Girl in the tunnel - Maureen Sullivan

When Maureen Sullivan was just twelveyears old, she confided in her teacher that shewas being physically and sexually abused by herstepfather. Never, in her darkest imaginings,could she have dreamt that she would be theone who would face a harrowing punishment.

Within twenty-four hours, Maureen was taken from her home and her beloved grandmother, and sent to theMagdalene Laundry in New Ross, Co. Wexford, run by the Order of the Good Shepherd nuns. She was told that shewould receive an education there, but instead she wasimmediately stripped of her meagre possessions and throwninto forced labour, washing clothes and scrubbing floors ininhumane and unrelenting conditions. Not allowed to speak,barely fed, and often going without water, the child wasviciously beaten by the nuns for years and hidden away in anunderground tunnel when government inspectors came. Noone must see how cruelly the nuns were treating her.

In the heart-breaking Girl in the Tunnel, Maureen bravelyrecounts her agonising journey from a monstrously violenthome to the cold and brutal Magdalene laundry system, andher desperate, gruelling fight for freedom and for justice.