News of the World


October 16, 2005

KATHY IN QUEST TO SEE POPE

ABUSE survivor Kathy O'Beirne went to Rome this week to get the word 'penitents' removed from a monument for the Magdalen dead.

Kathy, who was physically and sexually abused in institutions for 21 years, took a petition to the Pope demanding the sinners stigma be removed from the monument in Dublin's Glasnevin cemetery.

The 43-year-old has battled for 11 years to replace the memorial, but the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity have refused to let her.


Kathy said: "More than two thousand people have signed the petition to get the word 'penitents' meaning sinners removed from the monument.

"I had to travel to the Pope in Rome in the hope he would listen because nobody here in Ireland is.

"It is disgraceful that I have to go to these lengths but I will not stop until the Magdalen dead are resting in peace with the dignity they deserve."

Kathy decided to go to Rome after the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity replaced the word 'penitents' after a mystery vandal chiselled it off.




October 23, 2005

MAGDALEN VICTIM QUITS FAITH

A DEVOUT Catholic who endured years of horrific abuse in religious institutions has finally turned her back on her faith.

Magdalen laundry survivor Kathy O'Beirne, 43, amazingly continued to be a practising Catholic despite a childhood of being beaten and raped while in the care of callous priests and nuns. But after the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity refused to remove the word "penitent" -meaning sinners-from a Magdalen monument in Dublin's Glasnevin cemetery, Kathy has become a Born Again Christian.




May 20, 2006 Saturday

YOURLIFE: I WAS SENT TO A MENTAL INSTITUTION;
WHEN I TOLD A NUN THE PRIEST HAD RAPED ME.. PART 1 OF OUR UNMISSABLE BOOK SERIALISATION


KATHY O'Beirne suffered in silence during a childhood of unimaginable abuse.

Beaten mercilessly by her father, she was also molested by local boys. When, at the age of eight, she was sent to a Catholic home the abuse continued at the hands of brutal nuns and a perverted priest.

Kathy plucked up courage to confide in a nun - only to end up being sectioned in a mental institution. From there she was sent to one of the infamous Irish Magdalene laundries, where the torture and torment continued.

In our first extract we tell of how Kathy, now in her 40s and from Clondalkin, Dublin, survived her early life.

On Monday we recount her determination to highlight the suffering of herself and the other Magdalene girls.

'TO the outside world, my father presented an image of I respectability. He was a handsome man, well built at 15 stone, who dressed immaculately.

Oliver, a builder's labourer, went to Mass every day and, to the people on our estate, he appeared to be a highly religious pillar of the community. But inside our small home he became a cruel and violent man who subjected his family to a terrible life of mental and physical abuse.

He regularly beat my eight brothers and sisters and me with his belt. The buckle would cut into my legs and the flesh wounds often turned septic.

He would put our hands in the crack of the kitchen door and press it with his foot until we passed out with pain.

One night, when he was in a particularly bad rage, he held my hand in a pan of hot grease. The pain was unbearable. I closed my eyes and screamed, so he threw me outside the back door while he ate his dinner.

For reasons I don't understand he often singled me out, accusing me of having "the devil in me", and regularly left me outside all night, even when it was thick with snow.

WHEN I was five two local boys, one much older than me, began to lift up my dress and touch my body.

I had no idea what they were doing to me, only that it made me feel dirty, but they said if I told anyone I would be taken away from my mammy.

The night before I was to make my first holy communion, aged seven - a very special day in the life of a Catholic child - one of these boys raped me. The pain was worse than anything my father had done to me and the following day it hurt even to put one foot in front of the other.

A few months afterwards, my father told me he and a nun were taking me on a trip to the seaside. I was baffled but utterly overjoyed and insisted on wearing my communion dress for the occasion.

However, we never made it to the seaside. It was a cruel trick my father had played to lure me to a home for "problem children" run by nuns. As we arrived at the front door of the grim, forbidding building, he grabbed me roughly by the hand and said: "You're going to be staying here for a while."

I was devastated and cried to go home to my mammy. The Reverend Mother told me: "You are here to do what you are told. There will be no more of your bold behaviour."

I was then put to work, scrubbing and cleaning, with the rest of the girls imprisoned there. We were beaten with belts for what was seen as misbehaviour, however slight. I was also given the job of clearing away the religious implements after Mass on Sunday. At first the priest pretended to be nice to me and said he would help me to get out of the reformatory school and back home.

But then he started touching me and putting his hands into my pants.

He would reach under his robes and rub himself at the same time.

When I complained he said: "Well, you do want to go home, don't you?" before reminding me not to tell anyone what had gone on.

A few months after my arrival I was allowed home for Christmas.

I couldn't wait to see my mother and was sure she would prevent my father sending me back to the home. But she couldn't stop him and was threatened that, if she tried, my father would send her away too.

BACK at the home, the abuse from the priest got worse and, locking me in the Reverend Mother's office, he would rape me.

I decided I had to tell the nun what was going on, hopeful she would stop it.

Instead, she took me to a psychiatrist at the local hospital, who signed the necessary papers to have me committed, aged 10, to a mental institution.

There I was reunited with other girls from the home who had made similar allegations about the priest.

They drugged me with something which I have since discovered was commonly prescribed for schizophrenia and mania. It left me like a zombie.

I was also given electric shock treatment. When I tried to run away they increased the drug dose.

Two years later I was called to the office, where the psychiatrist told me I was being sent to a new school. While I hated it in the hospital, I was terrified of where I might end up next.

However, I was taken in a taxi to yet another institution, a convent which was to be my new home.

The Reverend Mother was waiting for me and said: "You have been sent here because you still have not learned how to behave. You are here to work, and work you will."

I was handed an overall and led to what looked like a huge shed. Inside, the noise of clanking, churning machinery was overwhelming and there were clouds of steam swirling around.

The place stank of chemicals, detergent and sweat and was unbearably hot.

This was the first sight I got of a Magdalene laundry.

I was 12 years old and I had just been delivered to hell.

ADAPTED BY HELEN CARROLL








May 22, 2006 Monday
YOURLIFE: MY STAY IN PRISON WAS A RELIEF;
PART 2 OF OUR UNMISSABLE BOOK SERIALISATION

ADAPTED BY HELEN CARROLL


BEATEN cruelly by her father and raped on the eve of her first communion, Kathy O'Beirne silently endured a hellish childhood.

She emerged from a mental institution, only to be sent to one of the infamous Irish Magdalene laundries, where the torture and torment continued. Here, Kathy, now in her 40s and from Clondalkin, Dublin, tells how she is fighting for justice for herself and her fellow Magdalene girls.

'AFTER a day in the furnace-like atmosphere of the laundry I would collapse into bed, exhausted. The nuns considered the Maggies, as we were known, to be the scum of the earth - sinners who would never earn redemption and fallen women heading straight for the burning fires of hell.

The Devil himself could not have dreamed up a better hell than the Magdalene laundry.

We were on our feet literally all day, while mice and rats scuttled around us. When a Maggie died a black cross was placed on her body by the nuns. It's a symbol of the Devil and used to ensure that the deceased went straight to hell. Her body was then wrapped in a sheet and dumped in a mass grave.

When we tried to escape, the nuns, with the help of the police, would hunt us down and take us back. On Sundays we were visited by members of various lay groups, who would lecture us and give us holy medals and cards.

One of these visitors, a man much older than me, singled me out and gave me sweets and cigarettes.

We would sometimes go walking together and one Sunday he led me to a big green shed in the convent grounds. Once we were out of sight he pulled me to the ground, put his hand over my mouth and raped me.

When he had finished I pulled myself from underneath him and ran back to the convent with tears streaming down my face. I told the other girls what had happened and they weren't shocked. One said: "Why do you think they come to visit here?" She warned me not to report it or I would end up back in a mental asylum.

I was so innocent that I had no idea what was happening to me when, months later, my stomach began to swell. I was completely shocked when an older woman said to me: "You are probably having a baby."

A month before my 14th birthday I gave birth to a baby girl, weighing 4lbs 3ozs. Annie was a beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed little thing. She was also very sick with a rare bowel condition. Sad though that made me, it at least meant that she would not meet the same fate as other babies born to the Maggies.

They were taken from their mothers, shipped off to America and sold to wealthy couples.

I got to spend three blissful months with my daughter in a mother-and-baby home before being sent back to slave labour in the laundry.

The nuns kept Annie, and I lived for the few weekends I was allowed to go visit her.

Around the time of my 15th birthday my friend Patricia and I managed to escape from the laundry and went on the run for several weeks. Penniless, we were eventually arrested for shoplifting and terrified that we would be returned to the laundry.

It was a huge relief to instead be sent to Dublin's Mountjoy prison. The three months I spent there were the happiest of my young life - a breeze compared to life in a Magdalene laundry. I was fed, clothed, treated like a human being and never beaten. In the years that followed I was back in the control of the nuns, with visits to Annie the only bright points.

Aged 17, after losing my temper through frustration and punching out windows, I was sent to another mental hospital.

There I saw a psychiatrist who was the first person ever to listen to what I had been through.

She kept her promise to have me released from the hospital, and soon afterwards a social worker found me a flat.

Without doubt the most painful time of my life was losing my precious daughter when she was only 10 years old.

Annie died as a result of her bowel condition and it is a loss from which I will never recover.

I've spent the past few years piecing together my past and gaining recognition for everything my friends and I suffered while in the care of the nuns.

Recently Ireland's appalling record of child abuse and the neglect of children in state-run institutions was pushed to the top of the political and media agenda following the broadcast of a documentary series called States Of Fear.

I, like many others, am now fighting for compensation through the Residential Institutions Redress Board, though it will never heal the scars.

At the same time, I am determined to ensure a headstone is erected at the mass grave which became the final resting-place of my fellow Maggies - innocent girls condemned as sinners by the nuns.

The headstones will recount the history of the Magdalene laundries and dignify the memory of all the women who died there.'

When a 'Maggie' died a black cross was placed on her by the nuns


The Mirror

Wednesday, August 23, 2006

'Pull the Book' Campaign - Letter and supporters list.

If you agree that a book with serious allegations ( in this case against a parent, the medical profession, and a religious congregation ) should be recalled from sale until proven authentic, please contact me with the name of your group, or individuals that wish to support our 'David and Goliath' action.

This letter will be sent, with the supportors list to Mainstream publishers and the primary sales points where the book is on sale ie the book shops and supermarkets.

Child abuse always sells - but what if the story is untrue - it's a mockery of all children ever abused, and that's abuse repeated again, but in this case aided by the publishers in the name of profit.
We will add to this list as the groups and individuals come in.


Florence Horsman Hogan. fhorsmanhogan@eircom.net .

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Body of Letter and support list.
Sir / Madame,

'Kathy's Story' we know is now claimed to be for the main part, a work of fiction, by her own family as well as the religious congregation in whose Magdalene laundries she claims to have been resident.

Are Mainstream prepared to state as you have done before that you have carried out back round checks, and are 100% behind the details of the book ?.Are Mainstream prepared to indicate in what way the allegations were verified to 100% certainty.
If not the onus is on you the publisher to withdraw, investigate, and publish the results of the investigation.
How much responsibility does Michael Sherridan, the books co author have for verification of the allegations made.


Marketing this book as an autobiography allegedly destroys the name of an innocent man (according to the authors own family), brings into disrepute the Irish psychiatric services,and vilifies a religious congregation (The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity)with no substantiation other than Ms O'Beirne's word.

Ms O'Beirne can only have documentary evidence for her 6 week stay in St Annes in Kilmacud, Dublin when she was 11 years old (1967), her stays in St 'X' psychiatric hospital, and her stays in Mountjoy prison.

Have you seen the birth and death cert of 'Annie'(early 70's?),have you seen documentation specific to High Park laundry in Dublin, (early 70's?).
And has Ms O'Beirne been able to name or even describe any of the nuns working there at the time?.

These are only some of the key questions to which we are sure you won't have answers to.

I request, in the name of the following support groups and individuals, that the book 'Kathy's Story' and the spin off 'Don't Ever Tell' be removed from the shelves of all of the bookshops and supermarkets internationally until investigated.

If not, these bookshops, supermarkets etc are facilitating fraud.The fact that 'Kathy's Story' is on the British and Irish bestseller lists, and is now on sale as far abroad as Austrailia is indicitive of how well books on child abuse sell.
Florence Horsman Hogan. 23-08-06.
_____________________________________________________________________________________ SUPPORT GROUPS.

1)Let Our Voices Emerge (L.O.V.E). Shankill, Co. Dublin. email: info@voicesemerge.org

2)False Allegations of Carers and Teachers.(F.A.C.T.)P.O.Box 3074, Cardiff,C.F.3WZ.email: sec@factuk.org.

3) The Alliance Victim Support Group, 30 Castle Gdns, Richhill, Co. Armagh. BT 619QL.email: info@alliancesupport.org.

4) The Kerlaw Support Group, Glasgow, Scotland. email: mail@kerlawscandal.co.uk.

5)Website support: Family Media Association: http://www.fma.ie/

SUPPORT INDIVIDUALS.

1) Florence Horsman Hogan. Seaview Wood, Shankill, Co. Dublin.

2) J. Harrison, Merseyside. Englamd.


3) F. Harrison, Merseyside. England.

4) L. Gibbons, Merseyside. England.

5. J. Evans, Merseyside. England.

6. A. Burrows, Merseyside. Eng.

7. B. Strettle, Cheshire. Eng.

8. D. Strettle, Cheshire. Eng.

9. L. Sutcliffe,Lancashire. Eng.

10. P. Sutcliffe, Lancs. England.

11. J. Horrocks, Cheshire. England.

12. G.Stack, Cheshire.

13. M.Sutcliffe, Lancashire, England.

14. Mrs B. Galvin, Ballybrack, Co. Dublin.

15) Mrs F. Clarke,Main St., Eyrecourt, Co. Galway.

16) Mr. Tom Hayes, Castle Gdns, Richill, Co. Armagh.Northern Ireland.

17) Mr John Scanlon, Bantry, Co. Cork.Ireland.

18) Mr Jim O'Sullivan, Czardas, Bantry, Co. Cork.Ireland.

19) Ms F.Howard, Eyrecourt, Co. Galway, Ireland.

20) Diane Nolan, Glasgow, Scotland.

21)Rory Connor, 11 Lohunda Grove Dublin 15.

22)John Easling, Brisbane, Austrailia.

Tuesday, August 22, 2006

Comments and concerns regarding Kathy's Story.

If you would like to post a comment or give your opinion on this issue, please send them to Florence at fhorsmanhogan@eircom.net and they will be forwarded for posting.If you don't want your comment posted, just mark 'not for posting'.
If you would like your name added to the support list, please say so - initials and vague address will only be posted, but full name and address are needed for verification.
Kind regards,
Honora.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
First Page of the story.

