Chapter 15 — Daingean

Sexual abuse

Fr Luca, in his Statement, gave his account of this relationship culture within Daingean. He wrote: There were boys that were under pressure from maybe a few bigger boys. Strangely to say it wasn’t always from the bigger boys. Some of the most astute or hardened at that particular time were small boys who had a kind of power over bigger boys and it was they who were calling the tune. I think they would have used that as a grip ... something to use over another boy. And, again, they would have something for sale, there would be an ulterior motive in the friendship ... The older ones would prey on the younger ones and some of the younger ones could have a hold on the bigger boys. Knowing what they wanted, prepared to give it to them and then at a price. There would have been awareness of that. We would have known that some of these boys had been quite involved in boy prostitution in the city.

The Oblates stated in their Submission that no evidence was tendered to support a finding that such abuse was systemic or widespread in the School, or that such behaviour was in any way tolerated.

1.The Oblates acknowledged that they were aware of the issue of peer abuse, and they accepted that incidents of peer abuse did take place. They contended, however, that they did not condone it and took steps at all times to prevent it. However, the evidence would indicate that no distinction was made by the authorities between victims and perpetrators of sexual abuse. Victims were punished as severely as the perpetrators and, therefore, the problem was not fully reported to management. 2.Sexual behaviour between boys in Daingean was systemic and widespread. It was often abusive and was not seriously addressed by management. 3.These institutionalised sexual relationships developed to such a degree in Daingean because of the chronic lack of supervision throughout the institution, particularly during recreation. 4.Lack of supervision led to an unsafe environment. Some younger boys may have had control over older boys, as Fr Luca suggested, but the younger boys needed protection. They resorted to such relationships in order to survive in an unsafe world. 5.Such sexual behaviour was accepted within a subculture in Daingean. 6.Boys in Daingean ranged between 13 and 18 years, an older profile than in industrial schools, which contributed to the higher level of sexual activity there.

Emotional abuse

Numerous complainant witnesses recounted the loneliness and deprivation they felt on being suddenly removed from their families. Central to their accounts was the belief that they were on their own, with no one they could turn to for help or comfort.

One witness described this isolation. He explained he had to put on ‘a façade’ to hide his distress: I cried in bed at night missing my mother and father just the same as anybody else would. But if you showed weakness at all to anybody, including a psychologist ... it was jumped on.

There were, he went on, many staff members who were good men, good to him and to the boys, but when asked if he could go to them about the beatings or the sexual abuse he had experienced, he replied: No. There was no recourse. There was no safe haven. There was no hole you could climb into. There was nobody you could talk to. You were on your own.

Another witness described a similar sense of isolation. He said: There was very few people that did much talking in that place at all, very, very few ... you could sit beside them for hours, they wouldn’t say a word to you. There wasn’t very many garrulous people there. We didn’t have a book, a paper, a radio, we didn’t have a watch or a calendar.

Yet, another witness described a similar experience. He said: there was no camaraderie as such. Everybody was there to get their time done and to get out and there was no interest in anything else ... You didn’t make lifelong friends ... There was one young chap and he was from somewhere in east Cork. After I hardened a little bit to the situation he used to come to me and tell me what was on his mind and I used to talk to him. Now, the reason he was there times weren’t good. Poverty abounded, his mother happened to get a loaf of bread, but they didn’t have any butter. So he went out and stole a pound of butter. He got four years for it. Instead of being looked after and given some sympathy and understanding he got four years in Daingean. What kind of society were we? It might be different now, but in those times that is what happened. Those were the facts of life. The people like the Oblates took advantage, they really took advantage and used people like that as child labour.

He added: there was no real friends in Daingean ... that’s why I felt detached ... If you are lonesome, if you are alone, and you are at that vulnerable age you don’t feel over the moon, do you?

He recounted how he had tried to abscond because, ‘... the general situation ... really depressed me to a point of being suicidal ... In this feeling of depression I could never imagine this sort of torture ending’.

He then went on to make an impassioned plea to the Committee: I am here today because I feel duty bound to be here and to make my best endeavours to see that history does not repeat itself ... I have no feeling of anger ... I do not seek revenge, I think that would be self-defeating ... the people that made me and the others suffer, I think were suffering more themselves. I had two years behind those walls, those misfortunate individuals are spending their lives behind walls, and life for life means life for them.

This particular witness had a deep resentment that his confinement in Daingean was unjust in the first place. He was in Daingean in the early 1950s. He had been sent there originally after he had helped a friend to spend some money that had in fact been stolen. His friend was charged and he was charged with him, and he was ‘found guilty by association’. He came from a good home. His father, disabled from active service in the war, was very sick, and his mother was not coping, so he faced the court on his own. He was sent to Daingean for two years. Within three weeks he ran home, but was picked up after spending approximately six weeks at home over the Christmas period. He recounted what was done to him on his return to Daingean: I had my hair shaved, my head shaved, right down (indicating) and I received a beating ... This was the removal of my shirt, my upper clothes to a bare back. I was beaten across my back with a leather strap to the effect that my back was bleeding. It took me a number of weeks to recuperate ... my back had blistered and the marks on my back were quite clear (indicating).

The unfairness of being sent unjustly to endure such a harsh regime emerged in the story of another witness. His troubles began with the death of his mother. He told the Committee: It was a terrible time. There was a terrible sadness in the house. I had five sisters and that we were showing it more than we were supposed to be able to, not maybe cry as much or things like that.

Shortly after that, he got involved in catching pigeons which annoyed his father, as there were too many pigeons in the house and so he ran away. He explained that he had taken 40 pennies from the gas meter at home before running away, and had fed himself on chips until the pennies ran out after about 10 days. He explained: I was found sleeping in an air raid shelter by a Garda ... I, like the young fellow I was, told him all my troubles. That I was after running away from home, I was in trouble with me father and it was after me catching pigeons. He said to me “don’t worry about that, sure I will see your father, sure that’s nothing.” Well, what he did is not alone not see my father but he added another, gave me another record of an offence, and had me up in court, and within two or three weeks I was down in Daingean.

He protested that ‘the whole total of what I did wouldn’t have come to a pound’. He was sent to Daingean for two years in the early 1940s. He felt isolated and alone. He said, ‘You could feel that there was no kind of friendliness ... you could feel that you were being looked at as if you were another heap of dirt that had arrived ...’. Of the Brothers he said, ‘A lot of them were harsh, but none of them ever got close for the right reasons. They never spoke to you like a human being’.