Eclipsed
by Patricia Bourke Brogan
Featured in the 2024 and 2003 Festivals
Featured in the 2024 and 2003 Festivals
Synopsis:
Framed by a present-day prologue and epilogue, the play is set in 1963 in a convent laundry at St. Paul's Home for Penitent Women in Killmacha, Ireland. Eclipsed explores the practice of making pregnant and unwed Irish mothers work as 'penitents' in church-run laundries. Supervised by nuns who regarded these women as mindless vessels of evil, the women were treated as virtual slaves and their infants were forcibly put up for adoption.