I am running down a long corridor. At the end of it there is a door with a bright shaft of sunlight shining through a glass pane. It is like a light from heaven. Beyond the door is the sunlight, the deep-blue sky and a golden beach that stretches on forever beside the rolling white waves. It is where I want to be, making sandcastles, feeling the heat of the sun and swimming in the sea. My happy childhood. My heaven. When I reach the door, I am almost blinded by the light. I try to open the door but there is no handle and there are bars on the glass. I bang my hands against the bars and scream but no one can hear me. I hear the echo of the footsteps on the floor of the corridor coming slowly towards me. I close my eyes as I kneel and clasp my hands. Tears flow down my cheeks as the footsteps stop behind me. Above me, the light fades and the sun, sea and sand disappear into a black night with no moon. I am plunged into the darkness of my unhappy childhood. I grip the bars and scream with pain, humiliation, anger and hate. I am a child in the cruel grip of an unending nightmare. A child should have happy memories to balance the normal pains of growing up but I have few or none. I never made it to the sea of my childhood heaven; instead, behind the locked door, I was consigned to a hell of beatings and abuse. Tears replace laughter, pain replaced pleasure. Love was destroyed by hate. There was darkness instead of light. My childhood was one long scream of suffering which has haunted all of my adult life. Although I am now able to express myself more clearly, when I recount early my experiences it is in the stark voice of the tortured child I was then. I had great difficulty in recalling some of the worst experiences because for most of my life I had repressed the memories. This is the natural self-defense mechanism of the abused. There are still some events that I find it impossible to talk about.'

_____________________________________________________________________________________
Comments.

Sent: Tuesday, August 22, 2006 11:18 PM
Subject: Kathy's Story. To Mainstream Publishers.

I would strongly urge you to consider that the above book which you are promoting as an autobiography contains many factual errors.

Several members of Ms. O'Beirne's family have clearly stated that she was never in the Magdalene laundry ; they have strongly contradicted many of her claims in the book and state that it is full of fabrication and untruths. If this is the case, this book, in which Ms. O'Beirne contradicts herself on several occasions, is causing a lot of suffering to many innocent people; If it is proven that allegations made in the book are untrue, it is essential that these be checked before publication. The book should not be published prior to establishing the facts of the situation

John Scanlan,
Bantry,
Co. Cork

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

'Kathy's Story' The Alliance Support Group support all efforts to have this Fictional Book removed from publication. It is clearly a Scam.

For too long people such as Kathy and others have been allowed to say whatever they liked about the Religious and Institutions without challenge. Let your support and ours be a warning to Kathy and others that we will seek justice for the genuine victims while exposing the many false stories and articles that have become commonplace over the years from unscrupulous people. (many former members of these Institutions)who have done so for personal gain at the expense of genuine victims.

Tom Hayes
Secretary

_____________________________________________________________________________________


'The mere fact that unsubstantiated stories can make the
best seller lists says a lot about the world that we live in today. What
happens when these stories are found to be untrue? People go and look for
the next 'horror' story without having learned any lessons from the last.
When this happens it is the real victims of abuse that suffer, as they
cannot get anyone to listen to their story.

Diane Nolan, Founder of The
Kerelaw Support Group.'
web: http://www.kerelawscandal.co.uk
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Regarding the tall tales told by Kathy O'Beirne, people may care to look at the "Magdalene Laundry Survivors" website which is run by Richard Wood.

(I hope the following link works but you can find it easily through Google anyway -
http://tethys.croydon.ac.uk/magdalenecircle.nsf/pages/HomePage).

While the website is very sympathetic to women who were in Magdalen Laundries, it is most unusual in that it gives BOTH sides of the story. See for example the sections on "Counter Arguments" and "Reactions to Kathy O'Beirne". See also the "Messages" section.

Nobody is completely impartial. We are all partisans of one side or the other. However it is important that we keep an open mind to the arguments of the other side. Kathy O'Beirne's book could only be a best-seller in a society that has lost its reason. Remember the famous definition of a Liberal - "a person so broad-minded that his brains have fallen out"!

Rory Connor
____________________________________________________________________________________

It's so disappointing to again see that the publishing world's lust for
scandal
and horror stories overrides their duty to confirm whether Kathie's story is
fact or fiction.

Horrific allegations are very easy to make, politically correct to believe,
lucrative to cash in on,
but society has a duty of care to fastidiously investigate and substantiate
allegations
which can, and often do, ruin innocent people's lives

John Easling , Australia
_____________________________________________________________________________________

DEAR FLORENCE,
SINCERE CONGRATULATIONS ON ALL YOUR WORK .
YOUR EFFORTS TO HAVE THE TRUTH KNOWN ABOUT KATHY ARE REALLY PRAISEWORTHY, ALL THE MORE SO AS COUNTLESS RELIGIOUS WHO HAVE BEEN FALSELY ACCUSED AND CLEARED ARE LOOSING HOPE OF ANY FAIRNESS IN THE MEDIA IN GENERAL, WITH THE EXCEPTION OF A FEW BRAVE SOULS,
THANK YOU MOST SINCERELY FOR ALL YOUR EFFORTS
GOD BLESS YOU AND ALL YOUR FAMILY
MICHAEL
____________________________________________________________________________________

I have just finished reading a transcript of Vincent Browne's Radio interview with Kathy O'Beirne author of the now infamous book "Don't ever Tell"

I never cease to be amazed that people are still now commonly known as "The Abuse Industry". It originated in North America and was in introduced to Ireland at the beginning of the Nineties. It proved to be very successful and a God send for the media who made the most of the opportunity of earning a quick buck . Members of the media have to make a living and it was an easy task to indulge the insatiable appetite of the Irish people for ordure. It is apparent now that they were on a winner as this book has been on the best sellers list in Ireland for over three months now.

I haven't read the book but I heard enough from reading the aforementioned transcript that it contains nothing more than a rehash of hundreds of similar stories told on Radio /shown on Television and in the cinema. How people are not bored with the same repetitive garbage is un believable. It must be that Religious bashing is unfashionable with those who have pretensions of being "hip and cool"/pseudo intellectuals and neo hippies.

It would be an interesting thesis for a Post Graduate in Economics or related discipline to study the success of the Abuse Industry I am reminded of the Nora Wall case where she was con convicted of "gang rape" (Judge Carneys words) and sentenced to life imprisonment. Her two accusers recanted the evidence because they weren't told that Nora would be convicted ".They" told them(the accusers) that if they told a few fibs they would get big money and nothing would happen to Nora. Would the study ever find out who the "THEY are. Are they members of a cartel or acting independently. Do they get a commission when the so called abused receive their awards either in the Courts or the Redress Board.

A Social Science Post Grad could do a thesis on those in the Irish Society who having no economic gain continue to perpetuate a hate and malicious campaign against the Religious.

Reviewers of the book accepted without question everything it contained as if it was Sacred Scripture. I was particularly interested in one by Diane E. Griffith (Romolus) MI USA. ) and I quote "Ms.O'Brien tells a bitter painful tale of abuse the most horrifying is"that it is all true" How does Ms Griffith know this ? She has adduced no evidence to support a single allegation She doesn't even get the name right.



To all those concerned -so called survivors of child abuse/ Mafia styled Godfathers and members of the media

Have a nice day

Bridget Galvin

2 September "2006
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Launch of International Campaign.

An International campaign has been launched by the Let Our Voices Emerge charity (L.O.V.E.) to get the book 'Kathy's Story' removed from sales until the publishers Mainstream can verify how they've authenticated the serious allegations of abuse made against the Irish medical profession, the authors father and a religious congregation.

The L.O.V.E. charity maintain it was impossible for them to do so - as Kathy empathically was not in a Magdalene laundry.
She was however in a childrens home in Kilmacud, Dublin for 6 weeks only. She was also an inpatient in a psychiatric unit, and spent some time in Mountjoy prison.
These are the only institutions she can possibly have documentary proof of.
She also seems strangely reluctant to either be able to describe any of the sisters who abused her so horrifically, or indeed, provide a death or birth cert for her daughter 'Annie'.

This book has caused irreparable damage to the reputation of Ms O'Beirne's father (who has passed away and so can't defend his good name) , the Irish psychiatric services, and the religious congregation she claims abused her so horrifically.
Kathy's siblings, who defend their father, state they were not approached by the publishers on the allegations of abuse against him.

In the name of all genuinely abused children, both from Irish society as well as the institutions, and all who have suffered false allegations of child abuse, we are asking that the book be withdrawn from sales pending a full investigation.

Ms O'Beirne has issued threats to the founder of the L.O.V.E. charity to picket outside the family home unless this campaign is stopped. This has caused considerable distress to the children, this is highly inappropriate, but will not succeed as a bullying tactic.

If Ms O'Beirne would just provide the documentation she continually states she has to prove she was in a Magdalene laundry to the many journalists who ask her for it, the matter would be solved.

See the following link for the letter to the publishers and list of support groups and individuals (will be updated on an ongoing basis).

Send comments to fhorsmanhogan@eircom.net

http://kathystoryscam.blogspot.com/

Please pass this on or put on website as a permanent link. Continual updates will be provided as the campaign advances.
Kind regards,
Florence Horsman Hogan: Let Our Voices Emerge Charity. http://www.voicesemerge.org .

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Kathy threatens Florence Horsman Hogan.23-08-06.

As one of the leading campaigners to have the book 'Kathy's Story pulled from the shelves and investigated , I suppose it's only inevitable that I would get a call from Kathy herself.

However, the call only stregnthened my concern that Ms O'Beirne is not a very well woman to say the least. She made some fairly outragious remarks, one to the effect that she's had 300 support calls since yesterday evening - thats at least 15 calls an hour for the past 20 hours (she called at 17:50 pm). Also invited me to her case in the High Courts next week, but wouldn't tell me what it's about, in which case I declined the kind invitation.

There were a number of other fairly bizzare remarks, but one I took exception to - she's threatened to bring out gangs to picket our home.

Now thats not nice !. For a start off this is a family home with children ( and a rabbitt, and dog ), but also I don't like threats, particularly from bullies.Evidently she seems pretty annoyed about remarks made by her family in last weeks Sunday Mirror, and decided I was calling her a liar because of my involvement.
How absurd, I say the book needs verification, and she takes that to mean she's a liar !.

The Gardai in Clontarf were really nice, yes, they do know Kathy, yes she's relativly harmless, yes, it might be advisable to file a report to our Gardai here in Shankill. I like the garda, they're always very helpful to the Horsman Hogan teenagers - even gave them a lift home in the squad car once or twice ( had to catch them first tho'!).
Florence Horsman Hogan. fhorsmanhogan@eircom.net.

____________________________________________________________________________________



Best selling Author issues Threatening phone Call to family.23-08-06.

Statement from LOVE

Last night the author of the best selling book 'Kathy's Story' rang the home of Florence Horsman Hogan of Let Our Voices Emerge (L.O.V.E.), making many strange allegations, but more worryingly, threatening to picket the private residence due to the 'quest for truth campaign' Ms
Horsman Hogan has waged against the book.

The gardai in Clontarf, and Shankill were notified of Ms O'Beirnes call and threats. 'This campaigh is a matter of
truth and record and does not require any action which could alarm or upset to the Horsman Hogan children'.

'Evidently Ms O'Beirne is unhappy at her family coming forward last Sunday to deny her allegations in the book' states Ms Horsman Hogan, but she can't bully any of us by threats .

This remarkable and courageous development by the O Beirne family has at last delivered a well deserved hammer blow to the credibility of this 'horrific fairytale'.

Ms O Beirne may have totally fooled a publishing house and some sections of the media - but the chickens
have now come home to roost - and her story based mostly on Magdalen Homes is shown to be nothing more than a tissue of lies and fantacy. Not a shred of evidence or a single witness has been presented by Kathy or her
publishers (Mainstream)to show she was in a laundry or Magdalen Home.

We will not be bullied by Ms O'Beirne, and if she thinks threatening me with a picket on my family home is going to make us back down, she can think again.

Kathy can produce the evidence now required at anytime and I will put it on the LOVE website - in the interests of justice and fairness for all involved.


The book must to be pulled from the shelves until it's authenticity is verified - and we will keep going until it is'. Florence Horsman Hogan. 01-2821414. / 0886-8762148.
END.

Monday, August 21, 2006

Various Statements from nuns and Kathy's Family.

9 October 2003

Statement from the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity.

On Tuesday 7th October the name of a recently deceased person and explicit personal details about her life were broadcast by the Liveline programme, RTE. We believe that her family were not informed of this prior to the broadcast. We also knew this woman very well - and we know she would not have wanted her private life discussed in this way.

The programme makers called a housekeeper in one of our houses less than an hour before the programme was broadcast. We were not made aware of this until after the broadcast of the programme - so were given no opportunity to protect this woman’s privacy or correct the many untruths in the programme.

Despite suffering from a serious and terminal illness this woman died rather suddenly in the Mater Hospital in July. She had been visited by a Sister the evening before her passing, which occurred between two and three am.

Her family who were in ongoing contact with us were informed of her passing and attended her funeral. We had had contact with another section of her family and we had a contact number and address. We spent two days calling this number - and eventually asked the Gardai to visit the address we had. We did not know that the person had changed address until yesterday. Despite our efforts to contact this section of this woman's family we regret very much that contact had not been made. We believed it had been.

The deceased woman had fully professional nursing and medical care in a modern nursing home throughout her illness. When her illness needed further attention she was referred to the Mater - where she was visited by friends, family and Sisters.

A special funeral service was arranged which was attended by family and friends. There was a special booklet prepared with her name on it. The Chaplain for the nursing home who knew her very well said the Mass and spoke about her. The Mass was also concelebrated by two other priests who knew her. The Mass included singing as did the service at the graveside. This woman was buried in a community plot in Glasnevin Cemetery. Her name will be put on the headstone by the undertaker. This grave is maintained by the Sisters of our Lady of Charity. This is no reference to penitents or magdalens on the headstone. After the burial service all present all were invited to refreshments by the Sisters.

We must also point out that the Sister of Our Lady of Charity never ran mother and baby homes or an adoption agency. No babies were ever born or buried in High Park.

As we pointed out in a statement yesterday - criticising sisters and broadcasting allegations about sisters that have not been proven at any forum is now the norm. This has become part of our daily lives. We have only decided to speak on this issue as a woman who we know valued her privacy had her name and intimate details about her life broadcast to the nation on Tuesday. If this is ok with the Irish media then perhaps we will have to live with this as well. We simply ask that some controls are considered that will protect others from this type of exposure.

Letter from the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity

Presenter and Producers Lifeline

Dear Mr Duffy,

You and other journalists have taken our good name many times in the past without asking for corroboration or verification. We do not use litigation to protect ourselves - so you can say what you want and allow others to say what they want.

When you undermine the life of a decent woman who willingly spent most of her life with us, we must speak out.

Yesterday, you, as a professional journalist, presented a programme that was biased, prejudiced and lacking in truth.

You also hurt innocent people, without any attempt to check the facts or get corroboration.

You named a woman on your programme and broadcast the most sensitive personal details about her, which during her life she had endeavoured to hold in confidence. Who authorised you to release these details - certainly not us and not her family.

This woman, a friend and resident of ours, died recently after a long and incurable illness. Professional nursing and caring staff, sisters and the local doctor attended her in the final months and weeks in our nursing home. Family members, friends, staff and sisters attended her funeral Mass and burial, which were carried out with the utmost dignity.

This matter is too serious for you and your producers to treat as entertainment. You are dealing with real people, our present residents, past residents, staff and sisters.

