The Essay: Behind the Veil - the story of Irish nuns

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The Essay: Behind the Veil: The story of Irish nuns: A Dying Breed

A Dying Breed

Behind the Veil: The story of Irish nuns

BBC Radio 3 - The Essay, Behind the Veil: The story of Irish nuns, A Dying Breed

Convent-educated, lapsed Catholic Olivia O'Leary asks where all the Irish nuns have gone.

Convent-educated and lapsed Catholic Olivia O'Leary asks where all the Irish nuns have gone. Her final essay is about the end of the tradition of religious orders.

Great empty buildings, which only a few decades ago were bustling convents, tower over most towns and villages in Ireland, but they represent a world which is disappearing along with the once all-powerful Irish Roman Catholic Church. In this series of The Essay, Olivia O'Leary, convent-educated and a lapsed Catholic, asks where all the Irish nuns have gone.

Olivia's final essay is about the end of the tradition of religious orders. Ireland has fallen out of love with the Catholic Church. Hardly a month goes by without more revelations of harsh treatment of girls in institutions run by nuns and of sexual abuse of boys in institutions run by brothers and priests. Nuns have to deal with being despised in a country that used to see them as saints. ‘Before, we were on a pedestal we didn’t deserve’ one nun said to Olivia. ‘Neither do we deserve the gutter. But we took the pedestal, so now we have to take the gutter.’

Presenter Olivia O'Leary
Producer Claire Cunningham
A Rockfinch production for BBC Radio 3

The Essay: Behind the Veil: The story of Irish nuns

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Convent-educated, lapsed catholic Olivia O'Leary asks where all the Irish nuns have gone.

In this series of The Essay, Olivia O'Leary, convent-educated and a lapsed Catholic, asks where all the Irish nuns have gone.

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