Chapter 15 — Daingean

Physical abuse

His intention was to be open and forthright with them. He was anxious that the Kennedy Committee would bring about the changes they had been looking for. He recalled that previous committees had visited and nothing had ever happened as a result. Their reports just gathered dust. He saw the visit as an opportunity to lay all his cards on the table and let them know everything. He had no intention of gilding the lily or giving a false impression. He recalled going into a fair amount of detail about the various departments of the School. He said the Committee members had accepted that the Oblates were trying to bring about certain changes, but they also pointed out all the cracks, and they thought the Oblates were not doing everything right.

Fr Luca said the members of the Committee went around the School, inspected buildings, spoke to staff and then afterwards had a meeting with him. He was asked to comment on the second memorandum prepared by Mr Crowe, and he made the following points: (1)He agreed that one particular member of the staff to whom he assigned disciplinary duties administered corporal punishment. He did not remember telling them but he agreed ‘it must be so’. (2)He remembered the Prefect carrying a strap but did not know if the other Brothers carried one. He did not think it was a common thing for them all to have straps. (3)He could not remember telling the Committee members that boys were called out of the dormitories after they had retired and that they were punished on one of the stairway landings ‘... because my own perception of what had happened was that they were brought to the washroom which was a room at the bottom of the stairs. I didn’t know about it being done on the stairs’. (4)It was news to him to hear that evidence was given that boys described punishments on the stairs. He stated that he did not know this occurred. (5)When asked if it was the case, therefore, that he could not have told the Kennedy Committee members what was recorded in the memorandum, he stated, ‘I was certainly stretching things a bit if I were to say that and I don’t think I did’. (6)He did not remember saying how the punishment was applied to the buttocks, or what the boys wore when this occurred: ‘Honestly I don’t remember saying it. I am not doubting Mr. MacConchradha’s word but I can’t remember it’. (7)When asked to comment on the now infamous remark about boys being stripped naked for punishments as it would be more humiliating that way, he stated: I certainly don’t remember. Another thing I would say it would be totally a contradiction of what my own philosophy was about, the treatment of the boys. To say a thing like that, I don’t think it’s something that I would have said. (8)Fr Luca concluded by agreeing that, in his dealing with this topic over the years, including in the newspapers, at all times he had said, including today, that he had no recollection of saying that.

Fr Luca then recalled his meeting in April 1970 in the Department of Education with Mr McDevitt, the Department’s Inspector, when Mr McDevitt said, ‘Father, did you know that you could be prosecuted for administering punishment‘. He again confirmed that he took the message, and the following morning called in his staff and told them, ‘From now on no more corporal punishment because you could be liable to answer for it in the courts‘.

What becomes apparent from the Crowe controversy is that change was forced upon the Department of Education by the correspondence that followed the visit of the Kennedy Committee. Circulars generated by the Department of Education on the rules and regulations for the administration of corporal punishment produced little change, but the criticism by the Kennedy Committee, an independent body, did eventually enforce change. Two years after their visit, the traditional ‘floggings’ of Daingean came to an end.

In their Opening Statement, the Oblates stated that, following a request from the Department of Education to cease the practice of removing clothing when administering corporal punishment, Fr Luca took steps to phase out corporal punishment altogether. This was some 13 years before it was forbidden by law in schools in Ireland. They further stated that it gave rise to a grave disciplinary problem in the School.

It is clear, from the following accounts of riots in Daingean, that the School had grave disciplinary problems long before the phasing-out of corporal punishment.

Fr Luca did not fear censure about the practice of floggings in Daingean. This practice was well known to the Department of Education and had not attracted criticism in the past. He was clearly unprepared for the revulsion of the Department of Justice representative to it. There was no reason for Fr Luca to be anything other than ‘matter of fact’ about it, as it was accepted by Dr McCabe as early as 1953. The investigation into Br Enrico, as outlined above, shows a regime in which Brothers other than the Prefect administered severe corporal punishment. Only the intervention of the Kennedy Committee brought about the end of floggings in Daingean after two years of correspondence. It is hard to reconcile this with the stated position of Fr Luca, that he abhorred the practice of flogging and resolved to do away with it when he became Resident Manager.

