Learning to cross the road. A life ruined by Opus Dei

On the day of the All Ireland football final in 1978, Anne Marie Allen believed she was beginning the life she dreamed of.

She was 15 years old and wanted to be a chef. When two visitors came to her house promising a catering course and a job, it seemed like too good to be true.

It was. For the next seven years she entered into the secretive world of Opus Dei. 

On Free State today Anne Marie Allen tells her extraordinary story. She talks about how she entered into a world of servitude and domestic slavery.

From the age of 16, she had to do mortifications which meant wearing a barbed wire chain around her leg for two hours every day. 

She explains how the mental anguish of what she endured stayed with her for a long time and she talks about the courage of her father in standing up to Opus Dei.

But it is her own courage that is the most astonishing thing of all.

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