Chapter 8 — Letterfrack

Physical abuse

Br Percival spent a total of six years in Letterfrack. Having completed his teacher training he returned to Letterfrack for a year before being transferred to a day school in Dublin. He applied for and was granted secularisation in the late 1950s.

The Congregation did not address the allegations against this Brother in its Closing Submissions.

Br Percival was an unstable man who should not have been teaching or caring for children, particularly in a residential school like Letterfrack where his propensity for violence could extend beyond the classroom and where the children had no parental protection. Br Percival’s irrational and unpredictable behaviour generated fear and insecurity in the boys, who found it impossible to avoid punishment. Br Percival’s violence was known to the authorities in Letterfrack, and the fact that he was allowed to remain for so long is evidence that preventing this kind of abuse of power and trust was not a priority. The Congregation’s attempt to defend Br Percival by reference to a favourable Visitation Report was not balanced, as it should have been, by making reference to the other, unfavourable Report.

Noah Kitterick was a resident of Letterfrack from 1924 to 1932, which is outside the relevant period of this investigation. The reason why his story appears here is because of the response of the Congregation to his private and public complaints about Letterfrack. These began with two letters to the Superior of Letterfrack in 1953, and concluded with a visit to the Superior General in 1957. Mr Kitterick died tragically when he set fire to himself in London in 1967.

Mr Kitterick wrote two letters in 1953 to the Superior of Letterfrack, in which he complained about three named Brothers in Letterfrack. He claimed that they were tyrannical and sadistic: Bros Piperel,17 Corvax18 and Perryn ... these men were a disgrace to the Christian Brothers. Piperel and Corvax were tyrants. Br Perryn who was in the cook-house and refectory took great pleasure in beating boys for no reason, he was a sadist, for beating us he used a piece of rubber motor tyre. Almost daily we were flogged by one or other of these Bros. Dozens of times I left the dining room with my hands bleeding ... On several occasions after a meal, I was taken to the pantry ... by Br Perryn. He would lock the door and make me undress he would then sit on a stool and would put me across his knee and then flog me savagely he would then pinch me until I was unconscious.

Mr Kitterick followed up this letter with another, two days later, in which he said that he wished to see Letterfrack closed until improvements could be made there and the perpetrators of abuse brought to justice.

His letters were not replied to.

The Brothers he identified were all members of the Community in Letterfrack during his time there, although the presence of one Brother, Br Corvax, was only verified by the Congregation in 2007. Mr Kitterick made a spelling mistake in one of the names but that did not prevent easy identification of the person.

The Christian Brothers knew that the principal culprit named by Mr Kitterick, Br Perryn, had a history of serious physical and sexual abuse of boys, as recorded in the Congregation’s documents.

The third Brother, Br Piperel had, to the Congregation’s knowledge as recorded in their documents, a history of sexually improper and suggestive behaviour which had necessitated his urgent removal from a day school. Notwithstanding this information, the Congregation maintained complete silence in the face of Mr Kitterick’s letters.

Mr Kitterick met with the Provincial of the Congregation in 1957. In a letter to the Congregation’s solicitors, the Provincial said that he thought Mr Kitterick was on a ‘blackmail ticket’: This evening I had a “gentleman” named Kitterick ex-British army to see me. He said he was an ex-pupil of our industrial school in Letterfrack and that the doctors had said that all his troubles were due to the hardship he got whilst in Letterfrack. I took it that he was working on the blackmail ticket and after listening to him for some time I gave him your name and address as our solicitor. I know you will know how to deal with him if he approaches.

Mr Kitterick continued his campaign: During the last ten years I have reported about conditions in Letterfrack, which I have no reason to think have changed very much, to the Archbishop of Dublin, Dr McQuaid, and Dr Browne Bishop of Galway, as well as President de Valera, and to the Superiors of many industrial schools. I have yet to receive a reply.19

In the public hearing on Letterfrack, Br Gibson explained the silence of the Congregation on this issue: I think it was a totally inadequate response. We have been dealing with allegations of abuse over the last 10 years and certainly one of the things we would always do is listen to the person who has the complaint and pay great attention to it. We would assure them that we would investigate it and we would look to see is there any veracity in it. I think there was certainly in the past, and say 10 years ago when the issue of child abuse came to the fore, there was general disbelief that this could happen. I think generally people were saying this couldn’t happen in the Brothers and I think there was general horror, disbelief, denial. I think with time we have discovered that it has happened in the past. Certainly the Leadership of the time, it was probably one or two cases that they were dealing with and probably saw it, particularly when he was mentioning a Brother who wasn’t in Letterfrack amongst those three, they were probably holding on to that idea it’s not all true, therefore, can’t any of it be true. I think that was unfortunate.

The explanation that allegations of child abuse would have been met with ‘general horror, disbelief, denial’, even in 1957, is difficult to sustain in view of the number of cases of sexual and physical mistreatment of boys that the Congregation had dealt with. Brothers had been dismissed, moved or been given Canonical Warnings for such activities. All of the industrial schools run by the Congregation had experienced abuse, and so it was not correct to claim ignorance of this problem.

When the first complaint was received from Mr Kitterick in 1953, even the most cursory investigation of the files would have disclosed that Br Perryn had been reprimanded for his severity in 1917 and, in 1941, just 12 years previously, had been removed for physical and sexual abuse after the Visitor to Letterfrack received complaints from the boys there: ‘They are so shockingly obscene, revolting and abominable that it is hard to believe them’.