*WHAT SHEILA JOYCE SAYS ABOUT HER EIGHT YEARS AT LISMULLIN IS SPARKING DEBATE, WHILE OPUS DEI OFFERS A COMPLETELY DIFFERENT INTERPRETATION**

According to Sheila Joyce, her years at Lismullin were not the peaceful life of service she had imagined as a child. Her and Margaret’s recollections now raise numerous questions about what truly went on behind the center’s doors.
But Opus Dei offers a very different perspective, arguing that assistant numeraries are valued members and refuting many of the allegations. This contrast makes the story difficult to ignore.

It all began on a December morning in 1979 when ten-year-old Sheila Joyce received her first birthday present: a trip to the cookery school near Drogheda. What looked like a fun outing with her mother was the first step into a world she now describes as a prison of servitude. Over the next eight years — six or seven at Lismullin Conference Centre and the adjacent Lismullin Cookery School — she and her younger sister Margaret endured what they call a nightmare of corporal punishment, relentless domestic labour and total isolation from the outside world.

Sheila still bears the scars today. Every time she showers, the sight of a series of red, ugly bumps along her thigh triggers memories of the cilice — a spiked metal garter she was forced to wear for two hours a day, biting into her leg like barbed wire. The organisation’s own website once described it as “a small metal clamp which, when tightened, causes pain and reminds the wearer of the Passion of Christ.” Sheila called it torture. For years she was made to wear it silently, praying while it tore her flesh.

Life began at 6am every single day. Sheila would kiss the ground and repeat the Latin “Serviam” — “I will serve.” Then came ten-hour shifts, seven days a week: serving breakfast and dinner to elite guests, cleaning guest rooms, washing clothes, tidying the chapel and laundering priests’ vestments. Evenings were spent on chores until late at night. Sundays meant the same routine. The sisters were told this was their “vocation” — to become assistant numeraries, domestic servants dedicated to celibacy and service.

The corporal mortification never stopped. Besides the daily cilice, they endured beatings with a wooden spoon or rod if they complained, were denied food for “disobedience” and faced threats that their mother would be “taken away” if they spoke out. The centre was remote, hidden by trees, with strict controls on visitors and letters. Family contact was severely limited. When the sisters tried to run away, threats were used to lure them back. One memory that still haunts Sheila is the moment she begged to leave on the day of her annual vow renewal — only to be refused until she turned 22.

By then the “abusers” finally let her go — penniless, homeless and back in her mother’s arms. “I had nothing,” she said. The two sisters, now in their forties and living side by side in Drogheda, have spoken out in a June 2026 Daily Mail investigation. They describe being treated as unpaid domestic labour despite the organisation’s claims of professional work. They say the cookery school was never what it seemed: not a real training facility but a front for forcing young women into lifelong servitude.

Margaret, two years younger, was 16 when she was brought in. She too endured the same regime and the same physical punishments. The sisters still live near each other, but their relationship with the outside world is fractured. Their mother remains in the organisation and has been used as an information source, according to Sheila. Threats and surveillance continue to stalk them.

Opus Dei’s response is swift and categorical. In an official statement published on its website after the Daily Mail story and video, the organisation called the allegations “major falsehoods and mendacious statements.” It insists it is “not secretive nor is it a ‘sect’.” It is a fully approved personal prelature of the Catholic Church, loved by every pope since its founding in 1928. Its centres and activities are open and public.

The organisation defends the role of assistant numeraries. “Assistant numeraries are highly respected members who help make Opus Dei into a loving family where everyone is cared for and loved.” They do not work as unpaid slaves, it claims. They carry out professional work and receive remuneration. The sisters’ characterisation of ten-hour days and seven-day weeks is “false and defamatory.” Participation in children’s activities is not the same as lifelong commitment; any decision to join came only after years of voluntary, adult discernment.

The statement also takes issue with the portrayal of the sisters’ mother. “To suggest that her role was simply to ‘breed’ children for Opus Dei is both wrong and highly disrespectful.” Motherhood is a profound vocation, the organisation says. It apologises for any suffering caused by past events but insists many former members are happy and thousands still participate in its educational and charitable work.

The contrast could not be starker. Sheila and Margaret, scarred and still stalked by the organisation they left decades ago, paint Lismullin as a cult-like prison of servitude and abuse. Opus Dei calls their story a misleading campaign of exaggeration, insisting its members are valued participants in a faith that promotes holiness through ordinary work, family and service.

The story is difficult to ignore because the human cost is real. Two sisters who grew up dreaming of service now carry the physical and emotional scars of their youth. Yet millions of Catholics around the world have found peace and purpose in Opus Dei’s formation programmes. The debate will continue as long as the sisters’ personal testimonies clash with the organisation’s official defence — and as long as the question remains: were Sheila Joyce and Margaret Joyce truly enslaved, or were they told they were called to something far greater?