Yours sincerely,

Sisters of Our Lady of Charity.

cc Director General RTE
Head of Radio, RTE
Other Media




June 24rd 2005

STATEMENT FROM SISTERS OF OUR LADY OF CHARITY OF HIGH PARK AND SEAN MCDERMOTT STREET

We have decided that it is necessary for us to issue a statement in response to the recently published book “Kathy’s Story” and Kathy O’Beirne’s interview on the Vincent Brown’s Radio Programme on Wednesday night last. (22nd June)

It appears to us that although Kathy O’Beirne is careful not to specifically mention our order in her book, she is asserting that she spent a considerable length of time as a resident with us and working in one of the laundries operated by us in the past.

We can categorically state that Kathy O’Beirne did not spend any time in our laundries or related institutions. We met Kathy O’Beirne in the past year for the purposes of clarifying this with her.

On a point of general information, we would like to state that although our order operated a number of residential homes for women and girls, our rules precluded us from accepting pregnant girls. As a result, no pregnant girls ever worked in the laundries operated by us and no child was ever born in any of our premises. We therefore never had anything to do with the adoption of or placement of any child.

We would also like to state that Kathy O’Beirne repeatedly refers to “a mass grave for the female penitents” located at the Glasnevin cemetery. In fact, we have no grave at that location and the photographs produced by Kathy O’Beirne of a large stone cross in the Glasnevin Cemetery actually depict a monument rather than a headstone of a grave. This monument was erected by a member of the order in the first part of the last century as a memorial to women of the "Monto" area and not to any women who was in our care.

Regarding her allegations about women being buried without death certificates a full research has been done on those who died in the care or our order and names and death certificates have been identified. The history of our order in Ireland is being written and we hope to have it ready for publication next year.

As the allegations being made by Kathy are so serious, we are now writing to the Minister for Justice to ask him to have Kathy’s allegations investigated. We will fully co-operate with such an investigation and we trust Kathy will do likewise.

Although Kathy’s story is a horrific one, in the interest of fairness and justice to all, it is important that the facts of her story are clarified and verified.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Statement from The Sisters of our Lady of Charity to the Sunday Mirror 10 August 2006

The Sisters of our Lady of Charity wish to emphatically and categorically state that Kathy O Beirne never spent any time in our laundries or related institutions, commonly known as Magdalen Homes. A professional archivist has checked our records in detail and there is no reference to Kathy O Beirne. We have spoken to Sisters, lay staff and women who worked in the laundries and there is no recollection of Kathy O Beirne. In fact we know all of the women who worked in our laundries in the latter years - and Kathy O Beirne is not one of them.

We also note that Kathy has not produced any evidence or witnesses to show she was in one of our laundries or Magdalen Homes.

Kathy O Beirne recently confirmed to a national paper that she spent time with us in a Children’s institution – and her publicly stating this allows us to confirm that this is the case – and this was for a very brief period. For some reason this very specific and totally verifiable information was not used in her books.

The institution in question was under the auspices of the Department of Education and had no link whatsoever either geographically or in terms of management or in any other way with laundries or Magdalen homes.

Again we wish to categorically state that we have no further documents relating to Kathy O Beirne in our possession – and this has been confirmed by an archivist.

Again to note that all four religious congregations, including ourselves, who ran laundries in Ireland confirmed to the Irish Independent in 2004 that Kathy O Beirne never spent time in any of their laundries.

ends
_____________________________________________________________________________________
This is the nuns response to Mainstream publishers claim that the allegations in the book were only contested recently. Book published April 05.
Mr Cambell is on record in this weeks Sunday Times claiming the controversy over this book has only started recently, 18 months after publication,yet he's also on record with Sun Independent, July 05, as stating he's standing by the book despite the denials of the Sisters, only two months after publication.

In their statement sent to Liveline RTE, last night, Mainstream state they are willing to fight this in court if necessary, LOVE and the family would very much welcome this move, as it's the only way to get it into the courts. The family can't sue as none of them were named, the religious congregation can't sue as none of them were named, but if Mainstream bring it to court, they will be forced to produce the evidence they claim they have. They claim they have taped evidence of a meeting with a child protection officer, and a nun, confirming Kathy's stay in the laundries.
Let them produce it for hearing in public, where the voices can be identified, if such a tape exists.

Regards,
Florence Horsman Hogan.

19th Sept 2006
Statement from the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity.

On the 21st April 2005 our solicitors wrote to Mr Michael Sheridan based on articles he had written linking Kathy O Beirne to our laundries and Magdalene Homes. A copy of this letter was also sent to Mainstream Publishers because we had seen some advanced publicity for Kathy s book. In the letter it was categorically stated the only time Kathy O Beirne spent with us was for a six-week period in a reformatory school for young people. We received a curt response to this letter from Mr. Bill Campbell of Mainstream dated 11th May 2005. We also wish to point out again that after allegations by Kathy O Beirne in 2004 all four religious congregations who ran laundries confirmed to the Irish Independent that Kathy O Beirne never spent time in a laundry or Magdalene Home.

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Statement from the Family of Kathleen O’Beirne: 19-Sept.-06.

Our deepest gratitude to all of you , the media, for coming here today and giving us a chance to speak out. This is a very difficult thing for us to do, we love our sister, Kathleen, and wish to support her in any way we can, as we always have tried to do, but we have been left with no choice than to speak out on the true story of the O’Beirne family, and in particular, that of our sister, Kathleen.

We hope that in the name of our father and mother, Oliver and Anne O’Beirne and the O’Beirne family, you will now be able to bring this to the public and help us right a horrific miscarriage of justice, where an innocent man can be branded an abuser, and given no right to his good name in the interest of finiantial gain.


We would like to express our gratitude to the Let Our Voices Emerge charity, many of whose members have known the reality of child abuse, for their support. Without the balanced view they hold, which is to support those abused, while exposing fraudulent allegations, we would not have had this chance to bring our side of the story to all of you.

We the brothers and sisters of Kathleen O’Beirne, co author with Michael Sheridan, of the book,’ Kathy’s Story’ have come together to speak out in defence of our family name, and that of our father, Oliver O’Beirne, and simply to tell the truth.

In the book, our sister makes horrific allegations of abuse of child abuse against our father, a religious congregation, and a psychiatric hospital. We believe the vast majority of the allegations allegations to be untrue, and we now wish to present the real story.

We as a family are testimony to the fact that false and exaggerated allegations of child abuse can be made, and we can also testify that when they are made, the embarrassment, shock, and isolation involved are horrific.
The anger and frustration we feel at seeing our father branded worldwide as a horrific abuser is indescribable. One of our family only last Friday was subject to extremely distressing harassment from Mr Sheridan the co author, the same day, our sister tried to blackmail him to speak out for her, even tho he refused, he was quoted in a Sunday tabloid as supporting her.

Despite all of our efforts, Mr Bill Campbell of Mainstream publishers has refused to return our calls.


We noted a representative of the publishers, Mr Bill Campbell,is quoted in the Irish media over the weekend saying that he had checked the story with religious and we believe this to be totally untrue. We noted as for back as 2004 that all religious with laundries and Magdalene homes confirmed to the Irish media that Kathleen never spent time in a laundry and this clear statement of fact was simply ignored. Mr Campbell is on record as far back as July 05 as there being no question of pulling this book despite the denials. As this time we thought this would be the end of this madness – but clearly there was too much money to be made.

FACTS:
Our father was not an abuser, he worked extremely hard to feed, clothe and take care of us. Indeed, the suffering caused to our family due to Kathleen’s psychological problems would have driven any other person to extremes of despair.

Our sister Kathleen is not adopted as she has tried to claim, we have her birth certificate to prove it, and the family resemblance as you can see speaks for itself.

Our sister was not in a Magdalene laundry, or Magdalene Home, she was in St Anne’s Children’s Home, Kilmacud, St Lomans psychiatric hospital, Mount joy Prison, and Sherrard House for homeless people. Our parents placed her in St Anne’s for a brief period when she was eleven, because of ongoing behavioural difficulties.

Kathleen stated she was in a Magdalene home from when she was 12 to fourteen, and became pregnant as a result of rape there when she was thirteen. These are the years 1968 to 1970.
As with any allegations that only emerge years later we have had to use the best method we could think of to remember . We chose family activities.

1967: she was in St Annes Childrens Home, Kilmacud for 6 weeks.

1968: was at a cousin wedding , she still lived at home with us at this stage.

1968: Kathleen dressed our sister Mary, for our mothers return from hospital after having our sister Margaret. She still lived at home with us at this stage.

1969: Used to take Patsys new baby out for walks. She still lived at home with us at this stage.

1989/70 Brian and Kathy were in hospital together having their tonsils out.

1970: Made her confirmation with our brother Eamonn, she was 14. Still lived at home with us at this stage and did not have a child.

1968/69/70: Eamonn and Kathleen went to quarry playing with friends after school, and Saturdays. At this stage she lived at home. We also went went swimming in a local swimming spot, the ‘sandy hole’.

1968/69/70 : During the summer months, went swimming with Eamonn and friends in local swimming spot, the ‘sandy hole’.

1972 Was at Marys Holy Communion, as far as we can remember, she was still living at home. She would have been 16 years old.

1974: Eamonn met Ann,now his wife, Kathleen was living at home most of this time.

1975: Eamonn and Ann went to visit Kathy in Sherrard house. She would have been 19 years old.

1978, Mary, Margaret, Mam and Dad went to see her in Mountjoy.


Our sister did not have a child at the age of fourteen that she alleges died at the age of ten. Nor did she have the second child she claimed to have had, on the Liveline programme. Kathleen made this same claim as recently as five years ago, where she alleged to have been pregnant at 45 years old, but claimed the child was a stillbirth.
Despite a very difficult relationship with Kathleen, from a very young age, we have always known her – and we were always in contact with her and know where she was. We would certainly be very aware of the main events in her life.

Our sister, to our knowledge, was not raped by two priests, and did not receive an out of court settlement for the same. There is not a shred of evidence to support such outlandish claims, and we believe our sister was unco operative with the Gardai when such was being investigated last year.



Our sister has a self admitted psychiatric and criminal history, and her perception of reality has always been flawed. This has presented great problems for us, her family, our neighbours, and friends. This woman has broken our hearts, especially the hearts of our now deceased parents, with her behaviour in the past.


As with any family, we have our ups and downs, but thanks to the love and care our parents gave us, we have always cared for and supported one another. Any discipline carried out in our house was the same as for any family living in the 60’s and 70’s, no better,. And no worse. Even at a stage when most families would have disowned Kathleen, we have visited her in (name the places, institutions), and tried to protect her from herself. It is absolutely untrue that we turned our backs on her when she made her allegations (in the book only), against our father.


From this it is clear that our sister is a disturbed and troubled woman. Yet Mr Sherridan took the utterances of our sister and transcribed them in book form to the world as true fact. He wrote the book, based on her alleged experiences.


We are deeply sorry for all of the people who have bought this book believing it to be fact – and we can understand that many people will now feel hurt and conned – but we must tell the truth.
Mainstream publishers did not speak to us as a family, are callously refusing to listen to our appeals to remove this hoax publication from sales.

Tragically our sister, who has been a major player in this farce herself, is also being abused for profit. We hold the publishers Mainstream, and the co author, Michael Sherridan largely responsible, as it would have been perfectly clear to anyone who met our sister, that there were glaring flaws in her allegations. Mainstream did not carry out the necessary rigorous checks, if they had, this book would never have been published.

Statement of Oliver, Eamonn, Mary, Margaret, John, Tommy and Brian O’Beirne.

For press contact: Eamonn O’Beirne:
Florence Horsman Hogan: (LOVE): 086-8762148.

'Kathy's Story' starts to slip - Newspaper Articles.

NB: See 'Various Statements and letters' section for Sisters of Our Lady of Charity Statements regarding various claims by Mainstream Publishing, and Kathy O'Beirne.


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Orders dispute truth of woman's claims in book. Irish Independent. June. 05.

A dispute has broken out over the veracity of some of the claims made in a harrowing new book about life in the Magadalene homes.

The book, 'Kathy's Story', is written by Ms Kathy O'Beirne who says she was in a number of Magdalene homes where she was put to work in their laundries.
Ms O'Beirne was interviewed on the Vincent Brown radio show on Wednesday night.


However, the four religious orders that ran the now closed homes all say they have no record of Ms O'Beirne having been one of their residents. MsO'Beirne does not say in her book which homes she was present in, or which religious orders ran them. However, on the radio show, she mentioned High Park in Dublin, which was run by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity. Ms O'Beirne told The Irish Independent she had "all the records of having been in the institutions" adding she was not at liberty to name the institutions "because I would be sued". Ms O'Beirne also said that two clerics have paid her out-of-court settlements because of sexual abuse she says she suffered from them.

David Quinn. _____________________________________________________________________________________

The Irish Catholic July 28, 2005 by Hermann Kelly

Kathy’s Story: Is Truth the real victim?

