- Volume 1
- Volume 2
-
Volume 3
- Introduction
- Methodology
- Social and demographic profile of witnesses
- Circumstances of admission
- Family contact
- Everyday life experiences (male witnesses)
- Record of abuse (male witnesses)
- Everyday life experiences (female witnesses)
- Record of abuse (female witnesses)
- Positive memories and experiences
- Current circumstances
- Introduction to Part 2
- Special needs schools and residential services
- Children’s Homes
- Foster care
- Hospitals
- Primary and second-level schools
- Residential Laundries, Novitiates, Hostels and other settings
- Concluding comments
- Volume 4
Chapter 6 — Christian Brothers
BackThe private hearings – Phase II
Counsel explained the reason for this approach as follows: I understand that in the early statements instructions were given that the Brothers were known only by their surnames. We now know after only a few days it was a mixed bag.
In circumstances where the individual respondent either admitted abusing the complainant, or elected to ask no questions, the Congregation was still entitled to cross-examine the witness, and in most cases it availed itself of this opportunity.
The records provided by the Congregation, whilst limited and incomplete in some respects, were more extensive and detailed than the materials in the archives of other Congregations, and contributed significantly to the overall picture of these institutions. The structure of the chapters on the institutions, proceeding from documented cases of abuse to the uncorroborated evidence, reflects this approach. The documented cases were examined for behaviour described and for the way the cases were managed. This illuminated attitudes the Congregation had at the time to Brothers who broke the rules.
The documents originally discovered to the Committee were added to on several occasions. A public hearing on discovery issues, arising out of the investigation of Carriglea Industrial School, took place in November 2006 after prolonged correspondence failed to produce requested material. The Congregation supplied this additional material subsequent to that hearing, which included recordings and notes of interviews with Brothers about their experiences in industrial schools. A further substantial body of documentary evidence was furnished in March 2007, when the Congregation’s solicitors notified the Committee that it had decided to waive its claim to withhold documents from discovery on the grounds of privilege.
The contemporary records of the Congregation, and in particular their Visitation Reports, allowed an in-depth investigation of the industrial schools under their control, and this was helpful to the work of the Committee.
Footnotes
- The Holy See is the episcopal jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome, commonly known as the Pope.
- B. Coldrey, Faith and Fatherland. The Christian Brothers and the Development of Nationalism, 1838–1921 (Dublin: Gill and Macmillan, 1988), p 22.
- There are currently 122 schools in the Christian Brother network in Ireland, according to the Marino Institute of Education website.
- Constitutions (1923).
- The general assembly of representatives from the Congregation of the Christian Brothers.
- Commission of Inquiry into the Reformatory and Industrial School System Report, 1936 (the Cussen Report) (Dublin: Stationery Office).
- A Visitor was a Congregational Inspector who reported back to the leadership of the Congregation. See Supervision/Visitations below.
- An association where the main object is the well-being and improvement of a different group of persons, such as men, women and children, or more specially, priests, youths, church helpers, prisoners, immigrants, nurses, married people, couples, etc.
- Cn 653.
- You shall not commit adultery.
- You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife.
- Congregation of the Christian Brothers 1962, Chapter VIII ‘Chastity’, p 23 section 81.
- Const 8 of the 1923 Constitutions.
- Const 97 of the 1923 Constitutions.
- Congregation of the Christian Brothers 1962, Chapter XIII ‘Mortifications & Humilitations’, p 30 section 128.
- The Cussen Report 1936 – Commission of Inquiry into the Reformatory and Industrial School System, para 74.
- This is a pseudonym.
- There were three programmes broadcast by RTE in 1999 in the ‘States of Fear’ series: ‘Industrial Schools and Reformatories from the 1940s-1980s’, ‘The Legacy of Industrial Schools’, and ‘Sick and Disabled Children in Institutions’.
- Suffer the Little Children, by Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan, 1999, New Island.
- O’Brien Institute.
- This is a pseudonym.
- P394 Circular Letters 1821–1930
- Department of Education Annual Report 1925/1926.
- Report of the Department of Education for the School Years 1925–26–27 and the Financial and Administrative Year 1926–1927, p 83.
- Report of the Department of Education for the School Year 1924–1925 and the Financial and Administrative Years 1924–25–26, p 84.
- Rules and Regulations for the Certified Industrial Schools in Saorstát Éireann Approved by the Minister of Education under the 54th Section of the Act, 8 Edw VII., Ch 67, clauses 12 and 13 (see DES chapter).
- Rules and Regulations for the Certified Industrial Schools in Saorstát Éireann Approved by the Minister of Education under the Children Act, 1908.
- The Department submit this wording ‘education provision’ in other words the internal national school.
- Section 24 of The Non-Fatal Offences Against the Person Act 1997 provided:
- the rule of law under which teachers are immune from criminal liability in respect of physical chastisement of pupils is hereby abolished.
- With the removal of this immunity, teachers are now subject to section 2(1) of the 1997 Act which provides that:
- a person shall be guilty of the offence of assault, who without lawful excuse, intentionally or recklessly, directly or indirectly applies force to and causes an impact on the body of another.Teachers who physically chastise pupils may now be guilty of an offence and liable to 12 months’ imprisonment and/or a fine of £1,500.
- This is a pseudonym.