Chapter 7 — Artane

Sexual abuse

He did not admit his abusive activities all at once: In dribs and drabs at the start. I think it was actually the Artane investigation that – I was called to Clontarf, I think that was the deciding factor that really opened me up to the whole – I was able to – I got great support from the group at that time and I decided that I had to put all my faith in the group. Before that I was very hesitant, because I am by nature shy and not having much confidence in myself, but when I saw how much support I was getting from them it made me open up completely to the group and to the therapists.

It was a long process: Well, I still spent a lot of time in Granada to fully come to terms with it. Some of the group there, they would suggest that they felt that they were ready for the world again but I was very slow to suggest that, I kind of waited until I was told by the therapists in Granada that as far as they were concerned I was in a position to leave therapy, but that I should have no contact with, no direct contact with children, as far as was possible.

Br Dennis said that, prior to his actions in Artane, he had not felt drawn to young boys. While he eventually admitted he had acted for sexual gratification, he had begun by deceiving himself that he was comforting the boy. He said that he found it very difficult to pinpoint any one thing that started it for him: Well, I suppose, I was under pressure. Under pressure, having very little free time, I suppose, in Artane ... I was young and I didn’t seem to feel that pressure, but it probably was there in spite of me, I don’t know.

He went on to say that he was sexually naïve and shy, and he tended to select boys who were weaker and needed more help: ‘Maybe I was looking for a shy boy trying to give them confidence. That might be my justification, I couldn’t really say’.

Part of his therapy in the Granada Institute was to accept responsibility for what he had done, which also involved telling his Superiors the whole story: I told them eventually, yes, but it took some time for that to happen as well ... Well, they were invited to – they would have meetings over in Granada with the therapists and the Leadership Team and myself. The first session yielded nothing at all, but after about four months I suppose, I gradually began to open up to the Leadership Team, as well as to the group members.

Br Dennis said that he had lied, when he was first accused, out of fear: ‘I don’t know what kind of fear it was, but it was out of some kind of fear and a sense of shame; that I didn’t want to reveal that I was a failure or something like that’.

He said that, in the Granada Institute, he had also come to an awareness of the impact of the abuse on the boys: Probably the effects that it had on them in later life, where it could have led to marriage break-up and to suicidal tendencies. That their whole life really was all messed up ... It was traumatic for me, but even though I didn’t look on it in that way, at that time I was thinking more of the victims at that particular time. But it was very traumatic for me as well. I found it very hard. There was one – I was advised to have at least one Brother that I could talk to, so I chose a Brother that I could talk to about all my misgivings and upset, and I found that that was a help to me all right, that that helped me greatly.

The Christian Brothers’ statement responding to the complainant who made allegations to the Investigation Committee stated that the allegations were not in keeping with the character of the Brother. The complainant’s allegations were expressly not admitted. The statement did not say that Br Dennis had been sent to the Granada Institute by the Congregational Superiors in the mid-1990s in respect of his activities in Artane.

Br Dennis filed two separate statements of response to the complainant’s allegations. The first was a long statement that dealt in detail with the complainant’s allegations, which were denied in full. It commenced by stating that he did not remember him or the incidents that were alleged to have occurred and ‘that the Complainant is both inaccurate and mistaken in much of his recollection’. It did not make any admission and, in the final paragraph, he said ‘I deny any allegations of abuse made against me contained in [the complainant’s] statement which is not directly or indirectly denied or referred to in this response statement’. He did not refer to the admissions that were made to the Gardaí, or to the fact that he had been sent by the Superiors of the Congregation to the Granada Institute in the mid-1990s in respect of his activity in Artane.

His second statement to the Commission was dated a few weeks after the first statement and was the standard denial of abuse, with a legalistic paragraph which stated that he was required to prove a negative in respect of events alleged to have occurred on unspecified dates over 30 years ago.

The significance of the approach taken by the Congregation and by Br Dennis is twofold: The Congregational response in this instance did not tell the whole story. It was seriously misleading because it did not reflect the Congregation’s actual knowledge of Br Dennis: the Superiors in the Congregation sent him to the Granada Institute in 1996 because of allegations from Artane. It is inconceivable that they did not also know about the previous allegations. In the course of his treatment in Granada, Br Dennis had meetings with the leadership team of the Christian Brothers and his therapists, at which he eventually opened up about his abuse. None of this is reflected in the Congregational response in which they attested to his good character. Br Dennis’s statements of response to the Commission cannot be trusted on face value. They contain assertions that he knew to be untrue and which contradicted the import of his earlier statement to the Gardaí and the Granada Institute.

The complainant confined his allegations of sexual abuse to two Brothers and spoke positively about others.

This complainant’s allegations are, at least in part, confirmed by Br Dennis’s admissions to the Gardaí. The Investigation Committee had the benefit of being able to hear the Brother’s evidence at an oral hearing but, at the time when the complaint was heard, Br Dennis had not yet given evidence and the complainant was subjected to a rigorous cross-examination by the Christian Brothers, without any reference to the information they had. If Br Dennis had not been able to attend and give evidence, valuable information would have been lost to the Inquiry.

A complainant resident in Artane during the late 1960s alleged sexual abuse by Br Etienne, which he said took place in the classroom and in the attic. He described an occasion when Br Etienne told him to stay behind in the classroom when the other boys left to go to the yard. The Brother closed the door and locked it. He went on to describe what happened: An item of furniture, to me it was either a cupboard with books or a piano or some sort of wooden structure was pulled from the wall, Br Etienne started kissing the back of my neck and ... My memories are just, well being put down, lying on my stomach; Br Etienne lying on top of me with my face sideways, kissing my neck, kissing the side of my face. I remember pain in my buttocks area, it was the pain of, like, somebody trying to enter. It ended with hot splashes on my back area, my bottom area. Then I was allowed to join the other boys in the yard.

The witness went on to say that his trousers were pulled down and his shirt lifted during this encounter. He said that Br Etienne was dressed in the usual long cassock and cummerbund and that, during the assault, he had his cassock open and his trousers down. He said that this happened a number of times in the classroom.