Bestselling author, Kathy O’Beirne sensationally claims allegations of abuse at the hands of priests and nuns but has provided no evidence. Four Orders of nuns deny Kathy ever went to a Magdalen laundry. Now the Garda are investigating her latest claims. Hermann Kelly reports.Kathy’s Story is one of best selling books of the season, standing at number 6 in Eason’s best sellers list. It paints a dark picture of systematic abuse, both sexual, physical and psychological in a series of Dublin Magdalen laundries committed on a young girl called Kathy O’Beirne. It tells the disturbing story of a girl who suffered abuse within her own family before being committed into a residential school around 1970 at the age of eight. This was the first of six institutions which she claims she attended. She also claims to have been raped by two different priests, was forced to take part in a regime of “slave labour” and was corralled into drug trials in a mental hospital against her will.However the main assertion of her story, that she was abused while in Magdalen Laundries in Dublin has been completely dismissed by the four religious orders that ran the now closed laundries in Dublin. They have all countered they have no record of Ms O'Beirne having been one of their residents. In fact the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity which ran half the laundries in Dublin have asked the Justice Minister for a Garda inquiry into these allegations.Kathy confirmed that she spent six weeks in the care of The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity while still a child. The order did confirm that they ran institutions for young people totally separate from the laundries. They have met with her to confirm this and hand over a letter to her from her mother, which they had in their possession. While Kathy says she was in three Our Lady of Charity institutions, the Order itself has said that after an exhaustive trawl of their records by a professional archivist, no trace of Kathy can be found as ever having attended their laundries or adjoining accommodation.The statements of Kathy and the Order obviously contradict.One of the difficulties is that Kathy, who says she is in her mid 40s, does not state in her book which laundries she was in, or which religious order ran them. She writes in her book that “for legal reasons, I have not been able to name any of the institutions in which I was incarcerated or any of the people who abused me.”This inhibition has not prevented other people however, from talking about their abuse or making allegations of abuse against religious orders. A number of people have come out publicly and named the order and indeed the persons involved. They can prove they were there and have fellow-witnesses to back-up their presence there. How about Kathy? Meeting at Bewley’s Hotel in Newlands Cross last Friday, Kathy told The Irish Catholic she had been under the care of Sisters of Our Lady of Charity and had spent time in High Park Laundry in Dublin.After revealing that she had spent time with this specific order, Kathy later in the interview said, “ I was only ever abused in one of those laundries. There was one of the laundries I was in that was fine. I have nothing to say about that laundry.”In this particular laundry Kathy said she was looked after really well. One nun, she said, “saved a lot of girls from death by taking them in from the streets.”The Order had two laundries, one in High Park, Drumcondra and the other in Sean McDermott Street.Though claiming to have documentary evidence to show her stay in all the institutions, Kathy failed to show this journalist any documentary evidence demonstrating that she ever attended any of the institutions in the book. Neither the dates nor the full names of any living people who worked along with her in the laundries are named in the book either.When asked to name people who could prove to be corroborative witnesses to her time in the institutions, she declined to do so. Instead she said: “there are nuns who came to visit me, clergy who came to visit me, family who came to visit me, there are letters.” She also said she had photographs of herself and other girls from the laundries.Questioned on whether she was taking all the institutions in which she claimed she was abused to court, she replied that “I’m not saying, what I’m doing or what I’m not doing.”Asked if she had shown the documentary evidence to the Gardai who have investigated the matter over the last year, Kathy replied, “Well, I’m not going to make any comment on that.”Kathy told The Irish Catholic she did not receive an education during her time in these institutions: “I didn’t get any education. I was in school for a couple of days and that was it. I certainly didn’t get an education in any institution that I was in. Certainly not in the mental institution I was in because I was doped out of my brains all of the time.”She remains adamant however that she “has all her files showing that she was there.” I asked to see these files but again she declined.Amongst the most serious statements in Kathy’s book (page 120) is the allegation that the nuns stole babies from their mothers and sold them to America.That “beautiful babies were, as far as the nuns were concerned, human traffic to be sold for profit,” she writes.Sr Sheila Murphy, as regional leader of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity said this was totally untrue. “We had nothing to do with the buying or selling or the adoption of babies.” The laundries and related institutions of her specific order did not accept any girls who were pregnant at all, Sr Murphy told The Irish Catholic. Kathy said that “the Ledgers are there, they weren’t burnt or washed away in floods. The babies names and prices are there.” Again allegations were made but no ledgers or photocopies have been produced as proof.According to the publicity material in the 2005 catalogue of Mainstream Publishing which published her book: “At 13, back in another Magdalen Laundry, Kathy was raped and became pregnant. Poorly from birth, her baby Kelly Anne, spent the rest of her short life in a home run by nuns and when she died she was interred in a mass grave. Kathy still doesn’t know where her baby is buried.”I asked Kathy about the burial of her child and she flatly contradicted the publishers publicity: “Who was buried in a mass grave? Who told you that? You want to get your facts right.” When I pointed out it was in the publishers press release, she said they had “got their facts wrong. There is nothing about her being buried in a mass grave in the book.” She added that her daughter, “was very well looked after by the nuns.”Sr Sheila Murphy pointed out that only babies are buried in a Holy Angels plot, not 10 year old children. Sr Sheila Murphy suggested that for a ten year old child buried in the mid- 1980’s surely there would be a birth certificate and death certificate? And asked what institution the child was put in?Kathy also told The Irish Catholic that she had spent time in Magdalen Laundries with a woman called Maggie Bullen. “We spent a couple of years together. I knew Maggie very well. That’s why I aired her story because I was so upset, the way she was buried.” Maggie died two years ago at the age of 52 and was buried in Glasnevin.For the first time, Kathy admitted it was she who spoke using the name ‘Elizabeth’ on the Joe Duffy Liveline radio programme on October 7, 2003 about Maggie Bullen’s burial. On that two hour radio programme under the assumed name ‘Elizabeth’, Kathy as well as other callers made a number of serious allegations.After a radio listener complained about the lack of accuracy and balance in the programme the Broadcasting Complaints Commission (BCC) upheld the complaint. In its decision the BCC said: “This programme purported to be factually based. However, significant inaccurate claims made during the programme went unchallenged. The programme approached an emotive subject from a biased perspective and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity were not afforded a fair right of reply.”‘Elizabeth’ claimed on Liveline that Maggie Bullen’s name was not put on the headstone, that the nuns were living like the ‘Queen Mother’ while Maggie was in a ‘pauper’s grave.’ She said on national radio; “The Nuns killed her, the nuns destroyed her, they took her babies off her, they destroyed her,....”. She went on further to claim that “the babies were wrapped in sheets, and thrown into holes, unmarked graves, they weren’t even buried in consecrated ground, so maybe she [Maggie] is lucky where she is.”However, the BCC said that significant inaccurate details included: -“ that Ms. Bullen was buried in a mass grave; that the Nuns lived in the lap of luxury compared to the conditions they made Ms. Bullen live in; there was no eulogy given at Ms. Bullen's funeral mass; the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity was a 'mothers and baby's home'; and that the family were not informed of Ms. Bullen's death.”According to the BCC: ”The programme contained many factual inaccuracies and the Commission further was of the view that the attempts made to contact the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity do not appear to have been sufficient. The complaint was upheld.”The Sisters of our Lady of Charity pointed out that Maggie Bullen had a well attended funeral attended by three priests, religious sisters and many friends. A funeral homily was given by a priest who knew her, a special Mass booklet in her honour was prepared for the occasion and she was buried in a burial plot and her name was inscribed on the headstone. Nuns from the order visited her regularly while in hospital and a very close nun friend visited her on the day before she died.In addition, one woman rang in during the show to say, how in her personal experience, the women in the nursing home were cared for very well by the nuns.But to The Irish Catholic, Kathy said Maggie “ was buried in what the nun’s called a communal grave, but any grave with more than six bodies in it is a mass grave. That’s were she is buried.”Kathy has made ‘mass grave’ allegations in other quarters. During an interview on the ‘Tonight with Vincent Brown Show’ on June 22, Kathy claimed there were “hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bodies buried on the lands of the Magdalen Laundries all around Dublin and around the country and in Letterfrack. And they did not die from being undernourished. A lot of these children were murdered.”After similar claims of murders and a mass grave in Letterfrack, the Gardai set up a special investigation centre in Clifden to which 7 Gardai were assigned on a full time basis for over two years from November 1999 to the summer of 2002. In January 2003, Superintendent Tony O’Dowd told The Irish Catholic that “there is no evidence available that would suggest that foul play led to the deaths of anybody buried inside or outside of the cemetery at the old Industrial School in Letterfrack.” The Superintendent added that “there was no evidence of a mass grave.”The vast divergence in the claims of both Kathy O’Beirne and the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity may soon be coming to a head. After the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity called on Minister Michael McDowell to initiate an investigation the Garda Commissioner, Noel Conroy on July 6 appointed a Detective Superintendent to “examine the issues raised” in their letter. Added to this heady mix is the word from Kathy that she is in the process of writing a second book. This will be music to the ears of Mainstream Publishers in Edinburgh who have already sold rights to the first book to international clients for a fee. Kathy told The Irish Catholic that her group of ex-Magdalen girls, called ‘Care and Share’ were going to organise a march in Dublin last Saturday and she herself was going to start a hunger-strike to air her grievances. Hopefully, time will tell who is telling the truth.
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NO RECORD OF HELL AUTHOR IN LAUNDRY'

Sunday Independent, 3rd July 2005 by Lara Bradley

EXCLUSIVE

IT was the surprise best-seller on the summer book market - a bleak tale told by a brave survivor of rape and abuse within the infamous Magdalene laundries.
But the nuns who ran the institutions have rejected her story and claimed that Kathy O'Beirne - author of Kathy's Story: A Childhood Hell Inside the Magdalene Laundries - was never a resident.
The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity have now written to the Minister for Justice Michael McDowell demanding Ms O'Beirne's claims are properly investigated.
The book opens with an author's note: "For legal reasons, I have not been able to name any of the institutions in which I was incarcerated or any of the people who abused me."
Ms O'Beirne claims to have been repeatedly raped and became pregnant while a resident in the Magdalene laundry at High Park, Dublin and said she was also a resident of a similar laundry at Sean McDermott Street.
The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity ran both laundries. The order has never agreed to be interviewed, but were so appalled by the allegations they spoke last night to the Sunday Independent.
Senior archivist Sister Theresa said: "We are very careful about confidentiality as people's reputations are sacred to us whether they are dead or alive. Our girls came to us because they needed help.
"Kathy should produce evidence of where she was and when. Where is the child's birth certificate? Why has it taken 30 years to find? I am very sorry, the girl is clearly very traumatised."
A statement issued by the order said: "We can categorically state that Kathy O'Beirne did not spend any time in our laundries or related institutions. We met Kathy O'Beirne in the past year for the purposes of clarifying this with her.
"As the allegations made by Kathy are so serious we are now writing to the Minister for Justice to ask him to have Kathy's allegations investigated. We will fully co-operate with such an investigation and we trust Kathy will do likewise. Although Kathy's story is an horrific one, in the interest of fairness and justice to all, it is important that the facts of her story are clarified and verified."
Ms O'Beirne, 45, from Clondalkin, Dublin claims she was a resident in High Park from the age of 12 to 14. In a chapter titled 'Slaving in the Magdalene laundry', she says the nuns there beat her so hard with "a special thick piece of rubber" she sustained a broken pelvis trying to escape, and she details a rape within the laundry walls which left her pregnant at the age of 14.
Last week she went further, telling the Sunday Independent she was raped a number of times. Ms O'Beirne is working on a sequel in which she says she will name the men who raped her.
A professional historian was recently employed by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity to catalogue their files, and the order claims its records for the period Kathy claims to have been in a Magdalene laundry are complete and so comprehensive that one woman's two-day admittance was recorded.
Sister Theresa said: "We searched and searched and cannot find Kathy in either of our laundries. Then we came across her at one of our industrial schools."
The Sunday Independent has seen documentary evidence confirming Ms O'Beirne spent six weeks at St Anne's School - having been referred there by the Health Board. The school was also run by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, but the order insists this six-week period was the only time Ms O'Beirne was in their care.
Provincial Sister Sheila Murphy said: "'Related institutions to the laundries' means the residential side of the laundries and we certainly can say as a congregation that Kathy was never there.
"We also ran other care homes under our childcare section that had no relation whatsoever to the running of the laundries."
Ms O'Beirne told the Sunday Independent she had documentary proof that she was resident in High Park and Sean McDermott Street Magdalene Laundries, but refused to produce this. She said: "Of course I have proof. I'm not one bit confused. I'm calling them liars. I never had an issue with people believing me. There are hundreds of people out there who know what happened to me. There had to be forms signed by psychiatrists. I was actually delivered by a nurse to High Park.
"Of course I have all the proof I need. The best wine is kept till last. I'm keeping it for the High Court. I'll sue them."In Kathy's Story, Ms O'Beirne claims: "When I contacted one of the Magdalene laundries I was told that my files had been burned in a fire."
The nuns admitted there was "a small fire", but said the records destroyed in it related to a different period to the time Ms O'Beirne claims to have been resident in the Magdalene laundries.
Mainstream Publishers have sold the rights to Kathy's Story to a number of other international publishers and the book is soon to be launched in Australia, America and Sweden. Mainstream Publishers MD Bill Campbell said: "We are satisfied Kathy's Story is 100 per cent true. It is an earth-shattering story. We have done our own investigations, which are very stringent. There is no question of us pulling this book."
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Family Wash their Hands of ‘laundry rape Victim’.
Sunday Mirror.20th. August.
By Niall Donald.

The family of a woman who wrote a bestseller about her ‘ordeal’ in the Magdalene laundries have denounced parts of the book as fiction.
Kathy O’Beirne’s shocking autobiography tells how she was brutally raped and tortured in the notorious laundries.
The 50 year old woman said – ‘’I stand by every word I have written. It is terribly sad this has caused a rift in my family but I stand by every word.’’
The book Kathy’s Story: A Childhood Hell in The Magdalene Laundries – has become a smash hit in Ireland and Britain, selling thousands of copies but it has caused a massive split in her family.
This month a re-worked version of the book ‘Don’t Ever Tell’ was the third best selling non-fiction book in Britain.
Kathy claims she was beaten by her father, raped by priests and forced to take drugs in a mental hospital.
But the Church insist the Dublin woman was NEVER a resident in the infamous laundries.
Last night, members of her family broke their silence to say the bestselling book was largely a work of fiction.
Kathy’s older brother Oliver, 52, said his father did NOT savagely beat his kids.
He said ‘I read the book and I can’t figure out where she’s coming from – my father was a good man.
‘There are nine kids in the family and she is the only one who has any stories of abuse’.

Oliver said he has never heard Kathy mention the Magdalene laundries when they were growing up.
He said:’ she was very wild – and I remember visiting her in the children’s home and in the psychiatric hospital. But I never heard anything about the Magdalene laundries – even tho’ we visited all those other places.’’
Oliver said Kathy does not have a good relationship with her brothers and sisters.
He added: ‘’I was the last one to be talking to her – I always listened to her and I used to meet her in Bewleys for a chat.
I wouldn’t say she had an easy life and I don’t like to see any harm come to anybody in the family.
I think she needs help – and I hope some day she will have a bit of peace in her life.’’
In the book, Kathy said her father used to make her sleep in the dog kennel and held her hand in a pan of hot grease.
But Kathy’s younger sister Margaret, 38 insisted her father was not a violent man.
She said: ‘’She has blackened my father’s name – he was a good man and he never mistreated any of us.
‘’She said we were all mistreated by our father and that is just not true.’’
And Eamonn, 48, also said he did not believe his sister had been in the notorious institutions.
He said: ‘’ I have no memory of her ever being in the Magdalene laundries. She hung out with a wild crowd in town and I remember my sisters visiting her in Mountjoy – at the same time she was claiming to be in the laundries.
I don’t believe my father ever abused her like she claimed in the book – it is just lies.’’
Her sister Mary,40, said the book has been very upsetting for the family.
She added:’ Kathleen has done an awful lot of wrong to our family – but we haven’t said anything over the years. But we want to set the record straight and say our father was a good man.’’
Last night the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity said Kathy was never a resident in the Magdalene laundries.
A spokesman said: ‘’we wish to emphatically and categorically state that Kathy O’Beirne never spent any time in our laundries or related institutions.
‘’A professional archivist has checked our records in detail and there is no reference to Kathy O’Beirne.
We know all of the women who worked in our laundries in the latter years – and Kathy O’Beirne is not one of them.’’
But Kathy claimed she has documents proving she stayed in a Magdalene home.
She said: ‘’ I have never lied before – and I don’t intend to start now.
These are legal documents that I have been waiting 13 years for.
They cover my stay in the industrial school and I have also received my legal documents from my stay in the children’s mental institution.
I also have the signature of the psychiatrist that sent me to the Magdalene laundry.’’
She added:’’ I know what happened to me in my life – and other people know what happened to me in my life.
‘’The reason I was moved from my home was because of the abuse I suffered. I have people who back up my story.’’
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Gardaí asked to examine claims of abuse by nuns.

