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    The Magdalen
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    The Magdalen
    Unavailable
    The Magdalen
    Ebook295 pages3 hours

    The Magdalen

    By Marita Conlon McKenna

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    The wide open spaces of Connemara, filled with nothing but sea and sky, are all lost to Esther Doyle when she is betrayed by her lover, Conor. Rejected by her family, she is sent to join the 'fallen women' of the Holy Saints Convent in Dublin where, behind high granite walls, she works in the infamous Magdalen laundry while she awaits the birth of her baby.

    At the mercy of nuns, and working mostly in silence alongside the other 'Maggies,' Esther spends her days in the steamy, sweatshop atmosphere of the laundry. It is a grim existence, but Esther has little choice--the convent is her only refuge, and its orphanage will provide shelter for her newborn child.

    Yet despite the harsh reality of her life, Esther gains support from this isolated community of women. Learning through the experiences and the mistakes of the other 'Maggies,' she begins to recognize her own strengths and determination to survive. She recognizes, too, that it will take every ounce of courage to realize her dream of a new life for her and her child beyond they grey walls of the Holy Saints Convent.



    At the Publisher's request, this title is being sold without Digital Rights Management Software (DRM) applied.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherMacmillan Publishers
    Release dateFeb 5, 2009
    ISBN9781429968102
    Unavailable
    The Magdalen
    Author

    Marita Conlon McKenna

    Born in Dublin in 1956 and brought up in Goatstown, Marita went to school at the Convent of the Sacred Heart, Mount Anville, later working in the family business, the bank, and a travel agency. She has four children with her husband James, and they live in the Stillorgan area of Dublin. Marita was always fascinated by the Famine period in Irish history and read everything available on the subject. When she heard a radio report of an unmarked children's grave from the Famine period being found under a hawthorn tree, she decided to write her first book, Under the Hawthorn Tree. Published in May 1990, the book was an immediate success and become a classic. It has been translated into over a dozen languages, including Arabic, Bahasa, French, Dutch, German, Swedish, Italian, Japanese and Irish. The book has been read on RTÉ Radio and is very popular in schools, both with teachers and pupils. It has been made a supplementary curriculum reader in many schools and is also used by schools in Northern Ireland for EMU (Education through Mutual Understanding) projects. It was also filmed by Young Irish Film Makers, in association with RTÉ and Channel 4. This is available as a DVD. Marita has written more books for children which were also very well received. The Blue Horse reached No. 1 on the Bestseller List and won the BISTO BOOK OF THE YEAR Award. No Goodbye, which tells of the heartbreak of a young family when their mother leaves home, was recommended by Book Trust in their guide for One Parent Families. Safe Harbour is the story of two English children evacuated from London during World War ll to live with their grandfather in Greystones, Co Wicklow and was shortlisted for the BISTO Book of the Year Award. A Girl Called Blue follows the life of an orphan, trying to find who she really is in a cold and strict orphanage. Marita has also explored the world of fantasy with her book In Deep Dark Wood. Marita has won several awards, including the International Reading Association Award, the Osterreichischer Kinder und Jugendbuchpreis, the Reading Association of Ireland Award and the Bisto Book of the Year Award. In her most recent bestselling novel for adults, The Hungry Road, Marita has returned to the subject of the Irish famine.

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    Reviews for The Magdalen

    3.5/5

    23 ratings4 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Quick, engrossing read that keeps you interested & occupied throughout about an interesting and harrowing part of Irish life and history.
    • 5/5
      This is the second book I've read by Marita Conlon-McKenna. She has a very engaging story-telling style, and as someone who prefers nonfiction, I'm impressed. Her story here is a hard one, of an unwed pregnant young woman in 1950's Ireland who has few options but to enter a home for unwed mothers. The Magdalen(e) homes are run by nuns who are often harsh and punitive. Some of the parts of the story were painful to read, but there were also enjoyable parts, with great character development and interesting dialogue.

      Conlon-McKenna bases her story lines on history; she has done her research well.

      I'll definitely look into reading more of her writing.
    • 3/5
      This one really didn't live up to the hype. It's a pretty straightforward tale about a naive young girl from County Connemara who loves well but not wisely, and is introduced to harsh reality when she becomes pregnant and the child's father refuses to marry her, having better prospects at hand.As was not unusual in Ireland in the 1950s, Esther's only practical choice is to enter a Catholic convent specializing in the housing of "wayward girls and fallen women" to await the birth of her child, which she must agree to place in the attached orphanage and make available for adoption. During her confinement, she works in the convent's commercial laundry and undergoes various hardships both physical and emotional.At the end, she gives birth, realizes she loves her baby, has second thoughts about releasing it for adoption, is told she has no choice in the matter, and chooses to stay in Dublin afterwards rather than returning to the family which scorned her. She is sure she can survive and still holds the dream of someday being united with her lost child.And while there's nothing really wrong with the book, there's nothing particularly significant about it, either. The characters are internally consistent; Esther's actions in the throes of first love are believable; the reader can tell from a mile away where the boyfriend's true intentions lie; the nuns are suitably unsympathetic to their charges; and the girls with whom Esther shares her confinement fall neatly into various categories.Readers looking for an overview of the whole Magdalene Laundry system would probably be better off with nonfiction studies. Those looking for an engrossing fictional tale of one of its graduates will need to keep searching.
    • 2/5
      Easy read. Not great writing and ending was abrupt and left the reader hanging.