Chapter 7 — Artane

Emotional abuse and neglect

They went on to concede that at times there were shortcomings, such as the condition of the classrooms and toilets that were criticised in the Visitation Reports, but added, ‘these shortcomings were addressed after the criticism’.

Emotional abuse

Extracts from the 1926 Annual Report of the Department of Education, and the Cussen Report in 1936, highlight that there was an awareness of the emotional needs of the child. They warned that a regime based on ‘a hard and fast uniformity’, in which the child loses his sense of individuality through just being one among hundreds of other children, caused permanent damage to the child. The Congregation, on the other hand, claimed that it was not until the early 1960s that the emotional needs of children began to feature in the thinking behind childcare.

The Congregation also contended that the emotional needs of children were not a consideration at the time, either by the Congregation or by the Department of Education. In support of this contention, the Congregation stated that, when the Department carried out a full and thorough inspection in December 1962, it ‘focussed almost entirely on the physical conditions in which the boys lived and on their education’.

Some individual Brothers who gave evidence to the Investigation Committee displayed a greater awareness of the boys’ emotional needs than the Congregation. The Brother who was quoted by the Congregation in their Submission, and who had served a number of years in Artane and had held a senior position in the Institution, told the Investigation Committee: As a result of what I experienced in Letterfrack80 I came to the conclusion that a lot of these children were disturbed and a lot of these children hadn’t had their basic needs for love, affection ... fulfilled ... As regards the Industrial School Branch [of the Department of Education], it is my opinion that when Artane closed in 1969 we were still working out of a physical care philosophy. All the improvements that were done in Artane; central heating was brought in; we got new classrooms; we got new improvements to the cinema; we had the Godparent associations and so on; all these improvements, while they were very welcome ... they were still coming out of that physical care philosophy. I went into Artane as a teacher and I think I can honestly say I left it as a teacher.

It was only later, after Artane closed, that he supplemented his training as a teacher by attending, under his own initiative, a childcare course. At one point in his testimony he said: as I looked back over the years at my time in Artane I became aware that there were times when I punished boys ... and might have done better ... I looked back at Artane and saw what the system was like ... the more knowledge I acquired the more critical I became I suppose of how I saw Artane and what I did.

Some of the other Brothers showed a similar awareness of the emotional needs of the children in their care, and lamented that the system did not address them. One Brother, who was in Artane from the late 1940s to the early 1950s, told the Investigation Committee: I would say I was lacking in appreciation of ... the circumstances in which these chaps found themselves, away from home and that kind of thing ... I wouldn’t know who was legitimate or illegitimate or anything of that nature and I tried to treat everyone the same and of course you cannot do that. In that sense I would regret that.

Another Brother, who was in Artane in the 1960s, told the Investigation Committee of an occasion when the degree of deprivation of some of his pupils was brought home to him in a disquieting way. He recounted the following incident: ... I remember teaching a lesson, it was English reading and it was about a family, and I discovered a boy in the class who didn’t understand what the word “mother” meant. “Brother” or “sister”, it meant nothing to him. I was taken aback by that.

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.