Joe Humphreys Irish Times, 1st July 2005
The Minister for Justice has asked the Garda Commissioner to examine claims by a Dublin woman that she was physically and sexually abused in Magdalene laundries about 20 years ago. A spokeswoman for Michael McDowell confirmed yesterday that the Minister had received a request from an order of nuns to have allegations investigated, and that this request had been passed to Noel Conroy for "appropriate attention". The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity said yesterday they could "categorically confirm" that Kathy O'Beirne, who made the allegations, did not spend any time at either of their laundries at Hyde Park or Sean McDermott Street. Ms O'Beirne, who has documented her alleged abuse in a recently published book, Kathy's Story, stands over her allegations. In a statement to The Irish Times yesterday, she said: "I wholeheartedly endorse the call to the Minister for Justice to investigate the issues raised. "I can categorically state I was under the care of the nuns in five different institutions throughout my life and I have official documentation that will corroborate this." She declined to name the institutions, citing legal reasons. She noted she had taken a case to the State's Residential Institutions Redress Board, and was pursuing "a separate legal action". In her book, Ms O'Beirne claims to have spent nearly 14 years in Magdalene laundries where she said she was sexually abused, beaten and repeatedly raped. She claimed a child was born as a result of these rapes who later died in the care of a religious order. A spokesman for the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity said that as well as checking their records - which were "entirely intact" and recently logged by a professional archivist - the order had "talked to Sisters who worked in both laundries and they have no recollection of her being in those laundries even for a brief period". The Sisters reiterated that their rules precluded them from accepting pregnant girls. "As a result, no pregnant girls ever worked in the laundries operated by us and no child was ever born in any of our premises." Ms O'Beirne dismissed these claims. "To say that they never accepted pregnant girls; the whole of Ireland is laughing at them." She said she wanted an apology, not money.The Sunday Times - Ireland

____________________________________________________________________________________
Nuns set to sue author over her bestseller claim of abuse 'hell'
Irish Independent, September 13, 2006

Wednesday September 13th 2006


AN order of nuns embroiled in a dispute over a bestselling biography detailing harrowing abuse in a Magdalen laundry is on a legal collision course with its author.

The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, one of four Irish religious orders who ran the now closed homes, has asked a Dublin legal firm to investigate - with a view to launching civil proceedings - claims by Kathy O'Beirne that she was abused while in the care of its nuns.

Ms O'Beirne's book, 'Kathy's Story: A Childhood Hell in The Magdalene Laundries', has become a surprise non-fiction best-seller in Ireland and Britain, selling over 350,000 copies.

Debate

But the book, which has been snapped up by a host of international publishers, has been the subject of widespread debate about the veracity of its central claim that Ms O'Beirne was abused - or that she was ever resident in one of the infamous homes.

"A Dublin legal firm has been engaged by the order to examine all the issues surrounding books published by Kathy O'Beirne," a spokesperson for the order confirmed last night.

Ms O'Beirne, who defended the contents of 'Kathy's Story' earlier this week during an RTE interview, was unavailable for comment last night.

As sales of the book rocketed during the summer, a backlash against Ms O'Beirne ensued, led by members of her own family and former 'Maggies' who lived at the homes.

A website has even been set up on the internet to dispute the author's controversial claims.

In her book, Ms O'Beirne claims to have spent nearly 14 years in Magdalene laundries where she said she was sexually abused, beaten and repeatedly raped.

The Dubliner also claimed she gave birth to a child as a result of these rapes. The child later died in the care of a religious order, she said.

Significantly, Ms O'Beirne does not name any of the laundries in which she was allegedly incarcerated, citing "legal reasons".

But last year, Ms O'Beirne was interviewed by journalist Vincent Browne's on his RTE radio show in June 22 last year.

During the interview, she made the claim of being physically and sexually abused while in a Magdalene laundry, and that she had become pregnant.

She mentioned the laundry at High Park, and also claimed to have been a resident at a Magdalene laundry on Sean McDermott St. Both of these laundries were run by the sisters.

The order strenuously denied the claim and asked its lawyers to examine the transcript of the radio interview. It also filed a complaint with the Broadcasting Commission.

A sequel to 'Kathy's Story' is pending, and Mainstream - the firm who published the book - have sold the rights to publishers, in Australia, America and Sweden.

Dearbhail McDonald


© Irish Independent

___________________________________________________________________________________
The Sunday Times September 17, 2006


Kathy's family says her story of abuse is fiction
Hermann Kelly



THE family of a woman who has written a bestselling memoir about her childhood of torture and rape will hold a press conference in Dublin on Tuesday to deny many of the claims made in the book.
Although Mainstream Publishers yesterday said it was standing by the autobiography — Kathy’s Story — which has sold 350,000 copies in Ireland and Britain, the author’s family says it should be shelved under fiction.



Kathy O’Beirne, 50, from Dublin, has written a moving book, subtitled A Childhood Hell in the Magdalen Laundries, about the physical abuse she says she suffered at the hands of her father and Catholic religious orders, including 14 years of forced labour in a Magdalen laundry. But her family are publicly to denounce the allegations as false, while three women have come forward to describe living with O’Beirne in a girls’ hostel rather than a Magdalen laundry.

At the start of the book, O’Beirne claims she was violently beaten and abused by her father, Oliver. Three of her brothers have denied this, and say their father was a good, loving man who worked hard to provide for his family.

Her older brother John O’Beirne, 51, said he is “absolutely sure that allegations in the book about sadistic abuse by my father are false”. He recalls visiting Kathy in St Anne’s, a children’s home in Kilmacud, and St Loman’s in Dublin, a mental institution for troubled children. He says his sisters visited Kathy in Mountjoy when she was imprisoned for petty theft. John O’Beirne says the chronology of events in Kathy’s Story is a “jigsaw puzzle and nothing fits”.

One of Kathy’s younger brothers, Eamon O’Beirne, said: “The allegations against my father contained in Kathy’s book are totally false.”

O’Beirne claims she gave birth to one child as a result of rape by a male visitor to the Magdalen laundry, with the child later dying in the care of an unidentified religious order. Eamon, 48, contradicts this. “To my knowledge, she never had a child. And I also know my father did not abuse or torture me. Never, as portrayed in this book, did these things ever happen in our house,” he said. “She can write as many books as she likes and make as much money as she likes, but she can’t implicate others.”

Angered at the smear on his father’s reputation and the family name, he predicted that “loads of my brothers and sisters will now speak up”.

But Bill Campbell, managing director of Mainstream, said yesterday that the Scottish publishing house would stand by its story. “We have made every effort and are satisfied that the story is true,” he said. Campbell interviewed Kathy in Dublin and had “other people go over the chronology in great detail” before signing a deal.

Campbell said that they made contact with the Dublin archdiocese inviting comments before publication of the book, but to date Mainstream had “received no substantive response”. Asked whether he has seen documentary proof that Kathy had a child or was in a Magdalen laundry, Campbell refused to answer.

He suggested that recent moves to question Kathy’s Story formed part of a “vendetta” by Florence Horsman Hogan of Let Our Voices Emerge (Love), a group that campaigns for those who have suffered false allegations of abuse.

Horsman Hogan has been campaigning for more than a year to have the book investigated. “Kathy O’Beirne’s family, a religious congregation and the psychiatric services were subjected to horrific allegations of child abuse, yet Mainstream ignored our appeals, and that of her family, to remove this book from sale pending verification,” Horsman Hogan said.

During the 1970s, Sherrard House hostel in Dublin was a voluntary shelter for homeless girls. Although never mentioned in Kathy’s Story, three former residents have said O’Beirne spent three years there with them.

Angela, 48, from Blanchardstown, said she remembered Kathy being there in her mid-to late teens. “Kathy never had any children, never spoke of having any children, never once spoke of being in a Magdalen laundry,” she said. “This story is complete madness.”

Two other residents of Sherrard House agree. Celine Dempsey, 47, from Dublin remembers staying with Kathy for four years in the girls’ hostel. During that time, she maintains that “Kathy never spoke of being in a Magdalen laundry, never spoke of having a baby or of ever being raped”.

Another woman, Mary Lavin, remembers that Kathy came to Sherrard House from St Loman’s mental home. She recalls that Kathy used to ask the girls about their life stories and would write them down. “She had loads of papers,” Lavin said.

Dempsey believes that O’Beirne has taken other people’s stories, “put them together and embellished them a lot”.

Kathy is standing firm, however. While refusing to take calls from the The Sunday Times last week, she defended the veracity of her claims in an interview on RTE Radio, insisting that she has proof of everything.

O’Beirne has indicated that the Magdalen laundry in which she was allegedly abused was run by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity. She could yet face legal action from the order, which has hired lawyers and written to the Department of Justice asking for an investigation. The department has passed the matter to the gardai.

_____________________________________________________________________________________
Irish Independent
'Penniless' author living on welfare

Saturday September 16th 2006

THE author of a controversial best selling autobiography is
"penniless", living on a weekly €170 state handout, the Irish
Independent can reveal.

Despite making an estimated stg£1.5m (€2.22m) for Edinburgh-based
Mainstream Publishing, Kathy O'Beirne, author of 'Kathy's Story', has
continued to collect welfare payments.

It is understood the writer has so far received little more than an
estimated €20,000 advance she got from the publisher - which she
shared with a ghost writer.

The book, which is the subject of an intense debate over the truth of
O'Beirne's claims, has sold 350,000 copies worldwide. Mainstream
Publishing managing director Bill Campbell has declined to reveal how
much it paid O'Beirne for the rights to the book - or give any
breakdown of royalties.

The latest twist in the O'Beirne saga comes as her family prepare to
hold a press conference in Dublin next Tuesday morning to dispute
claims in the book.

The author was investigated by the Health Services Executive who
administer the Long Term Illness Scheme, which entitles O'Beirne to
free drugs and medical treatment.

Earlier this year, long-term illness payments to O'Beirne were
suspended following an anonymous tip-off to HSE officials, who were
notified of her phenomenal success.

After officials spoke to the author at her Dublin home, the weekly
welfare sums were restored.

O'Beirne's book detailing horrific sexual and physical abuse in the
Magdalene Laundries has yielded just a "trickle" of payments from
Mainstream, she said.

Any sums generated by the book had been donated to two orphanages and
a children's hospital, she added.

Dearbhail McDonald and Ciaran Byrne

(c) Irish Independent
_____________________________________________________________________________________


Irish Independent
Publishers battle credibility crisis over book's veracity

Saturday September 16th 2006

ALBANY Street lies at the heart of Edinburgh's spectacular Georgian
New Town, its neat cobbles and pale white street lamps giving off an
eerie silver glow at night.

It has a 240-year history and more than a few stories to tell. Today,
many of them are told at No 7, the home of Mainstream Publishing, one
of the most successful independent publishers in Scotland since its
formation in 1978.

Mainstream is a leading publisher of non-fiction, particularly
politics, current affairs, true crime and sport. Its success led last
year to it selling a 50pc stake to the global publisher Random House.

But it has, on more than one occasion, been dogged by accusations of
plagiarism and of publishing exaggerated 'true-life' stories.

In 1999, Mainstream was forced to drop one of its top authors, James
Mackay, and pay stg£20,000 (€29,700) to pulp his biography of John
Paul Jones, the Scots-born US Navy founder, which was heavily
plundered from already published material.

Two years later, it paid Tom Carew a reported stg£100,000 (€148,000)
for his book 'Jihad!', a 'personal' account of life as an SAS officer
training the mujahideen in Afghanistan.

Carew's real name was Philip Anthony Sessarego. He did go to
Afghanistan but it was certainly not as a member of the SAS. He was
exposed by BBC News after Mainstream had published the book and
organised global publicity tour.

His own daughter, Claire Sessarego, said: "Basically, if I'm going to
be blunt about it, I think he is a twat.

Now Mainstream has found itself battling a deepening crisis about the
credibility of its biggest ever commercial success: 'Kathy's Story' by
Dublin-born Kathy O'Beirne.

The book has, in publishing parlance, gone global. It has already sold
350,000 copies around the world, making it the most successful ever
work of non-fiction by an Irish author.

'Kathy's Story' is certainly a harrowing tale. But it has also caused
more controversy and anguish than any of the grim tales laid out as
fact in its pages.

The 45-year-old (her family says she is at least five years older)
claims to have spent nearly 14 years in Magdalene laundries where she
says she was sexually abused, beaten and repeatedly raped.

O'Beirne also claims to have given birth to a child - who later died
in the care of an unidentified religious order - after being raped by
a man who visited the laundry where she was living. All of it is
untrue, say opponents of the book, which now include members of her
own family.

Her story is the classic example of what Mainstream describe as
'Mis-Lit' - quite literally, it means miserable literature - and it
seems the world cannot get enough of it.

'Kathy's Story' sold its entire first trade paperback run of 150,000
copies. An estimated 200,000 of the second run has almost sold out. A
third run might follow.

Industry sources in Edinburgh and Dublin believe Mainstream has
recouped a conservative estimate of stg€1.5m (€2.22m) on what sources
say was an approximate €20,000 advance to O'Beirne, who still lives in
a Clondalkin council house.

It is unclear what her cut of the royalties are, but her living
standards suggest she has yet to receive any meaningful portion of the
enormous wealth generated by her story.

'Kathy's Story', a memoir by an Irish 'Maggie' who still can't read or
write, was manna from Heaven for Mainstream's founder and managing
director Bill Campbell.

A close personal friend of UK Chancellor Gordon Brown, he said last
week he heard of O'Beirne's story at a meeting with her agent in
London and instantly sensed he had a hit on his hands.

After the deal was clinched, a ghost-writer, Michael Sheridan, was
engaged to help the illiterate O'Beirne write some sample chapters.

A global best-seller was born.

Mainstream has been dogged by claims they have published exaggerated

'true-life' stories.

All four religious orders that ran the now defunct Magdalene laundries
deny O'Beirne was ever a resident. Significantly, O'Beirne does not
name any of the laundries in the book in which she was allegedly
incarcerated, citing 'legal reasons' for the glaring omissions.

But last year, O'Beirne revealed more than she intended. During an
emotional interview with Vincent Browne on RTE, O'Beirne repeated
claims of physical and sexual abuse, referring to the Magdalene
laundries at High Park and Sean McDermott Street, Dublin - both
operated by the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity.

The order, which was not consulted in advance of the interview, was
incensed to be implicated in such horrendous and illegal acts.

The Sisters employed a forensic archivist and historian to review its
files. It revealed that O'Beirne had spent a short period of time at
St Anne's, a children's home operated by the order.

But crucially, it emerged, O'Beirne had never - according to the
Sisters' files and those of the three remaining orders - spent a
single day in a Magdalene laundry.

The order wrote to Justice Minister Michael McDowell asking for the
allegations in the book to be investigated.

The minister asked Noel Conroy, the Garda commissioner, to
investigate. That inquiry is still under way. In addition, the nuns -
who filed a complaint with the Broadcasting Commission of Ireland
(BCI) about the RTE interview - has asked a Dublin law firm to
investigate the possibility of launching civil proceedings. The order
hasn't ruled out suing the authors and the publisher.

As sales of 'Kathy's Story' continue to rise, so too does a public
backlash against O'Beirne. Chief among those who disputed the claims
were women who had spent time in the laundries, O'Beirne's friends and
even members of her family.

O'Beirne's eight siblings turned a blind eye to many of the
allegations in her book, but broke their silence after their sister
claimed that she was violently abused by their dead father Oliver.

In 'Kathy's Story', O'Beirne claimed that she was beaten by her father
and sexually molested by local boys who raped her on the eve of her
first communion.

The claims about Oliver O'Beirne was the final straw for her brothers
who took their campaign to clear their father's name to the media.

Within weeks, they were working alongside Florence Horsman Hogan, the
founder of 'Let Our Voices Emerge' (Love), a support group set up to
dispute claims of physical and sexual abuse committed by Ireland's
religious orders.

