Chapter 7 — Artane

Emotional abuse

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.

Cussen’s recommendations were not put into effect. Indeed, in the 1940s the numbers in Artane swelled to 844.

Some senior Brothers questioned the regimented lives in Artane. In 1952, the Visitation Report contained the following observations: The presence of over 700 boys in one establishment with all kinds of social background necessitates a great amount of regimentation and vigilance, and these have been developed in Artane to the n-th degree so that it would be almost impossible to find a loophole in the system. From Rising Bell till “lights out” the boys are regimented under the watchful eyes of Brothers who are experts in their various duties – so that it becomes almost true to say that the boys are never called on to make decisions for themselves even in small details except at one moment in the day – the moment when they must decide to go or not to go to the altar for Communion. And then one begins to wonder if it can be possible that this system, so perfect in itself, is fundamentally all wrong from top to bottom. Is it achieving the end for which it was evolved, to train the will, memory and understanding of the boys so that when they go out into the world they may be able to take their parts as good citizens and good Catholics? Will young people who know nothing about freedom, since their birth or since their early boyhood, be able to use sensibly the freedom which is theirs when they pass through Artane gates into the wide world? These questions cannot be answered after a period of five days’ residence in Artane. However, more than one experienced Brother in the Community has asked himself similar questions and has not been too happy about the answers.

In the 1956 Visitation Report the Visitor, commenting on the character training of the boys, wrote: The control of so many boys has led, in the system employed, to over much “shepherding especially from 6.30 till bed time. The separation of Juniors and Seniors would be most desirable. The lack of play-hall space is a crying need. Notwithstanding the devoted care of the Brothers it must be admitted, I think that the Institution is much too large. If it is to continue as an Industrial School its division into Junior and Senior sections would seem to be most desirable.