Louise Brangan

A searing account ... Enraging ... a detailed, thoroughgoing ... superb if horrifying testament

Louise Brangan takes our hazy ideas of such institutions and replaces them with the stark reality ... Brangan’s remarkable book, thrumming with rage and harrowing to read, is a monument to [the] women and their suffering

Critical, informed and beautifully written, The Fallen makes the case for a genuinely transformative response to Ireland's histories of religious incarceration

Engrossing … it feels part novel … [Brangan] is an accomplished communicator, the reader feels like they are accompanying her as she burrows into the conditions of the soil from which the laundries grew … This meticulously researched book … helps us see more clearly.

A terrific yet harrowing unearthing of Ireland's shadowland. I thought I knew about the Magdalene Laundries. I was wrong. Brangan's chronicle is limpid, eloquent and devastating. A landmark book.

Compelling, measured and deeply felt; Brangan cuts through shame and fable to tell the truth about the ‘inconvenient' women whose lives were stolen by the Magdalene Laundries. Indispensable.

Breaking silence is a catalyst for change and the lived experiences of survivors in this book demand a reckoning, challenging us to ask ourselves what systemic injustices we are normalising to this day.

A wrenching reminder that human injustice repeats in the dark corners of human history—and a call to remain attentive

The Magdalene Laundries and Ireland’s Legacy of Silence

When the gates of the last Magdalene Laundry closed in 1996, Ireland moved on. Or so it seemed. 
 
'Enraging ... superb' JOHN BANVILLE, Guardian 
'Compelling, measured and deeply felt' ANNE ENRIGHT 
'A terrific unearthing of Ireland's shadowland. A landmark book' RORY CARROLL 
'Remarkable' LAURA HACKETT , The Times 
 
Following independence in 1922, Ireland began to chase a dream: to become the perfect Catholic nation. But purity had a price. Throughout the twentieth century, thousands of women and girls who did not conform – the wayward, the poor, the disabled, the abused – were sent to the Magdalene Laundries. Each was perceived to have fallen in some way. Once locked inside, their hair was shorn off, their names were erased – and then they were put to work. They washed, they scrubbed and they prayed, labouring in an attempt to salvage their souls. 
 
This remains one of the darkest and most misunderstood periods of recent history. Published to coincide with the thirtieth anniversary of the last Laundry’s closure, The Fallen is the forgotten story of the Magdalene Laundries, told through the voices of the women who endured them, the nuns who presided over them and the communities that lived alongside them. 
 
Unflinching and compassionate, Louise Brangan draws on archives and survivors’ testimonies to dismantle long-held myths about what the Laundries were, who was sent to these places of violence and secrecy, and why. As we move from the past into the present, Brangan compels us not only to confront this shameful history, but to ask a deeper question: what do we choose to remember? 
 
'Engrossing' MARY McCARTHY, Irish Independent 
'Critical, informed and beautifully written' MÁIRÉAD ENRIGHT 
'Breaking silence is a catalyst for change' CAELAINN HOGAN 
 
Winner of the 2024 Royal Society of Literature Giles St Aubyn Award

Louise Brangan

Praise for The Fallen

A searing account ... Enraging ... a detailed, thoroughgoing ... superb if horrifying testament

Louise Brangan takes our hazy ideas of such institutions and replaces them with the stark reality ... Brangan’s remarkable book, thrumming with rage and harrowing to read, is a monument to [the] women and their s ...

**Critical, informed and beautifully written, The Fallen makes the case for a genuinely transformative response to Ireland's histories of religious incarceration**

A searing account ... Enraging ... a detailed, thoroughgoing ... superb if horrifying testament

Louise Brangan takes our hazy ideas of such institutions and replaces them with the stark reality ... Brangan’s remarkable book, thrumming with rage and harrowing to read, is a monument to [the] women and their s ...

**Critical, informed and beautifully written, The Fallen makes the case for a genuinely transformative response to Ireland's histories of religious incarceration**

A searing account ... Enraging ... a detailed, thoroughgoing ... superb if horrifying testament

Louise Brangan takes our hazy ideas of such institutions and replaces them with the stark reality ... Brangan’s remarkable book, thrumming with rage and harrowing to read, is a monument to [the] women and their s ...

**Critical, informed and beautifully written, The Fallen makes the case for a genuinely transformative response to Ireland's histories of religious incarceration**

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