Mary Norris

Mary Norris (née Cronin, 1932 – 31 May 2017) was a young woman in Ireland who was sent to a Magdalene asylum, where her name was changed and she was imprisoned until removed by an aunt. Norris spent two years performing hard labor in the Good Shepherd Convent, a Magdalene asylum. Norris later came forward and recounted her experiences of abuse in the asylum and also the St Joseph's Orphanage in Killarney. She was sent to a Magdalene laundry or asylum run by the Good Shepherd Order in Cork, Ireland, in 1949 at the age of 16. She spent two years there. The laundry closed down in 1994.

Norris was removed from her mother at the age of twelve. Norris's father died when she was twelve and her mother then pursued a relationship with a local farmer, which caught the attention of the parish priest. and that she was told falsely that her family had abandoned her. She was given the number 30 as an identifier.

When Mary had been in the Magdalene laundry for two years, a concerned aunt in America tracked her down, and removed her from the laundry. (Later Mary petitioned the sisters of the Good Shepherd in Cork to obtain a list of the names of the Magdalenes who had been buried in unmarked graves behind the laundry.) She was reunited with her mother, brothers, and sisters. Eventually she moved to London with her mother. After her mother's death in 1989, Mary returned to Ireland.

Her brothers had been with the Christian Brothers in Tralee