Chapter 7 — Artane

Emotional abuse

It was only later, after Artane closed, that he supplemented his training as a teacher by attending, under his own initiative, a childcare course. At one point in his testimony he said: as I looked back over the years at my time in Artane I became aware that there were times when I punished boys ... and might have done better ... I looked back at Artane and saw what the system was like ... the more knowledge I acquired the more critical I became I suppose of how I saw Artane and what I did.

Some of the other Brothers showed a similar awareness of the emotional needs of the children in their care, and lamented that the system did not address them. One Brother, who was in Artane from the late 1940s to the early 1950s, told the Investigation Committee: I would say I was lacking in appreciation of ... the circumstances in which these chaps found themselves, away from home and that kind of thing ... I wouldn’t know who was legitimate or illegitimate or anything of that nature and I tried to treat everyone the same and of course you cannot do that. In that sense I would regret that.

Another Brother, who was in Artane in the 1960s, told the Investigation Committee of an occasion when the degree of deprivation of some of his pupils was brought home to him in a disquieting way. He recounted the following incident: ... I remember teaching a lesson, it was English reading and it was about a family, and I discovered a boy in the class who didn’t understand what the word “mother” meant. “Brother” or “sister”, it meant nothing to him. I was taken aback by that.

Another Brother told the Investigation Committee of one boy in Artane who had taught him a great deal about human nature. He said: I did learn before I left Artane, if I could tell you a small little story. There was the chap, I can remember his name ... he feared neither God nor man. He didn’t give a hoot about anybody. He was a desperado ... constantly in trouble ... he was the toughest fellow I have ever came across anywhere. Who arrived to see him but his mother. The fella didn’t even know he had a mother. So he was in to meet her ... she was all over him ... he was due out in three months and he was welcome to come to her and she would look after him ... that guy ... went back, I couldn’t believe it, he was a model, because for the first time in his life he realised he had a mother, there was somebody. He didn’t care what she was like. And he was complete – a model boy.

These Brothers, even though their training did not include study of the emotional needs of children, were aware that the boys needed more than just food, clothing, accommodation and education, and craved individual attention.

One Brother explained: sometimes a fellow, you would be nice and a fella would come up to you trying to play up to you and say, “Can I be your chafer?” God love them.

While the boys and Brothers had to keep their distance, it was open to any Brother to rise above these constraints and offer more than just physical care to these boys. From the evidence before the Committee, regrettably few Brothers chose to do this, but those who did were remembered with warmth and gratitude by the ex-residents who attended the oral hearings.

A Brother, who was in Artane from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, spoke of what he called ‘that softening down ... in the whole system’ that occurred during his time in Artane. It became ‘a kinder place to be than the first day I entered it’. He told the Investigation Committee: But I have to say now, in all sincerity, that in the latter years that I was there, there was a hell of an improvement, both in food, dress, entertainment, mixing with the outside world. Getting parents or getting Godparents for these kids and trying to get them out and breaking the system.

When asked to explain what he meant by ‘breaking the system’, he explained: You don’t change an environment overnight ... It is done over the years. What I am trying to get across is that when these changes did take place ... you didn’t wave a magic wand and say, “everything is new, everything is grand”. It took years even when Br Ourson was there.

Some individual Brothers did not recognise Artane’s shortcomings, even when looking back at their time there. One Brother described it as ‘a happy place’. Another Brother said, ‘I was always very happy with the years I spent in Artane. I enjoyed the company of the boys ... and enjoyed the fact that you could talk to them ...’. Another said, ‘It was a very busy place, and a fairly happy place, there was a lot of exuberance in the yard ...’.

Artane was purpose built for 825 children, and the capitation system meant that keeping the numbers up was an economic necessity. One Brother in his testimony summed it up neatly: I would say the biggest problem was what can you do to change the life for 800 young fellas? It was entirely too big. Now who was responsible for that? ... the more we had the more money we got. But the more we had didn’t necessarily mean that it was a better place for them to be.

Paragraph 72 of the Cussen Report published in 1936 stated: In our opinion the best results can be obtained only where the number under any one Manager does not exceed 200 pupils. We think that in no case should the number exceed 250. It is necessary in this connection to refer specifically to the case of Artane Industrial School, which is certified for 800 boys and where there are on an average about 700 boys. It is in our view impossible for the Manager in an Institution of this size to bring to bear that personal touch essential to give each child the impression that he is an individual in whose troubles, ambitions, and welfare a lively interest is being taken.

For the sake of ‘the care and after-care of the pupils’, Cussen recommended that Artane should be divided into separate schools of no more than 250 pupils.

In paragraph 80, the Cussen Report commented on the effects of institutional life: In some schools monotonous marching round a school yard took the place of free play at the time for recreation. Such drill-like exercise, especially if prolonged, becomes a dreary routine deleterious to mind and body, and it should be replaced by free play and organised games that will develop in the child alertness of movement and individual confidence, and thus help to compensate in some measure for the lack of initiative and individuality that are characteristic of children reared in institutions.

Concerned to prevent this institutionalisation, the Cussen Report, in Recommendation 15, advocated that: Reasonable contact of pupils with the outside world is desirable and should be permitted to a greater extent that is the case at present.