Last week, the claims and counter-claims threatened to boil over when
callers to RTE's 'Liveline' accused O'Beirne of claiming their
experiences and passing them off as her own.

"I think she put part of my life into her book," claimed 'Ann', one of
a legion of callers who called Joe Duffy.

The claims have appalled O'Beirne's family. "It is never-ending," said
John O'Beirne, Kathy's brother. "I honestly don't know why she has
been saying these things.

"I have no problem with Kathy earning a lot of money, but she hammered
our father for no good reason. She cannot be allowed to discredit our
family without just cause."

For now, Mainstream is backing the author of its golden goose. A
second book by O'Beirne is being planned and the firm has revealed
that early discussions have already taken place.

Mr Campbell said he himself flew to Dublin to meet O'Beirne before
publication and was "totally sure" of what he described as "her
incredible story".

In his first public comments since the controversy broke, he hinted at
"sinister" Church agendas that were at play - a malicious campaign
designed to hide or cloud the truth.

He told the Irish Independent: "We did everything we could to
investigate the claims and even communicated certain passages to the
religious orders concerned.

"We have strictures and checks that came into play. Our reaction is
one of extreme surprise that one and a half years after its
publication, this is the first we have heard of a problem and the
allegations being made.

"We would question the agendas of those involved given that we even
delayed publication to give the Archdiocese of Dublin an opportunity
to respond, which they did, with no major changes."

As for O'Beirne herself, she broke a week-long silence and phoned the
Irish Independent on Friday to say: "I am above board, I have all my
documentation.

"I don't care what people say about me. My comeback (to all the bad
publicity) is that I have my proof, it's all above board. I dared to
come out and tell the truth.

"My book has helped hundreds of people, I get letters from all over
the world. I have helped people on the brink of suicide.

"Are we all liars?" she asked, referring to those who claim to have
been abused, before bursting into tears.

(c) Irish Independent

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Comment on above article: It is absolutly untrue that Mainstream have only become aware of a problem with the allegations in this book. Mr Bill Campbell is on record in the Sunday Independent, July 05, (when contacted by the journalist Lara Bradley in relation to the Sisters of Charity denying that she was with them ), as saying Mainstream had carried out rigerous checks and there was no question of their pulling the book.
Florence Horsman Hogan.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

The Times September 19, 2006


Author's family say abuse memoir is cruel hoax
By David Sharrock

Doubt has been cast on the 'childhood hell' in a Catholic institution recalled by an Irish writer


IT IS a harrowing story of a young woman’s life destroyed by nuns and priests, and it has raced to the top of the bestseller list. But now a chorus of voices, including those of the author’s own family, claim that the ordeal described by Kathy O’Beirne simply does not ring true and is nothing more than a cruel hoax.



Kathy’s Story: a Childhood Hell in the Magdalene Laundries has sold more than 350,000 copies in Ireland and Britain, securing a place in the top five bestselling non-fiction titles in Britain, where it sells under the title Don’t Ever Tell.

Published last year, the story of O’Beirne seemed to encap-sulate the anguish of a generation of Irish people whose experiences at the hands of religious orders left them scarred. And it could not have been better timed, with the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland apologising for the conduct of some of its priests and nuns.

But as the sales continued to rise, so too did the questions. In the book she says that she was beaten by her father and sexually abused by two boys from the age of 5 before being sent away to an institution. She claims that at the age of 10 she was repeatedly raped by a priest and whipped by nuns. Later she was forced to take drugs in a mental institution.

“I was consigned to a hell of beatings and abuse,” she wrote. “It was one long scream of suffering which has haunted all of my adult life.”

The first organisation to challenge the account was the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, one of four religious orders which ran the Magdalene laundries — institutions for young women who were seen to be in moral danger.

The sisters said that they invited an independent archivist to study their files after nobody could remember Kathy O’Beirne. No record has turned up of her attendance. She has said, in radio interviews since the book’s publication, that she could not name the institution in which she was abused for legal reasons.

Now her own family is about to dispute her story. Five of her brothers and sisters plan to hold a press conference in Dublin today. O’Beirne’s older brother, Oliver, 52, has told an Irish newspaper: “I read the book and I can’t figure out where she is coming from. My father was a good man. There are nine kids in the family and she is the only one who has any stories of abuse.” Adding that she did not have a good relationship with her family, he said: “I think she needs help.”

The publishers said that they would continue to support the book. Bill Campbell, director of Mainstream Publishing, said in a statement: “We have used every possible effort to establish the truth of Kathy’s memoir. We invited comments and corrections from the Church and we received no substantive response.”

But an Irish charity called Let Our Voices Emerge, established by people who spent time in religious institutions and who are now dedicated to defending their carers, has its doubts. Florence Horsman Hogan told The Times: “By her own admission Kathy has had psychological problems from an early age. Some members of her family have now come forward to state that their father emphatically was not an abuser and that, on the contrary, he worked extremely hard to support all of his children.” She said that the only record of O’Beirne having been in a Catholic institution was when she spent six weeks in St Anne’s Industrial School in Dublin in 1967.

The author has been refusing to speak to newspapers, but in a radio inAuthor is accused of inventing harrowing story of childhood torture and rape
By Tom Peterkin, Ireland Correspondent

An author whose memoirs recount a harrowing childhood of torture and rape while working in a Roman Catholic religious order is at the centre of a dispute over the accuracy of her claims.

Kathy O'Beirne's account of her early life, published as Don't Ever Tell in Britain and Kathy's Story in Ireland, has become a best-seller with 350,000 copies sold.

In the book, she alleges that she was beaten and abused by her late father.

advertisementThe book claims that Miss O'Beirne suffered 14 years of forced labour in the Magdalen laundries, a Catholic institution which was originally set up to rehabilitate fallen women.

While Don't Ever Tell rides high in the British non-fiction chart, some members of her family are adamant that her book should be re-categorised as a work of fiction.

Although in the book's acknowledgments Miss O'Beirne pays tribute to the support she has received from her brother Brian, some of her other seven siblings are angered by its contents.

Her Edinburgh-based publisher, Mainstream, has defended the book.

However, members of her family will host a press conference in Dublin today disputing much of what she has written.

Several brothers have rejected allegations that she was beaten and abused by her father, Oliver, when she was growing up in a working- class suburb of Dublin.

Her older brother John O'Beirne, 51, yesterday denied the book's allegations of sadistic abuse by his father.

Mr O'Beirne described the sequence of events outlined by his sister as "a jigsaw puzzle and nothing fits". He said that his father was a loving man, who held down two jobs to provide for his family. "Kathy has hurt a lot of people and it's now time for the truth to be told," he said.

Rather than working in a Magdalen laundry, Mr O'Beirne recalled visiting her in St Anne's Children Home, Kilmacud, Dublin, and St Loman's, an institution for troubled children.

A younger brother, Eamon O'Beirne, 48, said he had "no memory whatsoever of Kathy ever being in a Magdalen laundry".

He said: "I don't believe for a second that my father ever abused her like she claimed in the book."

He denied her assertion that she bore a child after being raped by a male visitor to the laundries.

In the book, she claimed that the child later died in the care of an unnamed religious order. Eamon O'Beirne said: "To my knowledge, she never had a child. And my father did not abuse or torture me. The stuff as alleged in this book did not happen in our house."

Several women have come forward to say they lived with Miss O'Beirne in the 1970s in the Sherrard Street hostel for girls in Dublin.

During their time in the hostel, which has not been included in the book, they claim that Miss O'Beirne never mentioned having had a child or of working in a Magdalen laundry.

Celine Dempsey, 47, said: "Kathy never spoke of being in a Magdalen laundry. How could she? She was in Sherrard Street."

The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, the religious order running the laundry, has denied that Miss O'Beirne stayed in one of their homes or laundries and is considering taking legal action.

Bill Campbell, the managing director of Mainstream, defended the book.

"We stand by her story," he said. "We have made every effort and are satisfied that the story is true."

Mr Campbell travelled to Dublin to interview the author and had "other people go over the chronology in great detail".

Mr Campbell added that before publication they had made contact with the Dublin Archdiocese inviting comments but to date they had "received no substantive response".

Miss O'Beirne has refused to take calls from journalists.

She stood by her claims last week on RTE radio and said she had proof of everything.

In a radio interview last week she insisted that she had proof of everything in the book.
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Irish author's abuse story "fiction", says her family
Catholic News.

Family members of Irish author Kathy O'Beirne, whose graphic account of abuse at the hands of Irish nuns has sold over 350,000 copies, have denied her story saying that the book published as Kathy's Story is almost entirely false and should be reclassified as fiction.

"Absolutely all or nearly all of this book is false - I don't understand why she's saying this," her older brother Oliver O'Beirne, 52, told Reuters following a news conference yesterday.

He said he and his other seven brothers and sisters had been forced to challenge Kathy's account, set in the 1960s and 1970s, to clear his father's and the family's name of her abuse claims, Reuters says.

In her book, published as Kathy's Story in Ireland and Australia, Ms O'Beirne writes about being beaten by her father and later about the torture and rape she suffered during 14 years in one of Ireland's Magdalen laundries - church-run institutions for "wayward" girls and women that became synonymous with brutality.

However, younger brother, Eamon O'Beirne, 48, said he had "no memory whatsoever of Kathy ever being in a Magdalen laundry".

"I don't believe for a second that my father ever abused her like she claimed in the book."

He denied her assertion that she bore a child after being raped by a male visitor to the laundries.

In the book, she claimed that the child later died in the care of an unnamed religious order. Eamon O'Beirne said: "To my knowledge, she never had a child. And my father did not abuse or torture me. The stuff as alleged in this book did not happen in our house."

Claims that he and his siblings were abused by his father were "fiction, not a word of truth", he said.

"We are just ordinary working people and we've been put in a situation we didn't want any part of and it has to come to an end. Today is about cutting the cord," he said.

Questions about the events portrayed in Kathy's Story: A childhood Hell Inside the Magdalen Laundries surfaced in Ireland earlier this year.

The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, the religious order running the laundry, has denied that Ms O'Beirne stayed in one of their homes or laundries and is considering taking legal action.

All four orders that ran the laundries - which were wound up a decade ago after 150 years in existence - have denied O'Beirne was ever a resident.

The Times also reports that Florence Horsman Hogan from the Irish charity Let Our Voices Emerge, established by people who spent time in religious institutions and who are now dedicated to defending their carers, has her own doubts.

"By her own admission Kathy has had psychological problems from an early age," she said.

Earlier this week her Edinburgh-based publishers, Mainstream, defended the work saying: "We have made every effort and are satisfied the story is true".

The author stands by her story and said last week she had proof to back up everything in the book.

The Magdalen laundries grabbed headlines in 2002 when they were made the subject of the award-winning film, "The Magdalene Sisters."

http://www.cathnews.com/news/609/111.php
SOURCE
Author is accused of inventing harrowing story of childhood torture and rape (UK Telegraph, 19/9/06)
Author's family say abuse memoir is cruel hoax (Times Online, 19/9/06)
Doubts cast on church abuse memoir (Scotsman, 19/9/06).

20 Sep 2006
_____________________________________________________________________________________

TUESDAY 19/09/2006 14:58:09
Family hit back at abuse claims


The family of an Irish woman who wrote a best-selling book claiming she was physically and sexually abused in a Catholic institution have publicly denied the allegations.

Kathy O`Beirne`s book documenting the alleged abuse, Kathy`s Story - published as Don`t Ever Tell in the UK - has soared up the best-seller list after selling more than 350,000 copies.


The story, published by Mainstream Publishing, claims she was tortured and raped in a Magdalene laundry over 20 years ago and also alleges she was beaten and abused at the hands of her father.

Seven of Ms O`Beirne`s brothers and sisters, all originally from Dublin`s Clondalkin, joined together claiming they were speaking out to simply tell the truth and reveal the real story of the O`Beirne family.


The family have denied Ms O`Beirne`s claims, saying their father was not an abuser and worked extremely hard to feed, clothe and take care of them.


"The anger and frustration we feel at seeing our father branded worldwide as a horrific abuser is indescribable," said Mary O`Beirne, speaking of her dead father Oliver at the gathering in Dublin.


"The allegations are untrue against my father, he did think an awful lot of Kathleen."


Mary, 40, said the stories in the book simply have to be stopped.


"We can`t go on living like this, we can`t eat, we can`t sleep, we have children to rear," she said.


"I live in Clondalkin village, Margaret lives in Clondalkin village, our children go to school there. I can`t go into the school any more."


She added: "If people tell lies for long enough, people will believe it. We all want to get on with our lives and remember our mother and father. They were good to us. I don`t want to live the rest of my life like this. I couldn`t do it."


The family, who displayed Kathleen`s birth certificate, stated claims that she was adopted were false and said she was playing mind-games with the book.


In the book, Ms O`Beirne claims to have spent nearly 14 years in Magdalene laundries where she suffered abuse.


"Our sister was not in a Magdalene laundry, or Magdalene home, she was in St Anne`s Children`s Home, Kilmacud, St Loman`s Psychiatric Hospital, Mountjoy Prison and Sherrard House for homeless people.


"Our parents placed her in St Anne`s for a brief period when she was 11 because of ongoing behavioural difficulties," Mary said.


The family claimed Kathleen was living at home with them when she says she was in a Magdalene home during the years 1968 to 1970 from the age of 12 to 14. She claims she became pregnant as a result of rape.


In 2005, the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity stated Kathy O`Beirne did not spend any time at either of their laundries at High Park or Sean McDermott Street in Dublin and wrote to the Department of Justice requesting an investigation.


"Our sister did not have a child at the age of 14 that she alleges died at the age of 10," Mary said.


"There are bigger issues here than our family name, which probably now cannot be rectified.


"I don`t think any money in the world could give back what they have taken from us," Eamon O`Beirne, 48, said.


He said the family wanted the book pulled from the shelves.


In a statement signed by seven of her brothers and sisters - Oliver, Eamon, Mary, Margaret, John, Tommy and Brian O`Beirne - the family said there was no evidence to support Kathleen`s claims.


"This woman has broken our hearts, especially the hearts of our now deceased parents, with her behaviour in the past," Mary said.


"Any discipline carried out in our house was the same as for any family living in the `60s and `70s. No better and no worse."


The family claimed it was clear that Kathleen, who turns 50 in October, was a disturbed and troubled woman.


"We are deeply sorry for all of the people who have bought this book believing it to be fact - and we can understand that many people will now feel hurt and conned - but we must tell the truth," Mary said.
http://www.utvlive.com/newsroom/indepth.asp?id=76814&pt=n
____________________________________________________________________________________
The Examiner
20 September 2006
Family of author dispute accounts of fathers abuse
By Senan McCarthaigh
THE family of a Dublin woman, whose autobiography is a best-seller in Ireland and Britain, yesterday publicly disputed allegations in the book that the author was beaten and abused by her father.

Five brothers and two sisters of Kathleen O Beirne yesterday expressed hurt at what they claim are false allegations she has made about her family along with claims she suffered years of physical and sexual abuse while resident in a series of institutions run by religious orders.
The anger and frustration we feel at seeing our father branded worldwide as a horrific abuser is indescribable, said the author s sister Margaret.

