Chapter 8 — Letterfrack

Emotional abuse

Violence was a feature of life and was reflected in bullying. This ranged from schoolyard bullying to bullying at meal times and, at the extreme end of the spectrum, peer sexual abuse. One resident from the late 1960s described the bullying: ... you had to fight for survival because there was a lot of bullying and a lot of stuff going on. You had to be on your guard all the time because there was bigger kids and stronger kids, different kids and different types. Rough kids and bad kids; there was all different types. Yes, it was dog eat dog. It was survival, you had to do everything to survive, you know. You had to fight, scratch, you had to do everything for survival. There was no love or affection or caring from anyone, you know. And there was no one to talk to, you just had to form your own way of survival.

Another resident from the early 1960s told the Investigation Committee: when I got down to Letterfrack, needless to say, I was very very scared. Now I am not going to ... I am no angel, never have been, I was a scamp, if you like on the streets at the time, so my father always called it to me anyway, black sheep of the family, but I know in my heart and soul this is not about what I had done. It was the way I was treated in there and I was treated awful, I was starved, I was in rags. I felt I was bullied from the moment I went down until a couple of months, or a couple of weeks before I went out.

There was a lot of bullying over food. For many years the system of food allocation was that a number of boys would be seated at each table. Food would be delivered to the table, and the boys themselves would divide it up. This had the unfortunate consequence that younger, smaller or more inexperienced boys received less than other boys. One former resident from the early 1960s described his experiences in this regard as follows: Well, you will always get a bully like, even to this day and age you will always have a bully in school. You will always have one boy that would be that bit more dominant over certain young fellows. You’d get a certain thing on your plate, a hard boiled egg might be on your plate or vice versa, that was a luxury to get a hard boiled egg and he would just take it off you, something like that.

Two Brothers, Brs Dondre and Karel, who were present in the early 1970s, told the Investigation Committee that there was a lot of bullying by bigger boys on the younger boys during their time in Letterfrack.

The remoteness of the School, the high pupil-staff ratio, the failure of Managers and staff to care for the individual needs of the children, the high levels of discipline and punishment as well as the consequent atmosphere of fear meant that Letterfrack was for many children a very lonely place. Despite all the hustle and bustle, many boys lived in fear, both of staff and each other. This meant that they were reluctant to form close friendships out of fear of being seen as weak or giving another boy a hold over them. A recurring theme in the evidence was this lack of friendships. A number of individuals told how they carried this fear of forming personal attachments with them into adult life.

One former resident stated, ‘I have no male friends in the world, I am frightened of them – what do they want off me?’

As already stated, a number of Brothers were unhappy and isolated in Letterfrack. The burden of work fell on the shoulders of a few, and this had its own implications for how they treated the children. Some former residents described how some members of staff were kind to them at times but the mood could change in an instant. One former resident described this as follows: When they took the humour, they would show you, what do you call it, an act of kindness and you got kind of swallowed by this in some ways and you thought – you could get the off day like Telfour or Curtis would show you some act of kindness and next of all they just turn. There was a lot of Jeckyl and Hyde with them.

Another former resident made a similar point: Some of them they would like you one minute and you would be getting on, and the next minute, they would just bring you down. You put a curtain up in front of them.

Br Dondre described how younger boys could cling to him for protection. However, this natural yearning for love and attention was something that was taken advantage of by a number of sexual abusers. One such acknowledged abuser (Br Anatole) testified that he viewed his relationship with one of his victims as one of affection and closeness.

This Brother was not alone in using these tactics. One complainant who had been abused by Br Jean said that this Brother took advantage of his need for love and attention in order to buy his silence: He was kind to me in that way, but it was sweets and a toy at the time I thought was kind to me but he must have been just softening me up for his own benefits. As I get older, I was innocent and I didn’t know if everybody had toys or not. Some of the boys I suppose had more toys.

Another former resident told a similar story. He described how Br Curtis was nice to him and how he welcomed the attention. However, Br Curtis went on to sexually abuse him: But Br Curtis, on many occasions, I didn’t know at the beginning – and I welcomed a little bit of attention, because as I sort of outlined, you know, I had been taken away from home, and Br Curtis, I didn’t realise that it was wrong, what he was doing.

The boys lived in a hostile environment isolated from their families, and often faced bullying and sexual abuse by their peers. The Brothers, far from offering protection, added to the fear by being punitive figures who were remote and unapproachable. One Brother described little boys following him in the playground, because proximity to him provided the sole deterrent to bullies. Brothers had to be both teachers and warders. Most Brothers had little respect for boys in their care, which was particularly evident in the way punishments were administered, and also in some of the more cruel punishments that were calculated to cause humiliation as well as pain. The Congregation did not accept that there was an ‘atmosphere of fear’ within Letterfrack during the relevant period. It has, however, accepted that there were physical and sexual abusers present in the School for significant periods of the years under review. In addition, a number of individual respondent witnesses have accepted that they administered discipline in an excessive and capricious manner. It is impossible to deny the impact that cruel punishments would have had on bystanders. Into this mix may be put the prevalence of bullying and peer sexual abuse in the Institution. It is difficult to see how any conclusion could be reached other than that there was a climate of fear in the school. The School was run on the harshest of lines because it was deemed appropriate for the kind of children sent there, yet the Congregation concede that Letterfrack was particularly harsh in the 1940s when the children were mostly orphans, abandoned or neglected.

General conclusions

General conclusions Physical abuse 1. There was a climate of fear in Letterfrack. Corporal punishment was severe, excessive and pervasive. Violence was used to express power and status and was practically a means of communication between Brothers and boys and among the boys themselves. Punishment was inescapable and frequently capricious, unfair and inconsistent. Rules on corporal punishment were disregarded at all levels. 2. The Congregation did not carry out proper investigations of cases of physical abuse. It did not impose sanctions on Brothers who were guilty of brutal assaults. 3. Protection of the boys was not a priority for the Congregation in dealing with excessive and unlawful punishment, and the Department of Education abrogated responsibility by leaving supervision and control of this area entirely to local management. Sexual abuse 4. A timeline of documented and admitted cases of sexual abuse shows that for approximately two-thirds of the period 1936-1974 there was at least one Brother in Letterfrack who sexually abused boys at some time and for almost one-third of the period there were at least two such Brothers there. One Brother worked for 14 years before being detected. Another who served for a separate period of similar length went undetected for many years after the school closed. It is impossible to calculate the true extent of sexual abuse in the institution but it is clear that more abuse happened than is recorded. 5. The Congregation did not properly investigate allegations of sexual abuse. Brothers who sexually abused boys and who were known to be a continuing danger were still permitted to work with children. 6. The manner in which Brothers who sexually abused were dealt with is indicative of a policy of protecting them, the Community and the Congregation, from the effects of disclosure of abuse. The needs of the victims were not considered. Emotional/Neglect 7. The boys were unprotected in a hostile environment isolated from their families. 8. Remoteness was an acknowledged affliction that caused or exacerbated almost every difficulty that Letterfrack encountered from its inception. 9. Children left Letterfrack with little education and no adequate training. 10. Boys in Letterfrack needed extra tuition to bring them up to standard, but instead they got poor teachers and bad conditions. 11. The 1954 decision to restrict intake to children convicted of offences, taken in the face of opposition by both the Department of Education and District Justice McCarthy, was detrimental to the welfare of the boys in Letterfrack and was implemented in a way that was wholly inconsistent with the thinking behind it.