There were three riots in Daingean, recorded in the documents furnished, that occurred during the relevant period. The two principal riots occurred in 1956 and 1958. Both of these riots were largely brought under control by the authorities within the School, and charges were successfully brought against the ringleaders. There was a third, earlier, less well-documented riot, which is referred to in the extensive Garda Report on the 1956 riot.

The first riot occurred in Daingean on 13th April 1956. The next day, Fr Salvador,19 the Resident Manager, wrote to Mr Sugrue20 of the Department of Education: We had some trouble yesterday which could have had very serious results if the organised disturbance or mutiny as the boys called it, had not been nipped in the bud. The display of dangerous weapons they concealed on their persons was formidable, including slashers, an axe and all kinds of iron bars. They smashed a number of windows and intended doing more widespread damage. I have sent on the names of the ringleaders. These I had to have taken over by the Guards. They include [a boy] who came here last month, just a few days before his 17th birthday. He and the other four are as far as I can see and judge beyond the reach of the best efforts of a reform school.

The alleged ringleaders were handed over to the Gardaí on 13th April 1956. They were to be charged ‘with having taken part in an organised disturbance’.

The Department of Justice wrote to the Secretary General of the Department of Education on 23rd April 1956, enclosing a Garda Síochana Preliminary Crime Report on the incidents in Daingean, that outlined the disturbance that had taken place involving about 40 inmates who had endeavoured to start a riot. The Gardaí prepared a more extensive report some two weeks later.

According to the Gardaí, they were informed by telephone of the trouble and were asked for their assistance by the Brothers. The Gardaí went immediately to the School, where they learned that the disturbances and insubordination had arisen while the boys were at tea in the dining hall. The staff had succeeded in rounding up the ringleaders, and these were taken to the washhouse and searched, and an array of weapons was found in both their clothes and around the School. These included a hatchet, iron bars, spikes, a cosh, stones wrapped in hankies and a boot-maker’s knife. The staff were made aware of the mutiny by more ‘loyal members of the Institution’.

One of the ringleaders had been involved in a previous attempt to commit a riot in the School a couple of years previously, when the school authorities had effectively dealt with the incident. The boys gave the shortage of reasonable food as their reason for the riot, but this, according to the Gardaí, was only an excuse, and the real reason was an organised attempt to break out. The Gardaí took statements from other boys, who revealed that the intention was to overpower those in charge, to cut the telephone wires, seize a lorry that was on the premises and make a breakout for Dublin. The five accused were remanded in custody to Portarlington District Court on 18th April 1956. All five were convicted and sentenced to terms in St. Patrick’s Institution.

The second riot was two years later. The Garda Primary Crime Report outlined the events. In the week commencing 7th September 1958, it became known that there was a conspiracy to effect a riot in the School. The three ringleaders were all over the age of 17. On 3rd September 1958, the father of a boy in Daingean handed a letter into Store Street Garda Station. His son, who was an inmate of Daingean, had written the letter to his other son. The letter asked that he should arrange a car to be sent from Dublin to assist in the escape. The letter read: I write a few lines to asked you will you be able to get a car or van for Sunday 7 for me and a few lads are going to start a Mutiny and are going to run away. I wrote to a lad who was here before and he is getting me a car or van to for Sunday 7 and don’t let mammy know.

The letter was handed over to the Gardaí by their father. On receipt of the letter the station sergeant contacted the Reformatory to warn the authorities of possible trouble. With this information, the school authorities took extra precautionary measures within the School, and made further enquiries. Some of the boys involved in the plan gave information to the school authorities. They revealed that a conspiracy was afoot involving about 20 inmates. It was planned to attack the night watchman. Numerous searches were conducted in the School, and a large iron file was found under a bed. One boy handed over a butcher’s knife, two iron bars and a knuckle-duster from the dump to a Brother. Another boy had a large iron bar and a knuckle-duster concealed in his clothes.