'We are still standing' - says 73-year-old Limerick woman on day 18 of hunger strike

A KILTEELY native (73), now (as of Wednesday, October 8, 2025) on day 18 of a hunger strike and sleeping rough, is being treated with antibiotics and a nebuliser twice daily for a chest infection -but insists they will not give up.

Mary Dunlevy Greene, a mother-of-three, with six grandchildren who now lives in Carlow, spent the majority of her childhood in a Limerick industrial school on O’Connell Avenue, known as ‘The Mount’.

She is one of four people on hunger strike outside Dáil Éireann looking for universal medical cards and a State contributory pension for the 4,000 survivors of industrial and reformatory schools.

Mrs Dunlevy Greene said that the group of survivors is “a number that is dwindling daily, longevity is not something in the survivors’ community and lots of them have gone before us much younger and lived through dire conditions with no services that were promised to us 26 years ago.”

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She stressed that many survivors are already in receipt of a non-contributory pension, and the difference between that and a State contributory pension is around €30 a week, while she said Minister Helen McEntee told the group they were a “strain on the revenue.”

“We were cash cows for the religious orders.

“We want to die in comfort and grow old with dignity,” Mrs Dunlevy Greene.

She said that the Government were given notice of their intention to go on hunger strike in the summer and that the group on strike - Mary Dunlevy Green (73), Miriam Moriarty Owens (68), Maurice Patton O’Connell (57) and Mary Donovan (57), never expected to have to take this “drastic action.”

As of Tuesday afternoon, the group were being visited twice a day by emergency services to get their vitals checked and they are only surviving on water with added electrolytes, tea and coffee, while also sleeping outside in the elements.

Mrs Dunlevy Greene is prone to breathing issues and suffers from asthma. She now has a chest infection, but had come prepared with steroids and antibiotics.

Her family are very concerned and after one of her daughters came to see her and saw her being given a nebuliser, Mrs Dunlevy Greene said: “I know that she went home that night broken-hearted.”

The family of the Kilteely woman on hunger strike have not asked her to stop the hunger strike, as they understand she has to stand by her convictions.

One of Mrs Dunlevy Greene's daughters drove from Wexford, after work on three different days to see her mother, before returning home to her young family. Mrs Dunlevy Greene minds children for another daughter, who would now be without childcare if Mr Dunlevy Greene hadn't been able to help and she also visits from Carlow.

Another daughter lives and works in Dublin and comes to see her mother on hunger strike sometimes twice a day.

“I worry about them getting home safely when they travel to see me and they are all very worried.

“They know what we've been through, and would prefer us not to have to do this, but at the end of the day, it's my choice,” Mrs Dunlevy Greene told the Limerick Leader.

When Mrs Dunlevy Greene was just four-years-old, her mother died in childbirth and herself and three of her brothers were taken to court and into State care in different homes.

She still holds a criminal record from that very court hearing and when she was released from ‘The Mount’ (Mount St Vincent's Industrial School) at the age of 18, she talks about being “put outside the door when my sentence was up, without a penny, to find my own way.”

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Her youngest brother, only a newborn baby at the time, was spared from being institutionalised, as he was in the care of an aunt.

She said that the State gave grants to the religious orders for each person in the home and that they did all of the cooking and cleaning, as “child slaves” without ever getting recognition for that labour.

Speaking about the trauma which remains to this day, Mrs Dunlevy Greene said that she can’t even go into a hospital, because the walls and floors bring her back to her time in the home and she can see herself on her hands and knees scrubbing the floor.

The Kilteely woman said that she never wanted what she went through to “visit on my children and grandchildren” and that she has never spoken about the darker parts of her past, but now other survivors are sharing stories.

“Our family remained completely fractured, I am one of the lucky survivors, I met a good man and have a fantastic family,” she told the Limerick Leader, adding that the Government are still breaking up their families, as none of them can be at home because they are making this stand on hunger strike.

The Limerick woman said: “My saving grace was that I left the country, I went to the UK and I was anonymised, nobody asked where I was from or where I went to school and I was able to progress off my own back.”

Speaking about what she went through, she said: “We got no love - no care - nothing.

“We were told that nobody loved us, that nobody cared about us and that we would amount to nothing.”

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She spoke about the public crossing the street when they were seen outside, so as not to be seen near ‘the orphans’ - but Mrs Dunlevy Greene was adamant in saying: “I was no orphan. I was kidnapped from my home with no personal items and I never saw my reflection in a mirror until I left.

“I didn’t even have my own underwear, we changed it once a week and picked something that fit from a pile, nothing was marked or belonged to anyone.”

She said that the public have been very supportive and have signed petitions.

“We are used to hunger after all those years in the homes, but this is re-traumatising us and bringing us back,” she said.

Mrs Dunlevy Greene said that the group never set a date or made a firm plan on when or if they would stop the hunger strike.

She said that the opposition parties will continue to bring up what is happening, but that appears to be “falling on deaf ears.”

The mother and grandmother said that their group met with Minister Helen McEntee after just over a week on strike, despite a number of requests for a meeting before the strike started.

“She was late to the meeting, which I found disgustingly rude and when we asked what was on the table, she said there was nothing on the table.”

Taoiseach Micheál Martin told the Dáil they would engage with the group, but this is not the case.

“We are getting tired, as each day progresses, but we are getting more determined. We are losing weight and we’ll have to build ourselves up gradually. We are all still standing.

We owe it to the others who cannot fight for themselves, some of them are still living with an institutional mentality - we have to be their voice.”