Character Interviews - Bronagh Gallagher is Kitty

Watch our Webcast with Bronagh

Bronagh, a native of Derry, has appeared in PULP FICTION (1994), MARY REILLY (1996), and STAR WARS: EPISPODE I (1999) as well as the Irish-set WILD ABOUT HARRY (2000), THE MOST FERTILE MAN IN IRELAND (1999), DIVORCING JACK (1998) and THE COMMITMENTS (1991).

Explains Bronagh: "Kitty is a school teacher who is sent to the Magdalen laundry after she becomes pregnant. She didn't want to rush into marriage right away because she didn't think it was the right thing to do. She thought she should have the baby and wait before committing to her man.

Unfortunately this worked against her because her boyfriend then thinks that she doesn't want to get married to him - perhaps because the baby is not his. So he leaves her and she ends up in the laundry - it's very sad.

"I think that she knows, because she's an educated young woman, that it's a civil rights case, but she can't do anything about it. What she represents is young women of that time who, even though they were educated, when they found themselves pregnant, are completely powerless because of the power of the church. I remember growing up in Derry and the Church went completely unchallenged - if you did, you were ostracised from society."

"All these situations - like the Magdalen laundries, the Industrial schools, the Christian Brothers - people knew that there were dark deeds going on behind closed doors, physical and sexual abuse, but didn't speak up because of the fear they had for the Church. And we now all have a role to play in exposing that, in discussing what went on and acknowledging it for what it was. The fact that these women and men are still alive means that we have to acknowledge what they went through; we have to tell stories like Sinners.

Bronagh was disturbed by the realisation that, once the children were born in the laundries, they were taken away and put into orphanages - maybe 200 yards away from their mothers - who weren't permitted to see them again. "I think it's a fundamental piece - there are thousands of Irish women out there who had children out of wedlock and their kids were taken off them without their consent," she adds.