Chapter 7 — Artane

Physical abuse

He then described the punishment: If your shoes were cast you knew you were going to the wall. You would go and face the wall until they finished the inspection on all the children and then you would receive slaps. With Br Karel53 he could use a hurl, he could use a leather. Br Raoul54 the same, leather, hurl ... At times a hurl, at times a leather. At times an open palm. At times, as far as I was concerned a closed fist, pulling of the sideburns, being lifted by your sideburns. The particular instant that would frighten me and still does today was ... The chap in front of me at the time was a guy called David.55 When we were going up to get the boots examined you could see that ... there was no sole left in the boot and when he got up in front of him, he turned up the boot and I know now I didn’t know then that ... Br Raoul was just being totally sarcastic and he said “They’ll do you another week ...” and David – it was a relief, he was too young to understand, so was I to what was going on, but when David turned to walk away with his boots, thinking that’s great, he suddenly got a belt of a hurl on the back of – the back, then he was beat up and down the dormitory with a hurl.

Some punishments were peculiar to Artane. Several witnesses described the practice of putting boys ‘on a charge’.

A former resident of the 1940s described what was involved: Artane, people don’t realise, it was a prison in itself. You were surrounded by gates and you were surrounded by big buildings. If you done something wrong in my time there was a 30 foot wall. I don’t know how anyone was going to get over a building. But you got a little patch to mind and you had to stand minding that wall.

The boys were left there until ‘Whenever they’d feel like coming back for you’.

Physical abuse

Another resident who was there between the mid-1940s and mid-1950s said: I was fairly regularly on a charge in Artane. You were put in charge of a building or a gate and you walked up and down. Br Armande56 would go from gate to gate often passed us and he said to me, “You seem to be in a lot of trouble”.

He explained further: by the church there was the wicker gate, you were on a charge, it meant you stood by that, you didn’t let anyone out. Then there was another chap on the main gate. Then there was somebody on the building, which was usually me in the last few months. You had to parade up and down there, you couldn’t play ... Br Cretien always had a stick up his sleeve. He always beat you with a stick and then you got the charge.

In addition to the strap, some Brothers had idiosyncratic implements, such as a fan belt or a pram tyre. Boys could be struck on the palm of the hand, the arm, the face, the stomach, the legs and the backside. Another implement used was a hurley. Sometimes, boys were punched and kicked. Lay teachers, said one resident who was there in 1940s, did not have a leather. He explained: there was a bit of social distinction. The lay teachers tended to carry sticks, quite often broken off hurley handles that had been filed and the sharp edges removed leaving a manageable sized club.

Common physical punishments were ‘the clatter’ and lifting boys by the hair at the temples or sideburns. Br Burcet said, ‘My interpretation of clattering would be to give a fellow a thump or a clip behind the ear’. These punishments were often used either as a rapid chastisement or as an immediately available alternative to the strap.

Two Brothers admitted using a dowel. One Brother said, ‘I might have used a dowel ... I think they would have come from the carpenter’s shop’.

Br Burcet was more precise. He said: I recall once using a dowel, yes ... I became paranoid about where people were. Now, I was under a lot of pressure and I was often frustrated and so on when boys went missing because I had this fear that we could have another fire. On one occasion, when a boy was missing and we had to spend a lot of time looking for him, the dowel was – a baby’s cot, you know the little thing? I hadn’t a leather that happened to be handy, and I slapped the boy on the hand with that. The thing broke and that was it.

One witness described a punishment chosen to fit the crime. The witness was in Artane from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s, and he described one incident: I was given my own suit, as I say. The very first Sunday I was there, that was the first time I wore it because that was when we wore our best suits. During the Mass I had terrible runs. I ran down the passageway to the door and Br Cretien blocked my way. He said “You can’t go. The host is exposed”. I had to wait until the Host was put away and then I made a beeline. The latrines were a good 100 yards from where the chapel was. I never made it and I soiled my pants. In those days, in 1945, they didn’t have flush lavatories. It was a box with a bucket underneath. The paper was newspapers cut up. I done my best to clean my pants. We didn’t have underpants in those days, we had lined trousers. I did my best to clean myself and wipe it but I stunk. After breakfast when I went to the dormitory I had to report to Br Boyce he was in charge of dormitory five then ... Everybody was busy doing their scrubbing and he told me to take my clothes off. They never had hot water in Artane, the cold tap was put on, I stood in it naked and he got the lads who had the big long scrubbers to scrub me. They weren’t very strong and he didn’t think they were doing a bloody good job anyway. He got the hand scrubber and he said, “I will show you”. (Indicating) He scrubbed all my buttocks and legs down. I was red raw after it. He threw me out. I had to dress there and then. No drying off or anything. That was my only experience with Br Boyce.

Witnesses described having to wait before the corporal punishment was administered. Some were taken out of their beds at night to be punished. Boys sent to the Disciplinarian had to wait facing the wall until he was ready to deal with them, which led to an increase in anxiety about what was to come.

Bed-wetters were often the victims of delayed punishment. A boy who was there in the 1950s described the procedure: [If you wet the bed] the next day you might have to – it depends on what Brother would be on – strip down your bed. You would try and hide it but if you couldn’t hide it then the next night you would have to face the wall up in the dormitory.

Facing the wall meant having to stand in the dormitory, wearing only a nightshirt, when the other boys had gone to bed. Boys remained facing the wall for one or two hours before being allowed to get into bed.

Some complainants described how the pain of corporal punishment could be intensified through techniques of delivering the blow, or simply through failure to take account of the physical condition of the boy. A resident in the 1940s complained: When beatings were applied, whether by a leather or strap, no account was taken of whether you had chilblains or you didn’t. You just got it and you took it and who were you to complain to, there was no one to complain to.