The autobiography, Kathy s Story (published as Don t Ever Tell in Britain) sold more than 350,000 copies worldwide to date.

However, her family called on the book s publishers, Mainstream, to withdraw it from sale because of the controversy.
The O Beirne family, who come from the Dublin suburb of Clondalkin, vehemently dispute allegations made by Kathleen, 50, in the book that she was beaten and abused by her father, Oliver, who died in the 1970s.

They also outlined a series of other claims which they state are inaccurate, including the central theme of Kathleen s book that she was subjected to years of forced labour in Magdalene laundries.

A spokesperson for Mainstream said they remained happy with the accuracy of the book after having conducted their own investigation into Kathleen s story.
____________________________________________________________________________________
Family rejects author's 'lies'
Bestselling tale of abuse totally untrue, claim angry brothers and sisters

THE family of an Irish woman who wrote a bestselling book claiming she was physically and sexually abused in a Catholic institution yesterday publicly denied the allegations.
Kathy O'Beirne's book documenting the alleged abuse - published as 'Kathy's Story' in Ireland and 'Don't Ever Tell' in the UK - has soared up the bestseller list after shifting more than 350,000 copies.
In the book she claims she was tortured and raped in a Magdalene laundry. She also alleges she was beaten and abused at the hands of her father.
Despite Ms O'Beirne stressing her story was true, seven of her brothers and sisters, all originally from Clondalkin in Dublin, decreed otherwise.
They denied Ms O'Beirne's claims, saying their late father Oliver was not an abuser and that he worked extremely hard to feed, clothe and take care of them.
Horrific
"The anger and frustration we feel at seeing our father branded worldwide as a horrific abuser is indescribable," said Mary O'Beirne at a press conference in Dublin.
"The allegations are untrue. He [Oliver] did an awful lot for Kathleen."
Mary (40) said the stories in the book simply had to be stopped.
"If people tell lies for long enough, people will believe it. We all want to get on with our lives and remember our mother and father. They were good to us. I don't want to live the rest of my life like this. I couldn't do it."
After the press conference, author Kathy O'Beirne defended her work.
"I thought it was totally hilarious, I almost laughed at the fact they said they loved me and wanted to stand by me.
"Why have they given me a life of hell over the last five years or more?"
She added: "Of course they were lying."
Ms O'Beirne claimed the family's comments followed a bitter dispute over a will and ownership of the family home in Clondalkin.
Michael Sheridan, who wrote the book with Kathy, said: "The real story of Kathy O'Beirne's family life is 10 times worse and more horrendous than was portrayed in the book for legal reasons."
Mr Sheridan said in May 2005 the publishers wrote to the Archdiocese of Dublin giving Kathy's account of her time in institutions. "The Archdiocese of Dublin did not have any objection to her account of time in institutions," he said.
The publishers of the book, Mainstream, said they took steps before releasing the story and were satisfied the memoir was appropriate for publication.
In the book, O'Beirne claims she was sexually abused, beaten and raped during her time in a Magdalene laundry. She claims she became pregnant as a result of rape.
The family claim Kathy was living at home with them when she says she was in a Magdalene home.
Her brother, Eamon O'Beirne (48), said the family wanted the book pulled from the shelves.
In a statement signed by seven of her brothers and sisters - Oliver, Eamon, Mary, Margaret, John, Tommy and Brian - the family said there was no evidence to support Kathy's claims.
Louise Hogan


_____________________________________________________________________________________
Irish Times
Ireland
Wed, Sep 20, 06
'Magdalen' author challenged
Patsy McGarry, Religious Affairs Correspondent


The Sisters of Charity and the family of a woman who alleged in a bestselling book that she was sexually abused during years in a Magdalen laundry have vigorously challenged her claims.
Dubliner Kathy O'Beirne's book, Don't Ever Tell: Kathy's Story - A True Tale of a Childhood Destroyed by Neglect and Fear, was published in 2005 by Mainstream Publishing and has sold over 300,000 copies in the UK. It was ghost-written by Michael Sheridan.

In a blurb for the book, Mainstream said Kathy O'Beirne had spent nearly 14 years in a Magdalen laundry where, it alleged, she was sexually abused and beaten. It said that when she rebelled she was classified as mentally ill and transferred to a mental hospital where abuse continued. It claimed that at 13 she was raped in another laundry and the baby born subsequently died and was buried in a mass grave.
In a statement yesterday the Sisters of Charity repeated that all four religious congregations which ran Magdalen laundries confirmed as far back as 2004 that Kathy O'Beirne never spent any time in the laundries. "The only time Kathy O'Beirne spent with us was for a six-week period in a reformatory school for young people," they said.
At a press conference in Dublin yesterday five of Kathy O'Beirne's siblings produced a detailed account of where she was in the years she claimed to be in a Magdalen laundry. A statement signed by Oliver, Eamonn, Mary, Margaret, John, Tommy and Brian O'Beirne said "our sister was not in a Magdalen laundry or Magdalen home".
"She was in St Anne's Children's Home, Kilmacud, St Loman's psychiatric hospital, Mountjoy prison, and Sherrard House for homeless people. Our parents placed her in St Anne's for a brief period when she was 11 because of behavioural difficulties," they said.
They denied their sister was pregnant at 13 or gave birth at 14. "Our sister, to our knowledge, was not raped by two priests, and did not receive an out-of-court settlement for the same," they said. They rejected her "horrific allegations of child abuse against our father, a religious congregation, and a psychiatric hospital" .
They dismissed as "totally untrue" weekend statements by Bill Campbell of Mainstream Publishing that he had checked their sister's story with the congregations running the laundries.
Mr Campbell's assertion was also challenged by the Sisters of Charity. They said that on April 21st, 2005, their solicitors wrote to Michael Sheridan following articles he had written linking Kathy O'Beirne to Magdalen laundries and homes. A copy of the letter was sent to Mainstream. "In the letter it was categorically stated the only time Kathy O'Beirne spent with us was for a six-week period in a reformatory school for young people. We received a curt response to this letter from Mr Bill Campbell of Mainstream dated 11th of May 2005," they said.
Kathy O'Beirne has already rejected the claims of her family and of the nuns.
The Irish Times.

The Times
September 20, 2006
_____________________________________________________________________________________

Family point to 'glaring flaws' in abuse memoir
By David Sharrock, Ireland Correspondent


THE family of an author who wrote a bestseller about being tortured and raped by Irish priests said that she had been living with them during the years of her alleged ordeal.
Kathy O Beirne s book Don t Ever Tell is a harrowing tale of savage treatment at the hands of her father, followed by rape by priests, resulting in pregnancy, and whippings by nuns. It has sold 350,000 copies in Britain and Ireland since it was published last year.

However, at a press conference in Dublin yesterday, seven of her brothers and sisters said that she had been the victim of publishers who had rushed to print her story without checking it.
As it would have been perfectly clear to anyone who met our sister, there were glaring flaws in her allegations. Mainstream [the publishers] did not carry out the necessary rigorous checks. If they had, this book would never have been published, they said.
Mary O Beirne, 40, added: The anger and frustration we feel at seeing our father branded worldwide as a horrific abuser is indescribable. The allegations are untrue against my father. He did think an awful lot of Kathleen.
If people tell lies for long enough, people will believe it. We all want to get on with our lives and remember our mother and father. They were good to us. I don t want to live the rest of my life like this.
The family added that claims that their sister had been adopted were false.
In the book, O Beirne says that she suffered abuse during nearly 14 years spent in Magdalene laundries institutions for fallen women run by religious orders. Mary O Beirne said: Our sister was not in a Magdalene laundry, or Magdalene home; she was in St Anne s children s home, Kilmacud, St Loman s psychiatric hospital, Mountjoy prison and Sherrard House for homeless people. Our parents placed her in St Anne s for a brief period when she was 11 because of ongoing behavioural difficulties. She spent six weeks there.
She added that between 1968 and 1970, when O Beirne claims to have suffered the worst of the abuse, she was in fact staying with them.
This woman has broken our hearts, especially the hearts of our now deceased parents, with her behaviour in the past. Any discipline carried out in our house was the same as for any family living in the Sixties and Seventies. No better and no worse. She added that her sister did not have a child at the age of 14.
Oliver, Eamon, Mary, Margaret, John, Tommy and Brian O Beirne signed a statement saying that there was no evidence to support their sister s claims and demanding that the book be withdrawn.
The family said that it had been very difficult to break their silence. They said: We love our sister and wish to support her in any way we can but we have been left with no other choice than to speak out . . . Our sister has a self-admitted psychiatric and criminal history, and her perception of reality has always been flawed. This has presented great problems for us, her family, our neighbours, and friends.
Our sister, to our knowledge, was not raped by two priests, and did not receive an out-of-court settlement for the same. There is not a shred of evidence to support such outlandish claims, and we believe our sister was uncooperative with the gardai [Irish police] when such was being investigated last year.
Calling the book s publication a horrific miscarriage of justice . . . in the interests of financial gain , the family said that Mainstream had refused to answer their calls and had gone ahead with the book because clearly there was too much money to be made .
Mary added: We are deeply sorry for all of the people who have bought this book believing it to be fact and we can understand that many people will now feel hurt and conned.

_____________________________________________________________________________________
The Times September 19, 2006


Author's family say abuse memoir is cruel hoax
By David Sharrock

Doubt has been cast on the 'childhood hell' in a Catholic institution recalled by an Irish writer


IT IS a harrowing story of a young woman’s life destroyed by nuns and priests, and it has raced to the top of the bestseller list. But now a chorus of voices, including those of the author’s own family, claim that the ordeal described by Kathy O’Beirne simply does not ring true and is nothing more than a cruel hoax.



Kathy’s Story: a Childhood Hell in the Magdalene Laundries has sold more than 350,000 copies in Ireland and Britain, securing a place in the top five bestselling non-fiction titles in Britain, where it sells under the title Don’t Ever Tell.

Published last year, the story of O’Beirne seemed to encap-sulate the anguish of a generation of Irish people whose experiences at the hands of religious orders left them scarred. And it could not have been better timed, with the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland apologising for the conduct of some of its priests and nuns.

But as the sales continued to rise, so too did the questions. In the book she says that she was beaten by her father and sexually abused by two boys from the age of 5 before being sent away to an institution. She claims that at the age of 10 she was repeatedly raped by a priest and whipped by nuns. Later she was forced to take drugs in a mental institution.

“I was consigned to a hell of beatings and abuse,” she wrote. “It was one long scream of suffering which has haunted all of my adult life.”

The first organisation to challenge the account was the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, one of four religious orders which ran the Magdalene laundries — institutions for young women who were seen to be in moral danger.

The sisters said that they invited an independent archivist to study their files after nobody could remember Kathy O’Beirne. No record has turned up of her attendance. She has said, in radio interviews since the book’s publication, that she could not name the institution in which she was abused for legal reasons.

Now her own family is about to dispute her story. Five of her brothers and sisters plan to hold a press conference in Dublin today. O’Beirne’s older brother, Oliver, 52, has told an Irish newspaper: “I read the book and I can’t figure out where she is coming from. My father was a good man. There are nine kids in the family and she is the only one who has any stories of abuse.” Adding that she did not have a good relationship with her family, he said: “I think she needs help.”

The publishers said that they would continue to support the book. Bill Campbell, director of Mainstream Publishing, said in a statement: “We have used every possible effort to establish the truth of Kathy’s memoir. We invited comments and corrections from the Church and we received no substantive response.”

But an Irish charity called Let Our Voices Emerge, established by people who spent time in religious institutions and who are now dedicated to defending their carers, has its doubts. Florence Horsman Hogan told The Times: “By her own admission Kathy has had psychological problems from an early age. Some members of her family have now come forward to state that their father emphatically was not an abuser and that, on the contrary, he worked extremely hard to support all of his children.” She said that the only record of O’Beirne having been in a Catholic institution was when she spent six weeks in St Anne’s Industrial School in Dublin in 1967.

The author has been refusing to speak to newspapers, but in a radio interview last week she insisted that she had proof of everything in the book.





at it had taken steps prior to the publication of Don t Ever Tell and was satisfied that the memoir was appropriate for publication.

_____________________________________________________________________________________
The Scotsman Wed Sept 20, 2006
Scots publisher linked to 'second made-up book' as author accused
TIM CORNWELL
ARTS CORRESPONDENT
THE family of an Irish woman who wrote a best-seller claiming she was the victim of repeated physical and sexual abuse in a Catholic institution yesterday accused her of making the story up.
Kathy O'Beirne's book, published in Ireland as Kathy's Story and in the UK as Don't Ever Tell, was largely fabricated by a "deeply troubled" woman, they claimed.


The book was published by Edinburgh's Mainstream Publishing, which defended its contents yesterday. Five years ago another book published by the company, Jihad!, which was the purported story of an SAS officer serving in Afghanistan, saw its author exposed as a fraud.
In her book, O'Beirne, now 49, claimed she was tortured and raped in a Magdalene laundry where she worked for 14 years, giving birth to a child. The institutions were set up to rehabilitate "fallen women".
She also claimed in the book, published 18 months ago, that she was beaten and abused from the age of seven at the hands of her father.
Seven of O'Beirne's brothers and sisters, all originally from Clondalkin, Dublin, came together at a Dublin press conference to tell what they said was the family's real story.
"The anger and frustration we feel at seeing our father branded worldwide as a horrific abuser is indescribable," said Mary O'Beirne, 40. "The allegations are untrue. We can't go on living like this, we can't eat, we can't sleep."
She added: "If people tell lies for long enough, people will believe it. We want to get on with our lives and remember our mother and father. They were good to us."
The family did not stop at protecting their father yesterday. They displayed Kathy O'Beirn's birth certificate, saying she was not adopted as she claimed.
"Our sister was not in a Magdalene laundry, or Magdalene home," Mary said. Instead, she had been in children's homes, a psychiatric hospital and a prison.
"Our parents placed her in St Anne's Children Home for a brief period when she was 11 because of ongoing behavioural difficulties," Mary said.
The family claimed Kathy was living at home with them when she says she was in a Magdalene home during the years 1968 to 1970 from the age of 12 to 14.
In 2005 the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity insisted O'Beirne did not work in any of their laundries and wrote to Ireland's Department of Justice requesting an investigation.
"Our sister did not have a child at the age of 14 that she alleges died at the age of ten," Mary said.
In a statement signed by seven brothers and sisters - Oliver, Eamon, Mary, Margaret, John, Tommy and Brian O'Beirne - the family said there was no evidence to support Kathy's claims.
"This woman has broken our hearts, especially the hearts of our now deceased parents," Mary said.
"We are deeply sorry for all of the people who have bought this book believing it to be fact."
The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity said they wrote to Mainstream and the book's co-author, Michael Sheridan, last year.
The letter stated that the only time O'Beirne spent with the order was six weeks spent in a reformatory school. Mainstream responded to requests for interviews by issuing a statement.
"Mainstream took steps prior to the publication of Don't Ever Tell and were satisfied that the memoir was appropriate for publication," it said. It included working closely with O'Beirne and asking the Archdiocese of Dublin to submit any proposed changes.
"Don't Ever Tell was put under considerable media scrutiny upon initial publication without any content being found to be untrue."

