Brigid O’Connor remembered as son urges politicians not to forget women of mother-and-baby homes
Brigid O’Connor, a former resident of the Good Shepherd Convent in Derry, was remembered at Stormont as MLAs discussed redress for the survivors of mother-and-baby homes and their families.
Ms. O’Connor, who passed away on October 27, 1981, spent 25 years in the former Magdalene laundry in the Waterside.
Her son Robert, one of Brigid’s four children, has been campaigning to preserve the memory of the women who spent years in mother-and-baby homes across the North.
After she died Brigid was buried under the false surname, Conway, which appeared on a headstone in Ardmore until Robert successfully campaigned for this to be corrected.
As MLAs prepared to discuss an inquiry and redress scheme Robert sent them images memorialising Brigid and urged them to remember the women at the centre of the mother-and-baby home story.
SDLP MLA Sinéad McLaughlin said: “Yesterday evening, all MLAs got three photographs on behalf of Robert O'Connor's mother, who was in a Magdalene laundry: the Good Shepherd's Convent.
"I lived on the same street: I grew up on that street until I was 10 years old. I regularly saw those women going to and from the chapel. To me, they were old women, but, obviously, I was a child. They were not old; they were young.
"Those photographs are important as they show clearly the faces of stolen lives — of the women who never got out of the institutions once they were admitted.”
Ms. McLaughlin acknowledged Mr. O’Connor’s tenacity in ensuring that his mother’s gravestone was corrected.
"Robert's mother was buried under the wrong name. After much campaigning, Robert managed to get her name changed on the headstone, in memory of the woman who had been held in the Magdalene laundry there.
“I have visited the grave, and it is beyond sad to read the names and bear witness to the tragedy of our past. Her name was Brigid O'Connor,” she said.
People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll spoke of how Mr. O’Connor, who spent years in Termonbacca, only learned about Brigid when she passed away and was asked to attend her funeral.
“I want to speak about the experience of Mr Robert O'Connor, who emailed me, Sinéad and other MLAs. As has been said, he mentioned that his mother was in the Good Shepherd Magdalene laundry in Derry.
"Decades ago, when Robert asked about his mother, he was told that she had passed away. Years later, he was contacted and asked to attend her funeral, only to find out that she had been buried under the wrong name.
"After years of campaigning, Robert finally succeeded in having her name corrected on the stone that memorialised women there. As Sinéad said, he sent us photographs of his mother before and after she was put into the laundry.
"His message to us was simple: ‘Please do not forget about these women when you vote on anything regarding the proposed inquiry’.
“That is very pertinent today,” Mr. Carroll maintained.
On Tuesday MLAs voted on a number of amendments to the Inquiry (Mother and Baby Institutions, Magdalene Laundries and Workhouses) and Redress Scheme Bill, which was introduced by the First and Deputy First Ministers Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly last year.