Peter Mullan has remarked that the film was initially made because victims of Magdalene asylums had received no closure in the form of recognition, compensation or apology, and many remained lifelong devout Catholics.

Those who liken themselves to Mary Magdalene, who deprived herself of all pleasures of the flesh including food and drink, eat hearty breakfasts of buttered toast and bacon while the working women subsist on oatmeal porridge.

However, as the years pass, automatic washing machines start to appear, a modern household appliance whose growing ubiquity would eventually fatally undermine the economic viability of commercial laundries and make the Magdalene asylums unsustainable.

Bernadette and Rose finally decide to escape together, trashing Sister Bridget's study in search for the key to the asylum door and engaging her in a suspenseful confrontation.

The two girls escape her clutches and are helped to return to the real world by a sympathetic relative, their story optimistically ending when Rose boards a coach bound for the ferry to Liverpool and Bernadette becomes an apprentice hairdresser.

Crispina's end, however, is not a happy one; she spends the rest of her days in a mental institution (where she was sent to silence her from revealing the sexual abuse she suffered at the hands of Father Fitzroy) and dies of anorexia at the age of 24.

Noone, who played Bernadette Harvey, secured the role following an open audition held in Galway, Ireland, where at the time she was studying science in college.