Chapter 10 — Carriglea

Emotional abuse and neglect

One witness said he had received a good primary education in Carriglea. Another said he could not read when he left but he conceded that he had been academically backward when he went to the School.

Br Rene, who held the positions of Superior and Sub-Superior during the 1930s until the mid-1940s, laid great emphasis on literary education, and this was reflected in the standard of education in Carriglea.

In 1938 the Visitor stated that the boys ‘... give evidence of good teaching and would I believe compare favourably with corresponding classes in our day schools’. However, he pointed out that the training of the boys on the cultural side was weak, particularly as no music was taught, or dancing or drama.

There was a report from a three-day general Inspection of the school by Mr Teegan, the Inspector of Schools of the Department of Education dated March 1941: This is a pleasing school to inspect. The behaviour of the boys leaves nothing to be desired and they have been trained to use their intelligence and to be self-reliant.

He added: The satisfactory standard of proficiency noted previously is more than maintained and there is every indication that a still higher level will be soon attained.

In 1944, the Visitor commented that the education was: ... too academic for boys that will at least in most cases have to depend on manual capability for their livelihood. There is no physical drill, no manual instruction, no band, no dancing and only an indifferent interest in singing. One would look for most, if not all, these activities in a school such as this. The alleged reason for dropping the manual instruction is based on the difficulty of getting timber.

In 1948 and 1949, 29 boys sat the Primary Certificate examination and all passed. Likewise in 1950, 28 boys sat the examination and all passed.

During the 1930s, manual instruction and drawing classes were taught by one Brother. These were taught to the senior boys, and the classes were marked as excellent in the 1936 Visitation Report. In 1941, drawing and manual instruction were removed as subjects for the senior boys, as they were eating into the literary subjects curriculum, as laid down by the Department.

These subjects were not taught from 1942 to 1947 in the School, much to the dismay of the Congregation Visitors. The Visitor in 1942 was critical that woodwork was not taught in the School, as he considered it to be of ‘great educational value’. He highlighted the fact that one of the Brothers in the Community was qualified to teach woodwork, and recommended its immediate re-introduction. He was also of the view that such work ‘offered most valuable training to boys who have to take up manual work as a means of livelihood’. Again, in 1943, the Visitor criticised the fact that manual instruction was not taught: The Manual Instruction Room is still locked up and there is no Manual Instruction given these boys to whom it would be so helpful later on. The excuse offered was that Br Durrant could not get wood in Dublin.

However, these subjects were re-introduced into the School in 1948 and continued until its closure in 1954.

A unique feature of Carriglea was that it prepared some of the senior boys in 7th class to sit the examination for positions as Post Office messengers and telegraph operators, and for Guinness and C.I.E.23 clerkships. This was something that does not appear to have been offered in other industrial schools run by the Christian Brothers. The preparation for these examinations was given by an elderly Brother for some years and was then continued by a lay teacher.

The earliest record of boys sitting these examinations is to be found in the Visitation Report of 1936. It referred to a Brother of 74 years of age who ‘conducts a small class for the more advanced boys and prepares them for the Boy Messengers, Sorters and other elementary examinations at which they have been very successful’. Reference was made in the 1937 Visitation Report to seven of the ‘more advanced boys’ being taught by this Brother in preparation for the Post Office and other civil service examinations. The 1938 Visitation Report mentioned that this particular Brother spent four or five hours a day preparing a small group of boys for these examinations. The report went on to say that, ‘Within a period of five years some 15 boys have got into the Post Office, first as messengers and have later become postmen’.

The Visitation Report for 1943 recorded that most of the boys in 7th class took the Post Office examinations. The 1944 Visitation Report noted that ‘five boys secured appointments as telegraph messengers during the previous year’.

No reference was made in the Visitation Reports to boys sitting these examinations after 1944 but, from the Opening Statement of the Christian Brothers, it appears that boys were employed in the Post Office and C.I.E. clerkships until 1950.

One witness, who was resident in Carriglea from the mid-1930s to the early 1940s, recalled sitting two examinations to get into the Post Office as a messenger. He did the examinations two years running, as he was too young the first year when he passed the examination and so did it the following year and passed again. He went on to have a successful career in the Post Office.