76. Late Night

From 1922 to 1996 more than 10,000 women and girls were incarcerated in Ireland’s Magdalene Laundries. Operated by four religious orders in 10 locations around the country, these for-profit institutions detained individuals against their will and forced them to work long hours, unpaid, under abusive and humiliating conditions. These institutions committed some of the most serious systematic violations against human rights in Ireland in the 20th century.

This work by three of Ireland’s leading composers is intended to honour those women who were so gravely mistreated by church and state in the Magdalene Laundries by giving voice to their experience.