Chapter 8 — Letterfrack

Physical abuse

He described its operation as follows: Well, the dormitory leader was the man who dictated what was to be happening. I was not a dormitory leader I was an assistant to Br Dondre so a decision to run around the yard was never mine; but if it was done I might be called upon to stand in the corner of the yard and be there to give moral support to the other Brother who was in charge – the Brother stood in the centre of the circle rather like a ring master and the running was done in silence. It was supposed to calm everybody down, I think it did have that effect actually on recollection, there was a sort of a silent running. When it was over the boys usually went off upstairs to bed, it was done late in the evening time.

As a punishment, however, he stated that he regarded it as pointless and ineffective, ‘It was devoid of human dignity, it was humiliating, it was pointless and probably completely ineffective’.

Another way of punishing was for a boy to be seated in a chair near a football game and to be treated as if he did not exist: I don’t think the intention was to kick footballs directly at the boy it was more or less an act of isolation to humiliate him, it was a form of punishment other than corporal punishment. If somebody did kick a football at him, and that would happen, the ball would bounce off his head or off his chest or something, there would be a big cheer or a bit of a laugh. That again was part of the humiliation of the experience.

Another punishment was peculiar to the refectory. It involved making the offender kneel in silence during meal times. He would not receive any dinner: ... if they were kneeling on the floor the withdrawal of food would be part of the punishment as well. We learned these things from seeing them done, they were handed down like a code of practice so to speak, which was never questioned or supervised in any way by anybody else.

Br Anatole said that corporal punishment would be administered for a myriad of offences: If you were walking behind somebody and they were talking you could take out your leather strap and sort of give them a swipe on the back of the legs or a smack on the backside.

He would also hit them for failure at lessons: For example, you asked me for an example, maybe in the classroom I was under pressure to get my Department of Education accreditation so I would be short-tempered at times with pupils who didn’t spell words correctly or something. The traditional way at that time was you would give somebody a smack to make sure so they learned it properly.. There was a very crude connection between if you hit somebody they would learn better that way, that was the basic thinking at the time. That was the way I was taught at primary school and I repeated that myself later on as an adult in the Christian Brothers.

He also beat boys who attempted to jump out of the showers to avoid the sudden changes in temperature, which could go from scalding hot to freezing cold in a matter of seconds. He thought that beating boys for a natural reaction to extremes of temperature seemed particularly cruel.

He spoke of collective punishment and recalled one incident where a boy stole a Communion wafer. Nobody owned up and the whole School was punished. Collective punishment could take many forms, such as the deprivation of food or being made to run around the yard.

Yet another occasional punishment was using the fire hose to direct cold water on to boys who had run away.

The knowledge that there was no parental presence made him feel he had carte blanche to punish to a greater extent than he would have done in a national school with active parental involvement. Being able to beat the boys gave him a sense of power. He said, ‘The opportunity for use of corporal punishment was much greater in Letterfrack than it would be in the national school’.

He apologised for his use of corporal punishment in the School: My first duty before the Commission is to put an unreserved apology in the record for anyone who was hurt by me in any way. That was regrettably the state of the art at the time in the 60s that these pupils had to be punished, they had to be made to pay for the damage they did in society, reformed and sent back out as productive citizens.

The Christian Brothers disputed Br Anatole’s recollections of Letterfrack. They submitted that written statements made by him following his arrest were inconsistent and contradictory when compared with a document he produced while he was still working in the Institution. They also contended that these statements were self-serving and coloured by his desire to present himself to the court in a sympathetic light in seeking to avoid imprisonment. It suited his purpose, therefore, to portray Letterfrack in the most hostile light. For his part, Br Anatole said that he was not understating his case in his Garda statements. He described how he co-operated with the Gardaí in the investigation and that he was encouraged to write a full account of everything that he thought might be relevant by way of mitigation. He had been through two years of therapy, and a lot of memories had surfaced in the therapeutic situation, which the therapist had encouraged him to keep in journal form.

Although the Congregation were able to demonstrate inconsistencies between written statements and testimony given by this witness at different times spanning many years, his evidence was generally credible and reliable about life in Letterfrack, and witnesses provided independent confirmation.

Br Iven worked as a teacher in Letterfrack during the late 1960s and early 1970s. He found Letterfrack to be a lonely place with stressful work and little free time. He told the Committee that he carried a strap, as all Brothers did, but did not remember ever getting any training in its use. Punishment was a matter for his discretion and he punished as the need arose and never felt the need to refer matters up the chain of command. He accepted that the use of the strap was unacceptable by today’s standards, but he did not think that it was excessive by the standards of the day. Br Iven, however, qualified this view when he went on to say that Letterfrack was not a normal school and its residents were not normal schoolchildren, implying that normal standards did not apply to them and some excesses were justified.

He was asked whether he had any personal regrets about punishments he meted out to the boys: I have regrets in many ways. I have regrets, first of all that I was sent there inadequately trained for the job. Secondly, I didn’t know how to handle the situation I was put in. Thirdly, I suppose that with corporal punishment, punishment by the strap – yes, I think with better training, with better facilities, better staffing, we would not have had the need to use as much discipline and corporal as we did. I do have regrets yes.