Chapter 7 — Artane

Physical abuse

He said that the overall atmosphere in the School was: very oppressive and it seemed to me to engender a great fear, an atmosphere of fear in the boys, generally, either in anticipation of punishment or actually experiencing punishment. In a word I would have described it as excessive and out of proportion.

He described incidents he had witnessed, including one in his report to the Archbishop in which he referred to a boy being severely beaten on the face for an insignificant misdemeanour in the playground.

He expressed a particular concern about the levels of corporal punishment used by Br Videl48, who was in the School in the early 1960s and about whom he heard consistent reports of his excessive disciplinary actions and beatings.

He recalled an occasion when Br Videl punished a boy who had snatched a comic from a younger boy in the playground. The Brother took the older boy to one of the classrooms: I was concerned at that stage about the evidence that I had been hearing about his severity, so I decided I would follow myself after him and I would stand outside the classroom door ... When I did that I counted the number of slaps he was giving the boy and my attention was distracted somehow after 19 slaps ... I would have considered that grossly excessive for the demeanour or misdemeanour, which in my view was tawdry.

He did not think the system in Artane was conducive to boys making complaints. He said: ... as far as I could see the boys were afraid to make a complaint. I was in a sort of invidious position because I had been instructed by Br Ourson, the Superior, that the boys were not to make complaints to me, that if they had complaints they should go to him.

While he went to Br Ourson with complaints of sexual abuse, he said that he was reluctant to do so in respect of physical abuse. Other Brothers advised him informally that this was not his function. For this reason, he directed boys who came to him with such complaints to go directly to Br Ourson. He does not know whether they in fact did so. He had not gone to Br Ourson about the Brother for this reason. He went instead to the Brother Provincial, but he did not know what the outcome was or whether the Brother was reprimanded.

Fr Moore’s evidence is important on the extent of corporal punishment in Artane and the difficulty for staff and boys in making complaints. In an environment where the victim is afraid to report it to the authorities, abuse will flourish. This and other evidence indicates that boys did not report abuse to the authorities because they would have been punished for doing so.

Dr Paul McQuaid returned to Ireland in 1965 after four years of postgraduate training in England and Scotland, and took up the position of Assistant Psychiatrist in charge of the Child Guidance Clinic in the Mater Hospital. In or about 1967 or 1968, he began to visit Artane on a weekly basis and he had free access to the Institution.

Dr McQuaid said that his general impression was that it was a daunting institution. The abiding impression he had was that of silence during school hours, notwithstanding the large number of boys in the place: The silence. So you had all these children, young boys, and virtually not a sound.

Physical abuse

The boys’ unease was noticeable: It was a forbidding place, no question about it. There was a sense of just something about the way that the kids presented. You got a sense that they were intimidated, but again it was 40/50 years ago, times were different. They were there because they were within a juvenile controlled system and how do you control large numbers of kids.

He recalled an incident which happened one day when he visited the School unannounced: I walked in one day and as I said there was this silence, I was on my own and I don’t think I was expected in that sense. As I walked down the corridor I heard this (slapped hands together) like that (indicated), just as I walked down, the door opened and a boy walked out and his face was coming out and he had a black eye developing. I stopped him and he was very upset. He was trying not to cry. Anyway I said, you know, “What happened?” He said – I can’t remember what he said, but what transpired was that he had been hit by the Brother in charge, that’s what he said. I had no reason to disbelieve him.

Dr McQuaid returned to the issues of punishment and fear in Artane later in his evidence. He drew a distinction between national schools and other institutions: We know that particularly in institutions corporal punishment was used in a way somewhat beyond what it was used for in national schools in that it was an instrument of control.

Dr McQuaid said that there would have been a degree of difference in terms of the extent of the punishment in Artane as opposed to the schools that he attended. In his school days, corporal punishment was administered by a dean of discipline, as distinct from individual teachers in the classroom, but he confessed that he would not really have known what was happening in Artane if he had been asked. However, he did repeat that his impression of Artane ‘was one of an intimidatory type of silence and control’. He was asked whether it was his perception at the time that there was a problem in Artane with regard to corporal punishment or excessive corporal punishment, and he replied that: ... we were given to understand that the issue of control was a matter for the individual Brother. So how an individual Brother might deal with a recusant child or class, as I understood it then and since, was that it was a matter for the individual Brother.

The difference in the system of government in a school where punishment was administered by a designated person, as compared with Artane and other Christian Brothers’ institutions, should not have existed, because the statutory Rules and Regulations for industrial schools provided that corporal punishment could only be inflicted by the Manager or in his presence. If the rule had been observed, the regime would have been more ordered, and cases of excessive or capricious violence less common. A Brother would have to justify to the Manager why a boy should be punished and would not be permitted to react spontaneously to a situation. Consistency, another feature of ordered regimes, would be maintained.

An allegation of excessive corporal punishment was referred to in one of the reports of a special inspection carried out by three officials49 of the Department of Education in December 1962. This inspection followed the appearance by Fr Henry Moore, the chaplain to Artane, before an Inter-Departmental Committee where he expressed his concerns about the way Artane was run. In particular, he commented on the excessive discipline and overuse of corporal punishment. It was in this context that the reference to discipline appeared in the principal report of the group, which was written by Mr MacUaid. The relevant part stated: Complaints about the treatment of children in industrial schools are not infrequent but from experience I would say that the majority are exaggerated and some even untrue. For example, you will recall the case where a mother brought her child to the hall and alleged that he had been beaten on the head and on the buttocks by a Br Javier50 in Artane. Fortunately, Dr McCabe was in the office the same day and on uncovering the bandaged head she diagnosed the “injury” as ringworm. The child had bruises on his body but in the subsequent investigation Br Javier claimed that they had been made in a rough and tumble fight with other boys and the balance of the evidence favoured the Brother’s case. Because Br Javier is the Dean of Discipline in Artane he was interviewed specially, away from the Superior and Bursar, on his duties Br Javier is a vigorous young man in his late twenties with six years teaching experience. His duties as Disciplinarian do not allow him to teach at present but he hopes to be relieved of his appointment this summer and re-assigned to the classroom. His policy of deprivation of privileges because of misconduct and acquainting the culprit of the reason is basically sound but he explained that successful application of this policy was not always possible owing to the ages of the boys, some of whom did not care if, say, the privilege of watching television or going home for a few hours on Sunday was withdrawn. He felt that, having withdrawn privileges and still being faced with insubordination, he had no alternative but to punish moderately with the leather on the hands in certain cases. He stated that he probably used the leather about twice a week. Br Javier is Dean of Discipline for 400 odd boys and, I believe, fills this demanding position with sincerity and firmness but without harshness. The only criticism offered is that he is too young for an exacting job that requires maturity and had little experience of the city type prior to his appointment as Disciplinarian. In a subsequent discussion, the Superior whole-heartedly supported the work of Br Javier. In response to the suggestion that a course in psychology in U.C.D. would help in an office of this important nature, he replied that the question had never been examined by the Order but that Br Javier would probably return to teaching next September.