Chapter 16 — Marlborough House

Introduction

He went on to point out that the boys had no recreation facilities there. The upstairs comprised a similar room, used as a dormitory, where the ‘blankets were thin and insufficient for winter: again half the windows were blocked’. The only outside facility was a yard which was ‘part rough grass, part earth, where a ball can be kicked about; there is no room for organised football and no equipment for anything else’. In comparison, he found the building at Finglas a ‘triumph of planning, flooded with light and filled with colour ...’.

His fear for the boys in Marlborough House was ‘the possibility of worse injury, physical, mental and moral, in a community so composed, kept in the conditions we saw, without occupation’. The following month, on 21st February 1972, Mr Justice Kingsmill-Moore wrote an article in the Irish Independent decrying the conditions and seeking the transfer of boys to Finglas or, in the alternative, alterations to the physical accommodation.

An RTE television programme, entitled ‘Encounter’ was made with Mr Justice Kingsmill-Moore and his wife about Marlborough House, which had the effect of raising its appalling conditions in the Dail on 1st March 1972, in which Deputy O’Donovan described the Institution as consisting of ‘two rooms, a great barrack of a room underneath and one general dormitory above...there are boys from seven years of age to 17’. Another member of the Dail, Mr Fitzpatrick, said the description of the place by the judge ‘was horrifying. It appears there are two large uncomfortable rooms in which small and big boys are kept. While they were at the house they saw two little boys huddled like little rabbits in a playground’. He added: ‘I am asking the Minister for the good name of the country and in the interests of the unfortunate children to close Marlborough House immediately’. Despite the mounting criticism, it was another six months before Marlborough House was closed down.

There seems to have been no educational purpose to Marlborough House as a detention centre. Neither was there any attempt made to give the children any education while they were there. Although it seems obvious that a child who was sentenced to detention for one month would still need to have some education, that evidently did not happen in Marlborough House. The discovered documents even in the latter stages of the existence of Marlborough House disclose an enormous problem that there was nothing for the children to do. There were no recreational facilities, although there was apparently a television. The children moped around in compete boredom and frustration during the period of their detention in the institution. The Department of Justice certified Marlborough House originally but did not have any function in inspecting it. The Department of Education was in charge of it but did not want it because its functions were related to the courts and the administration of Justice. The age range of boys in Marlborough House was 7 years to 17 years; even in the 1960s there was a boy there aged 8 and a half years. The inmates all lived as one group, unseparated by age or circumstance. The numbers varied, and could go up as high as 38 according to the discovered documents. There was a lot of bullying and assaults by boys on other boys. According to contemporary documents, the staff were untrained and often completely unsuitable for work with children : they were in fact recruited as needed from the local labour exchange. Over 21,000 boys passed through this Institution, and it should have been used as a means of assessment and early intervention to prevent boys entering a lifetime of crime. The Department had neither the vision nor the willingness to effect the necessary changes to make Marlborough House functional. Marlborough House was a chaotic facility, housed in an inappropriate and delapidated building with poor management and inadequate staff. The dispute between the Department of Education and the Department of Justice allowed this situation to go on for years. There is no evidence that the personnel in the Department who had charge of this section had any regard or concern for the boys who were incarcerated in Marlborough House. Changes were recommended in order to avoid scandal and criticism of the Minister and the Department, and not because of the needs of the boys in care. It was logical that Marlborough House should have been the responsibility of the Department of Justice. To insist that because Marlborough House dealt with children only the Department of Education should run it was irrational because in every respect it operated to serve the courts and the administration of Justice. The Department of Justice refused to take it over and denied responsibility, but never the less became a critical commentator on the failures on the Department of Education. The Department of Education’s behaviour in respect of Marlborough House was indefensible. Even accepting all the arguments about administrative jurisdiction, the fact remained that it was a facility that needed to be run well to help the young boys sent there. That meant installing proper management and staff, and carrying out supervision to ensure that whatever plan was put in place was implemented. None of that happened, and the institution was allowed to drift further into neglect, with the Department of Education, and indeed the Department of Justice, doing nothing, not even observing its appalling decline.