_____________________________________________________________________________________

Author's family deny tales of sex abuse


Bestseller lashed out at father and Catholic home
Brothers and sisters say account is pure fiction


Owen Bowcott, Ireland correspondent
Wednesday September 20, 2006
The Guardian


The family of a bestselling author whose vivid memoir claims to document a "hell" of sexual abuse inside a Catholic institution for fallen women denounced the book as a work of fiction yesterday.
At a press conference, seven of Kathy O'Beirne's brothers and sisters read out statements rebutting allegations against their father, who was accused in the book of beating and abusing his daughter.
Ms O'Beirne's bestselling account of her childhood after being placed in the care of the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity is a grim catalogue of sexual abuse, beatings and rape. Sold as Don't Ever Tell in Britain and as Kathy's Story in her native Ireland, it appeared two years ago at a time when trust in the Catholic church's clergy and institutions had been shattered after the prosecution of priests for child abuse.

Her description of being handed over to the notorious "Magdalene laundries" - where difficult children were sent - by an abusive father at the age of eight fed public curiosity about life under the punitive regimes supposedly operating behind the walls of so many convents. To date, it has sold 350,000 copies.
Kathy's Story also tapped into the outrage generated by The Magdalene Sisters, a black comedy released to critical acclaim in 2002. The film stirred up popular anti-clericalism while celebrating the resilience of those who survived after being incarcerated for "'sinful" behaviour.
"A survivor of the horrific system has never told their personal story - until now," Mainstream, the Edinburgh publisher, declared in its publicity material. "Kathy O'Beirne spent nearly 14 years under the Magdalene laundry regime. At the age of eight her father called and asked if she wanted to go to the seaside. She was thrilled and ran to the front door only to find a nun waiting for her. She was taken to a Magdalene laundry and didn't return home until she was 21."
The trouble with her sensational version of events is that both the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity and now the O'Beirne family have dismissed it as unreliable.
"The reason we got together was because of the allegations she was making against our father," Oliver O'Beirne, her eldest brother, told the Guardian yesterday in Dublin. "They are totally untrue. I read her book from beginning to end and wanted to get a pen out and cross out everything that was not true."
"I have no recollection at all of her having been in the Magdalene laundries. I did visit her in a children's home, St Anne's in Dublin. It's a messy business. I haven't talked to Kathleen since my father's will seven months ago. She wanted to stay on in the house. The book was total rubbish," he added. "Yes, we got a belt [at home] if we did something wrong; that was normal then. But talk about sexual abuse is absolute rubbish. We were reared to respect others and be courteous to everyone."
His sister, Mary O'Beirne, also spoke out. "Our sister was not in a Magdalene laundry, or Magdalene home, she was in St Anne's children's home, Kilmacud; St Loman's psychiatric hospital, Mountjoy prison and Sherrard house for homeless people," she said.
"Our parents placed her in St Anne's for a brief period when she was 11 because of ongoing behavioural difficulties.
"Our sister did not have a child [through a rape] at the age of 14 that she alleges died at the age of 10. The anger and frustration we feel at seeing our father branded worldwide as a horrific abuser is indescribable," she said. "The allegations are untrue against my father, he did think an awful lot of Kathleen. We can't go on living like this. We can't eat, we can't sleep, we have children to rear," she said. "I can't go into school [with my children] any more. If people tell lies for long enough, people will believe it. We all want to get on with our lives and remember our mother and father. They were good to us."
The family has asked for the book to be removed from sale.
Kathy O'Beirne could not be contacted yesterday. In a recent interview with Ireland's RT radio she insisted her version of events was true
Last night Mainstream, the book's publisher, issued a statement supporting the book. "Mainstream took steps prior to the publication of Don't Ever Tell and were satisfied that the memoir was appropriate for publication," it said. "This included working closely with Kathy O'Beirne and providing the opportunity for comment or correction to the archdiocese of Dublin by submitting relevant material to it."
"After correspondence of some six weeks, no material changes to the text were requested. [Once it was published] Don't Ever Tell was put under considerable media scrutiny ... without any content being found to be untrue."

_____________________________________________________________________________________

NEWSTRACK - TOP NEWS
Family disputes woman's memoir of abuse
DUBLIN, Ireland, Sept. 19 (UPI) -- The family of an Irish woman who wrote a best-selling memoir detailing years of abuse at the hands of her father and the Catholic church says she made it up.
Seven of Kathy O'Beirne's siblings held a news conference in Dublin on Tuesday to denounce her book, published in Ireland as "Kathy's Story" and in Britain as "Don't Ever Tell," The Scotsman reported. In the book, O'Beirne says that her father abused her from the time she was 7 and that she bore a child after being raped in the Magdalene Laundries, institutions run by an order of nuns for "fallen women."
"The anger and frustration we feel at seeing our father branded worldwide as a horrific abuser is indescribable," said Mary O'Beirne, a younger sister. "The allegations are untrue. We can't go on living like this, we can't eat, we can't sleep."
The siblings also produced O'Beirne's birth certificate, saying that her claim to have been adopted was false.
The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, which ran the laundries, has threatened legal action. Women who were with O'Beirne in other institutions say her claim about the laundries is untrue.

Copyright 2006 United Press International, Inc. All Rights Reserved
_____________________________________________________________________________________
The West Australian
Doubt over unholy story of childhood
20th September 2006, 17:30 WST


An author whose memoirs recount a harrowing childhood of torture and rape while working in a Catholic religious order is at the centre of a row over the accuracy of her claims.


Kathy O Beirne s account of her early life, published as Don t Ever Tell in Britain and Kathy s Story in Ireland and Australia, has sold 350,000 copies.
In the book, she alleges she was beaten and abused by her late father.
The book claims that O Beirne endured 14 years of forced labour in the Magdalen laundries, a Catholic institution which was originally set up to rehabilitate fallen women.
While Don t Ever Tell rides high in the British non-fiction chart, some members of her family are adamant that her book should be re-categorised as a work of fiction.
Although in the book s acknowledgments O Beirne pays tribute to the support she has received from her brother Brian, some of her other seven siblings are angered by its contents.
Her publisher, Mainstream, based in Edinburgh, has defended the book.
However, members of her family were due to host a press conference in Dublin disputing much of what she has written.
Several brothers have rejected allegations that she was beaten and abused by her father, Oliver, when she was growing up in a workingclass suburb of Dublin.
Her older brother John O Beirne, 51, denied the book s allegations of sadistic abuse by his father.
Mr O Beirne described the sequence of events outlined by his sister as a jigsaw puzzle and nothing fits . He said that his father was a loving man, who held down two jobs to provide for his family. Kathy has hurt a lot of people and it s now time for the truth to be told, he said.
Rather than working in a Magdalen laundry, Mr O Beirne recalled visiting her in St Anne s Children Home, Dublin, and St Loman s, an institution for troubled children.
A younger brother, Eamon O Beirne, 48, denied her claim that she bore a child after being raped by a male visitor to the laundries.
In the book, she claimed that the child later died in the care of an unnamed religious order.
Several women have come forward to say they lived with O Beirne in the 1970s in the Sherrard Street hostel for girls in Dublin.
They claim O Beirne never mentioned having had a child or of working in a Magdalen laundry.
The Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, the religious order running the laundry, has denied that O Beirne was a resident and is considering taking legal action.
O Beirne stood by her claims last week on RTE radio, saying she had proof of everything.
London

http://www.thewest.com.au/default.aspx?MenuID=29&ContentID=7362

Same in Washingtom TImes
_____________________________________________________________________________________


Doubts cast on church abuse memoir
By Kevin Smith
DUBLIN (Reuters) - Harrowing tales of physical and sexual abuse at the heart of a best-selling memoir about growing up inside Ireland's Roman Catholic institutions are simply not true, the author's family said on Tuesday.


The brothers and sisters of Kathy O'Beirne, 50, whose autobiography "Kathy's Story" has sold 350,000 copies in Ireland and Britain, say the book should be withdrawn or at the very least reclassified as fiction.
"Absolutely all or nearly all of this book is false -- I don't understand why she's saying this," her older brother Oliver O'Beirne, 52, told Reuters following a news conference.
He said he and his other seven brothers and sisters had been forced to challenge Kathy's account, set in the 1960s and 1970s, to clear his father's and the family's name of her abuse claims.
In the book, published as "Don't Ever Tell" in Britain, O'Beirne writes about being beaten by her father and later about the torture and rape she suffered during 14 years in one of Ireland's Magdalen laundries -- church-run institutions for 'wayward' girls and women that became synonymous with brutality.
Her brother Oliver said she had been at a church school for girls in Dublin for about six weeks and later spent some time in a psychiatric home. He had never heard the Magdalen laundries mentioned in the house while growing up.
Claims that he and his siblings were abused by his father were "fiction, not a word of truth", he said.
"We are just ordinary working people and we've been put in a situation we didn't want any part of and it has to come to an end. Today is about cutting the cord," he said.
Questions about the events portrayed in "Kathy's Story" -- subtitled "A childhood Hell Inside the Magdalen Laundries" -- surfaced in Ireland earlier this year.
Last month an order of nuns threatened to sue state broadcaster RTE after it ran an interview with O'Beirne in which she identified an institution at which she says she was abused.
All four orders that ran the laundries -- which were wound up a decade ago after 150 years in existence -- have denied O'Beirne was ever a resident.
While the author herself was not immediately contactable on Tuesday, she told RTE last week she stood by her story and had proof to back up everything in the book.
Earlier this week her Edinburgh-based publishers, Mainstream, defended the work saying: "We have made every effort and are satisfied the story is true".
The Magdalen laundries caught the public's attention in the late 1990s as revelations of widespread abuse from former inmates gathered momentum. They were the subject of the 2002 award-winning film, "The Magdalene Sisters."
(c) Reuters 2006. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content, including by caching, framing or similar means, is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters and the Reuters sphere logo are registered trademarks and trademarks of the Reuters group of companies around the world.
_____________________________________________________________________________________

This article:CHORUS OF DOUBTS ON CHILDHOOD IN HELL
The Australian, 20 September 2006

DUBLIN: It is a harrowing story of a young woman's life destroyed by nuns and priests, and it has raced to the top of the bestseller list.

But now a chorus of voices, including those of the author's own family, claim the ordeal described by Kathy O'Beirne does not ring true and is in fact a cruel hoax.
Kathy's Story: a Childhood Hell in the Magdalene Laundries has sold more than 350,000 copies in Ireland and Britain, securing a place in the top five bestselling non-fiction titles in Britain, where it sells under the title Don't Ever Tell.

Published last year, the story of O'Beirne seemed to encapsulate the anguish of a generation of Irish people whose experiences at the hands of religious orders left them scarred.

But as the sales continued to rise, so did the questions. In the book, she says she was beaten by her father and sexually abused by two boys from the age of five before being sent away to a church-run institution.

She claims that at the age of 10 she was repeatedly raped by a priest and whipped by nuns. Later she was forced to take drugs in a mental institution.

"I was consigned to a hell of beatings and abuse," she wrote.

The first organisation to challenge the account was the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, one of four religious orders which ran the Magdalene laundries - institutions for young women who were seen to be in moral or physical danger at home.

The sisters said they invited an independent archivist to study their files because nobody could remember any Kathy O'Beirne. No record of her attendance could be found.

Now her own family is about to dispute her story.

"I read the book and I can't figure out where she's coming from," said O'Beirne's older brother, Oliver, 52.

"My father was a good man. There are nine kids in the family, and she is the only one who has any stories of abuse."

http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=1386652006
Last updated: 19-Sep-06 19:58 BSTThe Book Standard


_____________________________________________________________________________________


The U.K. May Be Getting Its James Frey Moment
September 20, 2006
By Kimberly Maul


Kathy O Beirne s family has come forward to dispute claims made in her memoir, specifically that the Irish author was abused by her father and sent away to the Magdalen laundries at a young age.


Her book, Kathy s Story: A Childhood Hell in the Magdalen Laundries, which is also called Don t Ever Tell in some countries, has sold more than 247,000 copies in the U.K., according to Nielsen BookScan. Yet despite its popularity in the U.K., the book has not yet sold 1,000 copies since it was published in April in the United States, where it is called Kathy's Story: The True Story of a Childhood Hell Inside Ireland's Magdalen Laundries.






O Beirne wrote in her book, I was consigned to a hell of beatings and abuse. It was one long scream of suffering which has haunted all of my adult life. O Beirne also wrote that she was beaten by her father, sexually abused from the age of 5 and sent to the Magdalen laundries and other institutions where she was whipped by nuns, raped by priests and forced to take drugs.


Yesterday, O Beirne s brothers and sisters held a press conference to dispute claims made in the book, The Guardian reported today.


The reason we got together was because of the allegations she was making against our father, said Oliver O Beirne, the oldest brother. They are totally untrue. I read her book from beginning to end and wanted to get a pen out and cross out everything that was not true.


Yes, we got a belt [at home] if we did something wrong; that was normal then, he continued, But talk of sexual abuse is absolute rubbish. We were reared to respect others and be courteous to everyone.


In addition to the denial from O Beirne s siblings, the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity, a religious organization that runs the Magdalen laundries, said they were unable to find attendance records for Kathy O Beirne, the Times reported yesterday.


O Beirne s sister Mary O Beirne also spoke out, saying her sister was not sent to the Magdalene laundries as a child, but that she was sent to St. Anne s children s home for a brief time due to behavioral problems.


Our sister did not have a child [through a rape] at the age of 14 that she alleges died at the age of 10, Mary O Beirne said, The Guardian reported. The anger and frustration we feel at seeing our father branded worldwide as a horrific abuser is indescribable. The allegations are untrue against my father.


O Beirne has not commented on her siblings denial of the events in her memoir, but in a recent radio interview, she insisted that events in her memoir were true.


Mainstream, the publisher of the book, issued a statement yesterday saying, Mainstream took steps prior to the publication of Don t Ever Tell and were satisfied that the memoir was appropriate for publication. Don t Ever Tell was put under considerable media scrutiny without any content being found to be untrue.


O Beirnes siblings are asking for the book to be removed from stores.
The Times September 23, 2006
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'New book proves my story of abuse'
By David Sharrock, Ireland Correspondent



A WOMAN who wrote a controversial bestseller about a violent father and sexual abuse by Irish priests says that she will answer her detractors in a new book that will reveal further shocking details.
Kathy O’Beirne’s Don’t Ever Tell has sold more than 300,000 copies but her claims that she was raped and tortured in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries for “fallen women” have been dismissed as fabrications by the religious orders that ran them, by a woman who claims that they knew each other while living at a hostel, and by seven of her brothers and sisters.



O’Beirne told The Times that she had documentary evidence proving her story but when asked to present it she refused. She said that her new book, The Aftermath: Who Am I, would vindicate her. “I have ten abusers in all. There’s files on all of them,” she said.

A spokeswoman for Mainstream, which published Don’t Ever Tell, said that although no contract had been signed for the second book “we would love to do it”.

O’Beirne’s family said this week that their sister was a troubled person who had been exploited by her publisher. They produced a copy of her birth certificate to show that she had not, as the book claims, been adopted. One of the orders that ran the Magdalene Laundries is considering taking legal action.

Erica Wagner, literary editor of The Times, said: “This will be by no means the last confession memoir we see — whether this is true or false has no bearing on the matter. The plain truth is that confession memoirs shoot to the top of bestseller lists, and publishers will follow the money.”

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