Chapter 7 — Artane

Sexual abuse

A further witness was embarrassed about his sexual activity, even though it was by consent: Well, it is probably a bit embarrassing, but to be honest with you I was actually involved in that myself. It was just sort of playing around basically ... No, it wasn’t very frequent but it happened every now and then. But it was very common in Artane, it was very common that boys would be playing around with each other ... Most of the time, 99% of the time it would be a case of just two boys messing about.

He went on to comment on the Brothers’ awareness, and on the prevalence of one particular form of common sexual activity: ... you have got to appreciate in places like Artane, well it wasn’t very, very common but quite a lot of times boys would be masturbating each other. If another boy that wasn’t, you know, doing that would find out they would say it was badness.

Another witness recalled an admonitory talk by a Brother: ... and the Brother who was giving the speech, God knows who he was, turned around and says “right, we know what you boys are doing, you have got to stop it”. This Brother in particular said, “We found over 300 children playing with each other”. Now there was only about 450 in the school. We were all standing there listening and that and, I don’t know whether they ever stopped or not.

A witness spoke of the enormous interest of the Brothers in ‘badness’ and the sin of impurity: Badness was the sin of impurity. They had the sixth commandment. I remember Br Jules used to say there is more people in hell because of the sixth commandment, the sin of impurity. They were absolutely bonkers on this. When we were growing up, young lads, 14, 15, you are getting feelings, you are getting wet dreams and things like that ... As I say, they must have thought that must be one of the reasons of so called badness. It meant boys messing with one another, thought, word or deed or whatever. They regularly wanted to know if you spoke, swore, told bad jokes. They had a mania for this sort of thing.

The Congregation in its Opening Statement said that it was aware of the possibility of sexual abuse among the boys themselves. Precautionary measures were taken to ensure that such abuse did not occur, including careful supervision of the boys at all times but particularly in the dormitories. The Statement referred to a 1946 Visitation Report which expressed concern about the danger of a lack of proper control in the infirmary, on the grounds that failure to ‘exercise proper control over the boys who are confined there when convalescing ... may be a source of serious danger to their morals’. The Statement said that, although Brothers who worked in Artane confirmed that such abuse occurred, there was no documentary evidence available to the Congregation concerning individual cases of peer abuse. The only documented case of peer abuse appeared in records disclosed by the Department of Education and Science.

Brothers testified to their awareness of peer abuse, but their accounts differ as regards its prevalence, the Brothers’ obligation to look out for it, and the punishments meted out.

One Brother, Br Saber, who was in Artane for 10 years in the mid-1940s and 1950s, spoke about his awareness of sexual abuse both involving boys with boys and Brothers with boys. However, he stated that there was no sexual activity during his time in the School, which he attributed to Br Tyce,77 the Resident Manager, and to the sodality.

Br Boyce, who was in the Institution at around the same time, said that he was aware of the possibility of peer abuse, or ‘badness’ as it was known, but that he never came across it, and his knowledge of the subject came not from the Brothers but from overhearing boys’ conversations. He confirmed that he ordered the boys to sleep with their hands crossed, but said that it was nothing to do with masturbation, it was just the custom.

A Brother who was in Artane during the 1950s stated that he never heard of any type of untoward sexual activity, either amongst boys or staff, the possibility of boys masturbating was never mentioned and he never punished for it.

Br Laramie,78 who was also there in the 1950s, stated that he was aware of the term ‘badness’, which was code for sexual activity. He said that the boys and various religious magazines used the term. Although the Brothers were aware of the issue, he could not recall any specific incidents involving boys.

Another Brother who was there throughout the 1950s said that he remembered the term ‘badness’ as referring to peer abuse and that all staff would have been aware of the term. Despite this, he said that he never encountered any incident of badness nor had to punish a boy for it. However, he was contradicted by a colleague who remembered having to punish a boy who had been referred to him by this Brother who insisted that punishment was necessary: I was in charge and he reported to me that [the boy] was interfering with other boys and he kind of said to me you will have to do something about it. As I understood it then that when some boys were interfering with other boys, they would be punished and one of the punishments they would get would be on the backside with the leather. I wasn’t too keen on doing it, I had a certain reluctance about it. I didn’t do anything for a while. Then Br Gaspard came back to me again and told me that this was going on and that I had to do something about it. I just brought him to the boot room. My memory now, I am working from memory now and it is a long time ago, my memory is that he had his nightshirt on him, he bent down, I gave him three or four smacks of the leather on the – not on the bare backside and he ran out the door and I was glad to see him go.