Physical abuse

The Department of Education in their Statement referred to the procedure in Marlborough House for dealing with complaints of physical abuse, which was outlined in a letter dated 17th May 1971: ... all complaints from parents, guardians or other sources about the treatment of children in Marlborough House are investigated by the Department. The Attendant-in-charge is furnished with a copy of the complaint and his observations are requested. Should the seriousness of the complaint warrant it, an Officer of the Department will also interview the child and the attendant-in-charge and/or the attendant against whom the allegations are made and the Department takes appropriate action where necessary. No complete record of all complaints received is available since many of the complaints received are of a trivial nature.

As will be seen from a discussion of such complaints, this was not in fact the approach taken by the Department.

In 1956, two boys appeared before Judge MacCarthy in the Children’s Court. The two boys, aged 11 and 12, had been remanded in Marlborough House for a week in 1956. It was reported in a number of evening papers that one of the boys during the course of the hearing told the judge: I do not like Marlborough House ... I had to march around a field bigger than the room and, if I tripped over the sticks on the ground they would make me get up and they would start hitting me with a stick.

When questioned by the Justice about the allegations he had made, the boy named two officials. Judge MacCarthy then asked for the two officials to be brought before the court. The garda in charge of the case was reported to have said, ‘I don’t imagine that the punishment was very severe’; to which the Judge responded, ‘You don’t imagine, but you were not there’.

The Judge then turned to the other boy and asked him whether he had got enough to eat in Marlborough House, to which the boy replied ‘Yes, Sir’. He then asked him whether he was punished. The boy replied that he had been punished with a stick for tripping. The officer in charge expressed his surprise that there was any punishment for boys in Marlborough House. The two were remanded on bail for 14 days, and Judge MacCarthy stated that he wanted the Superintendent of Marlborough House to be present at that time.

The Superintendent, Mr Grange,5 who had taken up his appointment two weeks before this, was informed of the events by the Inspector of Reformatory and Industrial Schools Branch, and Mr Grange made contact with the officer in charge of the case. He was told by the detective that the boys had made no allegations before the court hearing.

In a report prepared for the Inspector by Mr Grange, he stated that he had investigated the matter thoroughly within the Institution and was ‘quite satisfied that no such incidents as alleged took place’. He further stated: ... during the period these boys were detained here, I had on an average of thirty-four to thirty-eight boys here, as well as a number of workmen who were employed by Messrs Dockrell renovating the Boy’s Quarters. Due to the number of boys who were within full view of these tradesmen and that myself and the Attendants had to be on the alert all the time I wish to point out that these incidents could not have happened without being noticed.

He provided statements from four older boys, signed by the boys and witnessed by Mr Grange. All the statements are dated on the same date in 1956 and are similarly worded. They each maintained that they never saw either boy being ill-treated in any way by any of the attendants. They were allowed to walk around the recreation grounds and were treated well by the attendants. They stated that they got plenty to eat in Marlborough House.

Statements were also given by two permanent attendants and two temporary attendants. These statements were also taken on the same date in 1956 and witnessed by Mr Grange. In the case of the permanent attendants, each of these had been employed in Marlborough House for six years, and they claimed the allegations were untrue. They were assisted in their duty rota by a temporary attendant. Statements were provided by the temporary attendants, both of whom were in their first week of employment in Marlborough House when the alleged incidents occurred. They denied that they saw anything untoward during their duty periods with the senior attendants.

It is not clear from either Mr Grange’s report, or the statements taken from the four staff members, whether any of these were the persons alleged to have beaten the boys, but it is likely that Mr Grange would have been in a position to ascertain who was on duty during the week that the boys were detained.

A few weeks later, the Evening Press reported that Mr Grange attended court, where the boys again repeated their statements and named two attendants. Mr Grange told the court that he had made inquiries and believed the charges made by the boys were unfounded. He also told the court that he had since questioned another boy in the centre, who told him that he had overheard the boys the night before their original hearing planning to tell the Judge that they had been beaten in order to be dealt with leniently.