Mary Teresa Collins

Mary Teresa Collins was born out of wedlock in the 1960s to Irish Traveller parents. Her mother was called Angela Collins from Mayo and her father Patrick Ward was from Galway. Mary was raised in a abusive industrial school within Cork. There she claims she was made to hate herself for being a Traveller and her mother who was locked behind a Magdalene asylum for 27 years, Marys mother while in the laundry was recommended a hysterectomy a decade before she died of ovarian cancer.[1]

Mary after partaking in the child abuse inquiry (Ryan report) in which during that process deemed other institutions such as the Magdalene laundries wrongly private.[2] Mary broke her gagging order by partaking in a documentary called the, The Forgotten Maggies. It was the only Irish-made documentary on the subject and was launched at The Galway Film Fleadh 2009.[3] It was screened on the Irish television station TG4 in 2011, attracting over 360,000 viewers. The women who appeared in the documentary were the first Magdalene women to meet with Irish government officials. They brought national and international attention to the subject.[4] Mr. Shatter and Minister of State for Equality Kathleen Lynch met Magdalene Survivors like Mary in Government Buildings to discuss what some of the women were hoping to get. Mary had made a call for compensation to be extended to children of deceased women who had been in the laundries she said her mother’s unpaid wages should be hers and her sister’s inheritance.[5] Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin Eamonn Walsh said at the time all parties should help the women. However the Mercy sisters, the sisters of Charity and the good shepherd sisters informed the Justice Minister they will not be contributing a penny to the living survivors.[6]

After years of campaigning Mary sat in the Dáil to hear the Magdalene apology be issued in 2013 but they excluded the dead women and their children while not even providing a minute’s silence for the life’s lost.[7] Mary then applied to Cork City Council to have her mothers remains exhumed from the mass grave, the council responded in 2014 and stated although the family had already attempted to gain the permission of those who own the plot unless the permission is forth coming they will not be allowed to exhumed her. Mary had approached face to face meetings, wrote letters and emails in which they have all been ignored by the Religious Sisters of Charity.[8]

Marys daughter Laura Angela Collins in 2015 put together the Campaign “Justice 4 All Women & Children” In July 2015 The Collins women arranged and held their first Protest outside the entrance of the Dáil calling for a Government inquiry into unmarked graves home to hundreds of other women and children who suffered just like herself and mother from the Traveller community.[9]

In September 2015 Collins Travelled over from London to Dublin for a protest they arranged three generations of Angela Collins's family was present on the day delivered a letter to Minister, Frances Fitzgerald, calling for justice for the "forgotten families of the victims of institutional abuse." They were demanding the government fast track the redress scheme for aging survivors. They was also calling free legal aid for those taking a case to the Mother & Baby Homes Commission and for the state and Catholic Church to support and fund those who wish to remove the remains of their loved ones from mass graves.[10] Mary and her family in advance had arranged for a meeting with the Justice Department to attend and deliver a letter about her family’s struggle, but the doors was locked upon their arrival.[6]