Customers from some of Dublin's most prestigious addresses used the Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry services, including Áras an Uachtaráin.
That's according to a book published this afternoon, which has revealed new information about the Magdalene system.
'A Dublin Magdalene Laundry: Donnybrook and Church-State Power in Ireland' says several key findings of the Inter-Departmental Committee to establish the facts of State involvement with the Magdalene Laundries in 2013 are incorrect.
Customer lists found on the Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry site show that the laundry was used by Blackrock College, the National Maternity Hospital, St Vincent's Hospital, the Mater Private, University College Dublin, RTÉ, Captain America's, Elm Park Golf Club, Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club and the embassies of Canada, France, Japan and Argentina.
Private customers included households in Ballsbridge, Donnybrook, Sandymount and Foxrock.
Laundry from Áras an Uachtaráin was sent to the institution which also received many bequests in people’s wills.
For most of its existence, there were 100 women held at Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry.
To date, the Justice for Magdalene's Research group has recorded the names of 315 women and girls who died there.
Survivor testimony, newspaper archives, material held in the Dublin Diocesan Archives, files held in the National Archives, planning permission applications, Catholic directories, biographies, voting registers, death certificates, the published letters of the foundress, Mary Aikenhead, plus documents from the laundry site were provided to the book's editors by its current owner.
The authors offered the Religious Sisters of Charity the opportunity to contribute to the book, to read and comment on draft chapters and to participate in an oral history project as part of the research, but the RSC declined.
The Sisters of Charity also refused access to its post-1922 archive according to the editors.
The RSC insisted that it held no photographs or building plans of the Donnybrook Magdalene Laundry and no copies of correspondence with customers, machinery suppliers or State agencies.
While Magdalene laundries are often associated with pregnancy outside marriage, girls and women were admitted to them for a variety of reasons.
The criminal justice system sent women to the laundries as an alternative to prison.
Girls under the care of the State and Church in industrial schools were commonly transferred to Magdalene laundries, as were girls who had been sexually abused.
Babies were generally not born in these institutions.
