Chapter 7 — Artane

Emotional abuse

Most of the Brothers who appeared before the Investigation Committee complained about the numbers in the School.

One Brother was asked if the system made it difficult to be compassionate with individuals. He replied, ‘I would say so, yes, I would agree. I mean it was numbers, large numbers you were dealing’.

A Brother in Artane in the 1950s, whilst saying that there was a good atmosphere between the 800 boys and the 25 to 30 Brothers, said that it was ‘mass production ... It was impossible to do anything worthwhile with them’. He felt that the Brothers on the ground were interested in the children’s welfare and many of the children did well, but it depended more on their background and make-up. When asked why nobody spoke out about the impossibility of looking after 800 boys, he replied: I was going to use ignorance ... It was lack of knowledge or lack of insights by the Brothers ourselves, by headquarters and that. I mean 800 – there were 800 people that weren’t wanted and that nobody else would take them.

A Brother who was there in the late 1950s was angry about the situation: You had in Artane at that time 600, or whatever, pupils. You had, effectively, 16 or 17 Brothers, the teaching Brothers on the staff, who had to teach them full time ... So I would be asking today, ‘Why was it that I was expected to do the impossible in Artane by my country from 1955 to 1959?’ ... the system survived because of the dedication of the few. And I suppose we are paying for that today.

He went on to say: Some of them [the lads] unfortunately who had problems and maybe who should not have been there at all, they should have been in some other institution that could care for such people like that ... at that particular time we weren’t as aware ... about the importance of having places for people like that who need specific care and specific attention and specific help.

A Brother who served a total of nine years in Artane between the mid-1940s and mid-1950s explained: ... the new kids coming in who would be lost, you know, really some of them were lost really. 825 kids. Divide that by five and that’s 160. 160 kids in a dormitory was very formidable ... It was cruel ... That was the total responsibility of two really. It was really the two in the dormitory made the kids or developed a kind of relationship with them.

He was still angry at the enormity of it all. He railed against the system that allowed such numbers: 825 kids were imposed on us. No. 1 by the Superior, No.2 by the authorities, by the Archbishop of Dublin, who wanted the kids sent to Artane, not Letterfrack or to Galway because they were too far from home ... 825 where the maximum was supposed to be 800 and you had kids on the floor and it was really cruel and unnatural and wrong.

This Brother also saw children who were isolated and lost within the system. He told the Investigation Committee: I suppose you never knew a kid, like, to talk to him. You would pick out a lonely child ... If he hadn’t a friend it would be tough. Really tough. You could see a kid that is lonesome, you would take him in the hand or something. He was the only boy from Gorey. He was the only boy from Wexford ...

The Investigation Committee heard the evidence of ‘the only boy from Gorey’. He had been sent to Artane for stealing a purse when he was ten and a half years old. He explained that his family were very poor and his sister had told him to take it. He was sent to the Industrial School for five and a half years in the 1950s. His mother had simply told him he was ‘going away for a few days’. He told the Investigation Committee about his early days in Artane: I think I was the only one from Gorey ... It was very difficult [to make friends] for a long time ... I was terrified ... there were so many boys ... I never saw the likes of it before in my life ... The first Brother that ever met me there was Br Bruce the day I went there. I don’t know what it was, from that day onwards we seemed to get on very well together. He was explaining the school to me that night and ever since that we were friends ... He was brilliant, yeah. Brilliant. Brilliant ... he was exceptionally good to me. For what reason I couldn’t tell you. But I liked him and he liked me ... I would be chopping sticks for him and he would bring [extra food] down under his habit.

Apart from this friendly Brother, he lived in ‘a constant state of fear’. Yet this friendship, so valued by the terrified young boy, was in itself problematic for the Christian Brothers.

As well as being an enormous institution, Artane was totally male dominated, and the Investigation Committee heard evidence from a number of Brothers who served in Artane about the lack of women in the Institution.

A Brother who served in Artane in the late 1960s described how the lack of females there at the time left a lot to be desired, ‘The gentle touch of a woman ... was missing’.

One Brother who served in Artane from the mid-1940s to mid-1950s recalled that Artane was a totally male dominated place. He particularly remembered a group of boys coming from a convent in Mount Merrion in the 1950s. He described how they arrived in Artane in brand new clothes and were dressed like dolls. He remarked, ‘we could see the female hand all over the place. They never met boys, they never met men. They were thrown into Artane’.

He also felt that the dormitory for the young children should have had a nurse working there full-time to care for the boys. It was not within the power of the younger Brothers to make suggestions such as the need for women in the place. Visitors could be spoken to about some deficiencies, but they were not ‘on the ground’ and could be a bit removed.

Another Brother, who also served in Artane throughout the 1950s, was asked whether the boys craved affection. He replied: yes, affection and because of the lack of women around to put it baldly. That was kind of a gesture that was made later on towards the end of the 1950s or the beginning of the 1960s to get them foster parents to get them more and more in touch with the outside world and that kind of thing and maybe to improve the feeding or the grub ... they were a few extra women brought in in the nursing set up ... but still it was Artane.