Despite having to mete out this punishment, his recollection was that sexual activity between boys ‘wasn’t a major crime’, although Brothers were told to be vigilant.

A Brother who was in Artane in the 1950s stated: We were always being alerted to be on the look out, to be a presence in places where the boys would be, and I think we did that to the best of our ability. But we would be aware that things happened and there were normal healthy young fellas at that time so we tried to be as protective as we could be in that area by being a presence around the place. We would have been alerted to be on the lookout, to be there, to be careful and to make sure that people are not injured in a situation like that, or that damage is done to them. So, that we would be there as a protection. It would have been—we would be, I suppose, on the alert and keep moving around and wherever.

He said, however, that although the Brothers were aware of it, they would rarely talk about it. He denied that he would have discussed the matter with the boys in order to find out who was abusing whom, on the grounds that it was ‘none of my business’. He stated that if he became aware of an incident ‘I would have to hand that over to somebody at a higher authority level ... I would probably go to the Disciplinarian’.

1.Sexual abuse by Brothers was a chronic problem in Artane. Brothers who served in Artane included firstly those who had previously been guilty of sexual abuse of boys, secondly those whose abuse was discovered while they worked in Artane and, thirdly some who were subsequently revealed to have abused boys. A timeline of the documented and admitted cases of sexual abuse shows that: (a)For more than half of the 33 years under consideration, there was at least one such abuser working there; (b)For more than one third of the years there were at least two abusers present; (c)During one year in the 1940s there were seven such Brothers in Artane at the same time. 2.More abuse occurred than is recorded in documents because of inadequate recording and reporting procedures. In particular: (a)There was little or no communication on an informal, friendly basis between boys and Brothers including the Superior. (b)The sodality was a means of informal communication between boys and the Resident Manager that uncovered four sexual abusers in Artane in 1944, but it was discontinued. (c)Because boys could be punished for complaining about abuse, there was inevitably under-reporting. (d)In the 1960s, the Resident Manager gave instructions that complaints were to be made directly to him and not to the chaplain, thereby cutting off a channel of information. (e)One offender, Br Dennis, admitted sexually abusing many boys in Artane, but only one of his victims gave evidence at the Phase II oral hearings. (f)In other cases of documented abuse, there were no complaints to the Committee. 3.Other causes of under-reporting also operated, including the fact that sexual abuse is difficult for victims to corroborate or verify, the fear of being disbelieved, lack of faith in the investigation process, and feelings of shame and embarrassment. 4.Sexual activity between boys was common, and there was a significant amount of predatory sexual behaviour by bigger boys on smaller, vulnerable ones, but complainants and respondents were guarded in dealing with it. 5.Evidence and inferences in this and other boys’ institutions suggested that some Brothers sought victims among boys they believed were engaged in sexual activity with other boys. Response 6.Cases and allegations of sexual abuse were not properly investigated; information was not shared in the Congregation; cases were not reported to the Department; and the Gardaí were not informed. 7.The Congregation was aware of the criminal nature of sexual abuse perpetrated by Brothers. 8.The Congregation was also aware of the risk of recidivism in such cases. 9.Sexual abuse by Brothers posed a serious risk of damaging the reputations of the Institution and the Congregation if it became public, and cases were managed primarily with a view to protecting them against that danger. The offender was an incidental beneficiary of this policy. 10.The most common reaction was to move the offending Brother to another Christian Brothers’ institution, without regard to the hazard to boys in the new location and with no evidence that the Superior was alerted. Some Brothers were moved to industrial schools after abusing in day schools. 11.The Christian Brothers have submitted that repeat offenders were dismissed from the Congregation, but this does not appear to have occurred. Even when the Council voted for expulsion, this was often done by inviting the Brother to seek dispensation from his vows, which allowed him to leave the Congregation with no taint or suspicion on his character. The Brother could continue teaching in a lay capacity. 12.Only Brothers of temporary profession were dismissed by being refused permanent status by the Congregation, but these Brothers were also able to move on with their reputations intact. 13.Some Brothers and former Brothers found to have committed sexual abuse were able to continue damaging children for many years because of the policy of concealment of the disclosure of abuse, failure to investigate properly and failure to report. 14.The Congregation claimed in its Opening Statement that the impact of abuse on young boys was not properly understood at the time and that the response to the child was therefore inadequate. The reality is that the needs of abused children were not considered at all. It was not a case of insufficient understanding, but rather of giving priority to other concerns. For a Community of religious in loco parentis, this was a fundamental breach of their duty of care.