Most of the good moments in the book are when Sullivan is with her grandmother. I felt that too, how her grandmother was so kind and loving and caring. Though there was a situation where she planted Sullivan in a very perspicacious position. Where in, if Sullivan had been caught she would surly have paid with more than money. And that I felt made the granny more like the rest of Sullivan's family than I care to admit. I told on him, didn’t I? That was the crime. That’s what happened. I told the Church that my stepfather was molesting and raping me, and beating me and my brothers. Maureen Sullivan (70) is a strong woman. She has had to be. Probably the youngest person to have been held in a Magdalene laundry in Ireland, she was just 12 when she arrived at the Good Shepherd-run establishment at New Ross, Co Wexford, in 1964. Over the following four years she was transferred to another such laundry in Athy, Co Kildare, and then to a home for the blind on Merrion Road in Dublin.

Cover of Girl in the Tunnel: My Story of Love and Loss as a Survivor of the Magdalene Laundries, by Maureen Sullivan. Not allowed to speak, barely fed and often going without water, the child was viciously beaten by the nuns for years and hidden away in an underground tunnel when government inspectors came. At twelve, Sullivan finally told a teacher how bad things were at home. The teacher sought help for her in the form of a convent boarding school—and instead Sullivan was sent to the Magdalene Laundries. Kept separate from the other children her age, she was put to work doing laundry, day in and day out, as penance for having been abused.Bishop Nulty here in Carlow, I like him, he’s a fair and honest man, and he told me it was wrong,” she said.

Maureen asks the fundamental question that occurs to everyone who knows about Ireland’s carceral institutions: “Why were they so cruel to me? Why were they so hard? I was a little kid, yet they never let me have a minute to look at a book or sing a song... I was made into a miniature robot for the church to profit from.”

A nun got me talking, she noticed I wasn’t eating, wasn’t talking, she was way ahead of her time, but I was being abused for a few years at that stage,” said the Carlow native. Girl in the tunnel was co-written by Liosa McNamara. For both women, recounting Maureen’s childhood was a difficult and incredibly painfully process. The Laundry in Athy, it was up behind the Catholic Church, where I used to scrub the floors,” she said. It was very hard for Liosa and me, because this is very disturbing and very, very painfully to listen to and exhausting emotionally. We’d often have to take a break, maybe for a few months, because I’m still in recovery, I always will be, so I do have to mind myself,” explained Maureen. My mother came once as Athy was close and she managed to get a lift. We talked for a while, very politely.

Maureen’s story and incredible fight for justice has propelled her to local and national prominence, her bravery and heroism to speak out truly remarkable. She’s now a tireless and vocal advocate for justice for those affected – and at 70 years’ old, she now feels ready to publish her story. Mark Coen, co-editor of a book on the Donnybrook Magdalene laundry, holding copies of a ledger from the laundry from the 1980s. Photograph: Alan Betson We all slept in beds together. In Green Lane there were two rooms, with two double beds in each one. My mother and Marty were in the front room in a bed with a baby, across from a bed with the youngest ones. In the other room there was me, my brothers and the others. We didn’t have duvets or even blankets most of the time. It was coats on top of us and we would sleep close for the heat of each other to get through the night. Maureen was moved to The Magdeline Laundry in New Ross when she was twelve after she confessed to a nun that her stepfather had been abusing her physically and sexually. The nun continued: “They believed you could corrupt the innocence... of the other children,” she said, “if you mixed with them.” Sullivan interjected: “Sister, are you telling me they put me into the laundry and... all of it... because they thought I would tell the other children about what my stepfather done to me?” The nun continued: “It was wrong,” she said, nodding, “but yes, that’s what they did.”

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When Maureen Sullivan was just twelve years old, she confided in her teacher that she was being physically and sexually abused by her stepfather. Never, in her darkest imaginings, could she have dreamt that she would be the one who would face a harrowing punishment. I changed most of the names in the book – my abuser, relatives, locals and the nuns, because I’m not out to hurt or for revenge. I wrote this book because I was silenced as a child when I was a victim of abuse, and I was silenced by society when I left the laundry. I want people to know what happened. This is my history, but it is also the history of this country,” said Maureen. Last summer, she and Independent Dublin City Councillor Mannix Flynn were central to unveiling the Journey Stone at the Little Museum of Dublin on St Stephen’s Green to honour “the great courage, integrity and dignity of the women” who had been in the laundries. This weekends Irish Times Eason offer is The Maid by Nita Prose, only €4.99 with your paper, a saving of €5.