Chapter 15 — Daingean

Introduction

Father Charles Joseph Eugène de Mazenod gathered round him a group of priests in Southern France to preach the Gospel to the poor workers of the region. They became known as ‘Missionaries of Provence’ and other priests, attracted by their work, joined the group. In 1826 they received the title of Missionary Oblates of Mary Immaculate (Oblates) and approbation as a Congregation under simple vows in a Brief of Leo XII dated 17th February 1826.

In 1854 the Founder was invited by several Irish Bishops to establish an Oblate Mission in Ireland. Archbishop Cullen met with Fr Robert Cooke, who was on a mission to Dublin. He was an Irishman who had studied theology in Marseilles, and had then been ordained by the now Bishop Mazenod. He agreed to set up a base to enable the Oblates to work with the poor people of Kilmainham and, in 1856, the Oblates bought a farm in Inchicore as their base. Just one year later, the Founder was saying Mass in a church built on the site. Two years later, in 1858, the Oblates were asked to set up a reformatory school in Glencree.

The Oblates are a Congregation of priests and lay brothers, the latter being the temporal coadjutors, instructors, teachers and catechists within the missions. They have a regional structure of management The areas in which they carry out their mission are divided into provinces and mission vicariates. Each of these has a local Superior and a team of assessors and bursar are appointed by him. These local houses or provinces report to a Superior General, who is elected for life by the General Chapter, and who has a team of four assistants and a bursar-general. The General Chapter, which meets every six years, comprises the Provincials, the Vicars of Mission, and delegates from each province.

Recruiting into the Oblates is done through Juniorates or Apostolic Schools, Novitiates, which are fed from the Juniorates and colleges, and Scholasticates, which receive novices who have been admitted to temporal vows at the end of a year’s probation.

Lord Powerscourt, who owned the land at Glencree, offered the Dublin Catholic Reformatory Committee the abandoned barracks at Glencree for use as a reformatory. They accepted the offer and approached the Oblates and asked them to run the School. The Oblates had no experience of such work, but were known to be concerned for the poor. Having taken on the responsibility of caring for juvenile offenders, the Oblates tried to educate themselves about the running of reformatories, and went to France and Belgium to study models for such a school. They looked at the penal settlement at Mettray, created in 1840 by Frédéric-Auguste Demetz, based upon Rousseau’s concept that man could be improved through contact with the land. Boys there were in ‘families’, with each family having an adult head of household who imposed a regime of hard work and severe punishments for lapses in the boys. The Oblates decided this system of dividing the boys up into smaller groups could not be used because of the nature of the buildings at Glencree, which would not allow the small family unit approach. The old barracks, in short, determined the nature of the regime.

The Oblates moved into the barracks at Glencree in 1858. It was in need of much repair and its first Superior set about using the boys to reclaim and cultivate the land of more than 100 acres. The aim was to make the Institution self-sufficient. Its isolation, and the poor roads and transport, made this objective a pressing one. For years, supplies had to be brought in over the difficult mountain road that could become impassable in winter. In a very short space of time, it soon reached full capacity.

Just 12 years later the Oblates opened a second reformatory. It was certified on 22nd December 1870, and became known as Daingean.

The Oblates worked in St Kevin’s, Glencree from 1857 until 1940, with a break between 1927 until 1934, and in St Conleth’s, Daingean from 1870 until 1973, with a break between 1934 until 1940, when it was an Oblate Scholasticate. They worked at Scoil Ard Mhuire, Oberstown, which was opened after the closure of Daingean from 1973 until 1984. The Oblates withdrew from the management of the School in 1984.

Provincial Archivist, Fr Michael Hughes in his evidence to the Investigation Committee at Phase I stated: The place where we parted company with the State in Scoil Ard Mhuire was that ultimately they would not—they were not prepared to sanction a sufficient number of staff members to cover all the responsibilities and we felt at that stage that we should withdraw.

The Department of Education appointed a Board of Management to run the School from that date onwards.

The Oblates, in their General Statement given to the Investigation Committee, asserted that they had high ideals. They ‘brought a vision of their own’ to the work, ‘arising from their long experience in this work and their nature as a religious order. The work was accepted as a mission: the Christian welfare of the boys, their rehabilitation in so far as they were wayward, and their preparation to earn their livelihood so far as possible. They developed a tradition going back to 1857’.

The Oblate General Statement described the characteristics of this tradition as it was put into practice in Daingean: A substantial staff, mostly religious brothers and priests, but lay staff too A well-established administrative structure A remedial education programme Vocational training in various trades and occupations A routine of instruction and work The assignment of the boys to a Brother in a school/training group whose task it was to integrate the newcomer into the life of the School The separation of juniors from seniors A sacramental religious framework An insistence on discipline Encouragement of sporting activities, and other leisure activities such as drama and music Many external contacts Help in finding a job An aftercare programme. The re-establishment of Daingean

The conditions that led to the re-establishment of Daingean was not a decision that was taken without considerable debate, since the move involved taking some 200 boys under Garda escort to a new residence nearly 60 miles away, and much further from the boys’ own homes.

Glencree was in a state of disrepair from the beginning. An internal memorandum written by Mr Derrig,1 the Minister for Education, dated 10th July 1939 began: I visited this place recently and was very disappointed to find it in such a bad state of repair. I have come to the conclusion that it is very doubtful whether, even with large expenditure, the present buildings can be brought up to a satisfactory standard.

Within the same memorandum he suggested that substantial reforms needed to be made in the area of teacher training, provision of practical training and the setting up of a visiting committee.