The scandal of the religious-run Magdalene laundries, where young women deemed to have offended the moral code of the Catholic Church were incarcerated and put to work, is a stain on the public history of the Irish state. It has taken years of campaigning to bring this injustice to light.

Even now, it is more than feasible that further revelations will emerge. They did in 2012, when amateur historian Catherine Corliss uncovered evidence of a mass grave containing the remains of 796 infants at St Mary’s mother-and-baby home in Tuam, Co Galway.

Overall, it is estimated that a minimum of 10,000 women were sent to the institutions in the years from the founding of the state in 1922 to the closure of the final Magdalene laundry in 1996. Most were forced into unpaid, brutalising work in the profitable laundry system.

The new documentary, Testimony, directed by Aoife Kelleher, takes up where earlier campaigning films left off. Its most notable progenitor is Sex in a Cold Climate (1998), in which four women narrated to-camera their memories of the laundries. It was as shocking then as now to see elderly, dignified, smartly dressed women weeping at the memory of having their children taken from them.

The trauma they endured is unimaginable. Sex in a Cold Climate was the inspiration for The Magdalene Sisters in 2002. Since then, Philomena (2013), based on the real story of Philomena Lee, who also speaks in Testimony, shone a light on the trade in babies, many of them to homes in the US, perpetrated by the Magdalene institutions in collusion with the Irish state.

Most recently, Small Things Like These (2024), adapted from the novella by Claire Keegan, asked its viewers what they would have done if they had been confronted with the truth of what was going on in those grim buildings.

The trailer for Testimony.

Testimony alternates to-camera interviews with survivors with the history of how the group, Justice for Magdalenes, was founded. We follow this collection of determined campaigners as they take on the Irish government and force them to acknowledge their historic complicity in this story.

Recognising that descriptions of slow, detailed legal work do not make for dynamic viewing, the filmmakers rely on explaining the legal process through the key figure of the Irish human rights lawyer, Maeve O’Rourke, an articulate, engaging presence on screen.

At the same time, the documentary acknowledges that the true heroes are the women whose stories of abuse and exploitation are as harrowing as when they were first heard. Regrettably, now as previously, the religious orders declined to participate.

Testimony is effectively a two-part film. One “ending” comes in at around the 55-minute mark with the triumphant arrival of a group of 220 Magdalene survivors and their families to a civic reception in Dublin. As the coaches roll in, they are greeted by cheering members of the public. This deeply moving sequence draws its strength from the women’s own emotions as they take in the faces and placards among the crowds. As one says: “That for me was my healing.”

The film then restarts with the stories of the children who were trafficked out of the state, interweaving this with the campaigners’ attempts to force the government into offering appropriate recompense. This segment opens with footage of the discovery of the Tuam burials and again returns to the voices of survivors, both mothers and children, including Philomena Lee. It also touches on the illegal vaccine trials conducted on children born in the homes.

Deprived of a similarly cathartic ending to the first segment, the film concludes by imploring the Irish government and the religious institutions to make available all the records held on the Magdalene laundries.

Testimony will never reach the audiences that fictional films on the subject can. At the same time, this campaigning documentary is an essential reminder of a society’s efforts to contain female sexuality, particularly that of its most vulnerable members. It is equally a demonstration of how the law can be used to fight injustice. We needn’t be so complacent as to assume none of this could happen again.

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This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit, independent news organization bringing you facts and trustworthy analysis to help you make sense of our complex world. It was written by: Ruth Barton, Trinity College Dublin

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Ruth Barton does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.