Dublin by Lamplight

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Dublin by Lamplight or the Lamplight Laundry, at 35 Ballsbridge Terrace, Ballsbridge, Dublin, was a Protestant-run Magdalene Laundry, founded in 1856, that like other such laundries housed so-called "fallen women". [1] [2] It was administered by a committee of Anglican women, a matron, and a chaplain who was a Church of Ireland priest. The motto of the asylum was "That they may recover themselves out of the snares of the devil" (II Timothy 2:24). [3] [ better source needed ]

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A chaplain and secretary to the laundry, Rev. Dr James S. Fletcher DD (parish priest of Brookfield, Milltown, Co. Dublin), wrote a paper titled "Our Female Penitentiaries Can Be Made Self-Supporting!", which was discussed at the International Prison Congress. [4]

By 1915 the trustees of the organisation reported that the finances of the organisation were under strain and by February 1917 the trustees had requested that the company be wound up, citing competition from the nearby Swastika Laundry as well as the effects of the First World War. [5]

The site later formed part of the six-acre Johnston, Mooney & O'Brien manufacturing facility, and it featured in the Glackin Report following its sale in the 1990s to Telecom Éireann for £9.4 million, having been acquired by a consortium including Dermot Desmond and JP McManus a few months earlier for £4 million by the way of an Isle of Man entity. [6]

The site of the institution has been redeveloped and now forms part of the campus of the Herbert Park Hotel and associated apartment blocks and offices. There is a campaign to have the location commemorated with a plaque. [7]

It is mentioned in James Joyce's short story "Clay" in Dubliners . [8]

See also

References

  1. ↑ Oram, Hugh (2014). The Little Book of Ballsbridge . Dublin: The History Press. p.  68. ISBN   9780750958295.
  2. ↑ Eide, Marian (2011). "James Joyce's Magdalenes" . College Literature. 38 (4). The Johns Hopkins University Press: 57–75. doi:10.1353/lit.2011.0043. JSTOR   41302888. S2CID   220827432.
  3. ↑ Gifford, Don (1982). Joyce Annotated: Notes for Dubliners and A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man . Berkeley, California, USA: University of California Press. ISBN   9780520046108.
  4. ↑ Circular[s] of Information, Page. 235, Volume 10, Issues 1-4 By United States. Office of Education, 1891.
  5. ↑ McNally, Frank. "An Irishman's Diary: James Joyce and Dublin by Lamplight". The Irish Times. Retrieved 10 October 2025.
  6. ↑ "New bakehouse for Messrs Johnston Mooney and O'Brien in Ballsbridge". www.ucd.ie. Retrieved 10 October 2025.
  7. ↑ Whelan, Zuzia (28 November 2018). "The City Should Mark the Sites of All Long-Gone Magdalene Laundries, Some Councillors Say". Dublin Inquirer. Retrieved 30 December 2021.
  8. ↑ Joyce, James (2006). Norris, Margot (ed.). Dubliners . New York, London: W. W. Norton & Company. p.  82, footnote 1. ISBN   978-0-393-97851-3.
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