Chapter 15 — Daingean

Physical abuse

The circulars on corporal punishment, in short, did not alter tradition and practice, and it was only when Fr Luca was told that he could be prosecuted for corporal punishment that the management of the School began to realise their practices were in breach of regulations. In fact, the issue of corporal punishment had emerged as a serious problem a year before, with the visit of the Kennedy Committee.

This statement of Fr Murphy on behalf of the Oblates, as a representation of corporal punishment practice in Daingean, is completely at odds with the documented cases outlined above.

In 1967, the Government set up ‘The Committee on Reformatory and Industrial Schools’ under the Chairmanship of District Justice Eileen Kennedy to carry out a survey of reformatory and industrial schools. The terms of reference of the Committee were ‘To survey the Reformatory and Industrial Schools systems and to make a report and recommendations to the Minister for Education’.

The Departments of Education, Health and Justice each had to nominate a person to the Committee. The Department of Justice nominated Mr Risteard MacConchradha.16 In their Opening Statement during the Phase III hearings, the Department of Justice stated that it appeared from the documents that Mr Crowe17 was chosen because of his interest in child and youth welfare. He also had a working background in the prison administration section of the Department. His concern for the children caught in the system was obvious from the beginning. He wrote: The lot of the children, especially the boys, is very sad and there is an unbelievably entrenched “status quo” to be overcome, not least in the Department of Education, if there is to be any change for the better.

The Statement of the Department of Justice stated in relation to Mr Crowe: it would be fair to say that Mr MacConchradha sought to advance his views with a vigour which was atypical of the civil service culture in which he found himself at the time.

The full Committee visited Daingean on 28th February 1968. They spent the day in the School completing the inspection. They spoke to Fr Luca, the Resident Manager, and his staff, but not, it would appear, the residents.

In a letter written during the course of their deliberations, they gave a lengthy account of numerous aspects of the School, including staffing levels, food, aftercare, health issues and numbers detained in the School. It was clear that the Committee had a number of concerns about Daingean, and met with Mr Thomas O’Floinn, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Education. At the conclusion of this meeting, Mr O’Floinn suggested that the matter should be conveyed in writing to the Department for it to be sympathetically considered.

This letter was sent in June 1968. Justice Kennedy stated that the Committee had not formulated final views on Daingean, but felt that immediate interim action should be undertaken to improve conditions, and detailed the following as requiring attention: (1)The premises gave a general impression of grubbiness and required a thorough cleaning. (2)The buildings were cold and interim heating should be provided. (3)The boys were dirty, unwashed with ingrained dirt and verminous hair and their clothing was ill fitting, old and dirty. (4)That the recognition of this School as a special school for the handicapped be given early consideration.

In relation to corporal punishment in Daingean, Justice Kennedy wrote: In the course of discussion with the Committee as a whole, the Resident Manager disclosed that punishment was administered with a leather on the buttocks, when the boys were attired in their night shirts and that at times a boy might be undressed for punishment. At this juncture, the Committee does not wish to elaborate on corporal punishment as such but would urge that the practice of undressing boys for punishment be discontinued. In this regard, attention is invited to the amendment in recent times following the Court Lees18 incident of the British Home Office regulations regarding corporal punishment in Approved Schools which specifies that punishment, if administered on the buttocks, should be applied through the boys’ normal clothing.

Despite numerous reminders, the Department of Education did not reply to this letter until almost a year later, on 22nd May 1969, when they dealt with a number of general matters, but failed to address the corporal punishment issue as raised by the correspondence. Mr Crowe saw this omission and prepared two memoranda concerning corporal punishment in Daingean for the Secretary of the Department of Justice.

Mr Crowe pointed out that Mr O’Floinn, Assistant Secretary of the Department of Education, had attended a meeting with the Kennedy Committee that had visited Daingean. During that meeting, Mr O’Floinn remarked ‘... that punishment of the sort disclosed by Fr [Luca] would be regarded as irregular by the Department of Education’. He also said ‘that the complaints of irregular corporal punishment were investigated by his Department but he said that frequently these complaints could not be substantiated’.

Mr Crowe stated at this meeting: I said at this stage and I was supported by other members that what was being brought to his attention in relation to corporal punishment in Daingean did not arise by way of complaint but derived from an open avowal by the Resident Manager of the way in which corporal punishment was administered in the reformatory school.

Mr Crowe stated that Mr O’Floinn invited the Committee to include this matter in the letter to the Department of Education, which was forwarded on 14th June 1968 (as detailed above). This letter did not receive a reply despite numerous reminders until almost a year later, and Mr Crowe expressed concern that the reply ‘... made no reference whatsoever to the particular matter of boys being corporally punished while they were stripped naked’.

The other internal memorandum prepared by Mr Crowe stated that Justice Kennedy, accompanied by most members of the Committee including himself, visited Daingean on 28th February 1968. They made a tour of the buildings and the surroundings, and the Committee members had a general discussion with the Resident Manager of the School, Fr Luca, along with other members of the staff. In the course of this discussion, one of the members enquired about corporal punishment. Fr Luca replied that corporal punishment was administered by one particular member of the staff to whom he assigned disciplinary duties (ie the Prefect). He stated that both doctors on the Committee put a number of questions to Fr Luca about the circumstances of corporal punishment being administered to boys.

According to Mr Crowe, Fr Luca replied ‘openly and without embarrassment that ordinarily the boys were called out of the dormitories after they had retired and that they were punished on one of the stairway landings. The boys wore nightshirts as their sleeping attire and, when called for punishment, would be in their nightshirts only. Punishment was applied on the buttocks with a leather’.