'I feel my story had to be told. So much evil was done there was a voice inside me shouting, "Justice".' With no one to confide in, Kathy suffered in silence as she was battered by her father and molested by local boys. At the age of eight, she was torn from her family and incarcerated in a series of Catholic homes. When she was sent to a psychiatric unit, she suffered terrifying electric- shock therapy and further cruelty at the hands of her supposed carers. After ending up in a Magdalen laundry, she fell victim to sexual abuse and gave birth to baby Annie just weeks before her fourteenth birthday. "Don't Ever Tell" is Kathy's harrowing account of her ruined childhood and of her subsequent fight for justice.
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Book Description
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About the Author
Kathy O'Beirne has led the campaign for justice for Magdalen girls in Ireland for the past 11 years.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars
Why did this keep happening until 1996?,
By Meesha "I'm A Lonely Angel Stuck On The Slow ... (South Queensferry, Scotland) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Don't Ever Tell: Kathy's Story: A True Tale of a Childhood Destroyed by Neglect and Fear (Mass Market Paperback)
I've already seen the Magdalene Sisters film. Now I'm reading a book, about a girl, Kathy, who actually went to hell and back thanks to these laundries.
From the beginning of the book, to the end, it spans over 30 years, 30 years of being stuck in institutions, having electric shock treatments, giving birth to a baby, the result of a rape, and being physically & mentally abused. The world is a harsh place, when NUNS can dole out this sort of abuse. Kathy goes into great detail about her life, about her dad hitting her, about local boys having their wicked way, and then being put in an institution, where she was regularly abused. She tries running away, she gets pregnant, but the child dies at the age of 10, and then she is freed at 18. Each chapter starts with a poem, either the author's own, or another one. Once, the chapter starts with a letter to her daughter, although it gives away that the daughter dies. The abuse that Kathy describes, which only begins to stop when she has a child, although she describes that they're normally sold to families, is horrendous. From being held down in freezing water, to having bones broken, beatings, multiple rapes and electric shock treatments, it seems never ending. The book ends with Kathy desperately trying to do something about what became known as the Magdalene Laundries, and trying to track down old friends she'd made. What is most shocking is that a mass grave is found in one of the grounds, with over 100 bodies in it, and some that are never identified, and don't have death certificates. That they get cremated, so nothing will ever be known about these poor souls. It's absolutely terrifying that the last Magdalene Laundry was only closed down in 1996, and Kathy is still campaigning for the "Maggies" who are still stuck in various mental institutions. It's shocking to think that some of them have been in there so long, that they wouldn't be able to adapt in the outside world. Don't Ever Tell is a really harrowing book, and the abuse will have you crossing your legs, and thanking whoever that you will never have to suffer something like that. It's an amazing story that Kathy managed to tell, and she has done well managing to get the wheels turning in order to get something done about the Magdalene Laundries, and the nuns.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
1.0 out of 5 stars
Another Misery Biography Hoax?,
This review is from: Don't Ever Tell: Kathy's Story: A True Tale of a Childhood Destroyed by Neglect and Fear (Mass Market Paperback)
The irish Daily Mail ran an article containing the following in Oct 2007:
According to official records and eyewitness statements, Kathy O'Beirne was never in a Magdalene laundry - institutions run by the Roman Catholic church to house "fallen women" and unmarried mothers, who were required to undertake hard physical labour such as laundry work. The daughter she claims she bore at the age of 13 did not exist. And a priest who allegedly raped and beat her suffered from such severe arthritis he could not even shake hands. Moreover, ... she tried to bribe a friend to be a "witness" to a rape that never happened, and has threatened to have those who challenge her account "dealt with". [S]oon after the publication of her book in 2005, the first cracks appeared in the intricate edifice she had constructed. It started with her assertion, in the first line of the book, that she was in her 40s, and her later claim that she was adopted and unrelated by blood to her eight brothers and sisters. Kathy O'Beirne said she suffered horrifying abuse while at the Magdalene laundries Her outraged family produced Ms O'Beirne's birth certificate which showed she was in fact 50, and the natural child of Oliver and Anne O'Beirne. They also claimed their father, a builder's labourer who went to Mass every day, was a caring man who had never tortured their sister. This was swiftly followed by a statement from the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of High Park, who ran the Magdalene laundry identified by Ms O'Beirne. They "categorically denied" that she spent any time in the laundries or related institutions, and insisted "no child was ever born in any of our premises". In a taped conversation, Ms O'Beirne is heard to say: "Well, I can guarantee you that I have a letter stating from the nuns that I was in the Magdalene laundries and their care." She later adds: "I have to be honest with you and you can print this in your paper. If anything happens to anyone connected to me I will have you dealt with. And I mean that. And you ask anyone that. I will have you dealt with and so will the 300 of my followers." Strangely, despite her protestations, no evidence has ever been produced. School records show that she spent the years 1961 to June 1969 in Scoil Mhuire, her local national school in the village of Clondalkin, which she left at the age of 12. This starkly contradicts the author's claim that she spent two years in a reformatory school (from the age of eight), two years in a public psychiatric hospital (from the age of ten) and finally entered a Magdalene laundry in High Park, Dublin (aged 12). The only significant period of time that Ms O'Beirne was not in Scoil Mhuire was a six-week period at the age of 11 which she spent in St Anne's Reformatory School in Kilmacud in 1967, an absence fully accounted for in her school records. Lorraine King, 53, who worked alongside the 70 women in that particular Magdalene laundry in the early 1970s, when Ms O'Beirne said she was there, ...said Ms O'Beirne's descriptions of the daily life and physical layout of High Park were woefully inaccurate, concluding that the book "has not been written by someone who has been there". She cites as an example, the author's words: "The first thing I noticed while driving up to the convent that day was a beautiful grotto to Our Lady on the left-hand side. Up from that was a church, a large red-brick building with big bars on the windows." At the time Ms O'Beirne was writing about, there was a large building in front of the grotto which blocked it from sight. Only in recent years could the author have seen the view she depicts. If Kathy O'Beirne was never at the Magdalene laundries, what credence can be given to her claims that, while there, she was raped by priests and gave birth at the age of 13 to a daughter, Kelly Anne or "Annie", who was taken away from her by the nuns? Despite her claim to have a copy of the child's birth certificate, there is no official record of a child born to Ms O'Beirne. Neither is there a death certificate to back up the author's claim that her daughter died at the age of ten. Officially, "Annie" never existed. Ms O'Beirne later claimed to have had a second child, who died at birth. Again there is no evidence of this baby's existence. One of her oldest friends, Margaret Power, a 48-year-old hairdresser living in London, is outraged by the claims. She said Ms O'Beirne has never been pregnant.... The hairdresser alleges Kathy O'Beirne approached her in 2005 with an astonishing proposition: if she would lie about witnessing Kathy being raped by a priest in 1969, she would give her a half-share in a bungalow. Her family has said: "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. Kathy's Real Story: A Culture of False Allegations Exposed
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