Chapter 7 — Artane

Physical abuse

Many former residents complained of punishments that were excessively severe and violent. One witness, at Artane from the mid-1940s to the mid-1950s, described seeing a classmate being beaten. John51 was a very slow learner, but the Brother teaching Irish was not aware of this. He kept asking him questions, and persisted until he got the right answers, even though the boy had no idea what the questions meant: We started tittering laughing. I think Br Laurent52 thought we were laughing at him. He asked him again. Poor John kept guessing and always getting the wrong one. Eventually Br Laurent just blew his top. He hit that lad and got his head and smashed it ... on the bench. The ink wells went up, he was covered in ink, snots, blood, everything. He spent the entire half an hour, three quarters of an hour beating this lad until John eventually had a run of luck and picked this out three times in a row. With that when the bell went or the whistle, Br Laurent just slumped down exhausted from beating this lad. While we were, in the beginning, tittering, some of the lads were crying, we were frightened that he was going to kill him. We made way for him at the door. It was ghastly. The Brother at the other end, one class faced that way and the other faced that way, never intervened once to come down. That wasn’t like Br Laurent but he just lost it that day. He battered this poor lad, he was in bits. So don’t tell me there it was isolated cases, that Brother at the other end should have done something about it but he didn’t.

One witness, at Artane in the 1960s, had reported a Brother for sexual abuse, and he described the purging of ‘badness’, the Artane term for sexual activity, that ensued following his reporting the matter: After that happened, the next day I was brought out of class and I was questioned about who I was committing badness with ... Because I didn’t name names at that particular time, but because of the beating I was getting, I was giving names of other boys who I had committed badness with and those other boys were taken out of class and they were beaten until they gave names. It was just one vicious circle that kept going on for two – for three days. I had been taken out because other boys started giving my name back again. It was even said to me, but who said it I don’t know, “you should have kept your mouth shut and none of this would have happened”.. But for three days I was systematically abused, both outside the classroom, in the dormitory, anywhere where I went within those environments. I was taken to a music room just off the corridor to the right of where the classes are and I had been beaten so much that I went to the toilet in a bin and another boy seen me and told a Brother that I had done that and I was taken back out and flogged again because I had done that. We weren’t allowed to go to the toilet; we were being punished for something that I had started.

Another witness described an occasion when a Brother struck him on the genitals in the course of a beating, and the boy protected himself with his hand but the Brother took his hand away: “What’s the matter with you? Those are no good to you anyway”... With that, he had me against the wall ... He put his fist between my legs and pushed me upwards while I was leaning back against the wall. He had his other hand on my chest to make sure I would fall forward and then he took his hand away.

A former resident who was there in the 1960s described the punishment given to boys whose shoes were ‘cast’. He explained: what cast means is they were cast out, thrown away because they were absolutely gone beyond repair. Depending on the state of your shoes ... would depend on the severity of the clattering you would get.

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.