- Volume 1
- Volume 2
-
Volume 3
- Introduction
- Methodology
- Social and demographic profile of witnesses
- Circumstances of admission
- Family contact
- Everyday life experiences (male witnesses)
- Record of abuse (male witnesses)
- Everyday life experiences (female witnesses)
- Record of abuse (female witnesses)
- Positive memories and experiences
- Current circumstances
- Introduction to Part 2
- Special needs schools and residential services
- Children’s Homes
- Foster care
- Hospitals
- Primary and second-level schools
- Residential Laundries, Novitiates, Hostels and other settings
- Concluding comments
- Volume 4
Chapter 9 — Tralee
BackPhysical abuse
On another occasion, this witness stated that he and two other boys went to the cinema without permission. He busked for the money. When they returned, a Brother lined up all the boys in the yard and asked the three of them where they got the money for the cinema. One said the complainant had sung for it. Then the Brother said that there would be no film for the school that Sunday as a result. For the rest of the weekend, he and the other boys with whom he went into town were beaten quite badly by the other pupils. The Brothers watched the beatings.
He went on to say that this Brother was a ‘very dominant person’ and a ‘very large man’. A lot of his experiences with him ‘were never very good; very, very brutal’.
Br Bevis and Br Cheney were described in a Visitation Report as zealous, devoted to their work and quite happy at it, and they and other Brothers were ‘excellent men’ carrying ‘the lion’s share of the supervision of the boys’ and only ever having the welfare of the boys as their interest. Br Bevis was described as ‘an ideal Brother for Industrial School work’ and another Visitation Report noted that an inspector to the school had commended Br Bevis for his work.
It was usual for Brothers to carry straps at all times. According to one witness, one Brother used a strap that had been stiffened with coins. He said that he saw a Brother flogging a boy with a belt, and suddenly coins came flying out of the belt when the stitching on the belt had come undone. He said that he knew that it was a ‘continued practice’ of putting coins in the leather strap, because another boy who worked in the shoe shop said that it was his job to put the coins into the belts.
Another witness recalled how he was in the cobbler’s shop one day and somebody who worked there pointed out Br Cheney’s leather strap to him. He told the Committee, ‘The whole front of it was all loaded down with washers. That was Br Cheney’s leather strap. We used to wonder why it was so hard’.
He said that Br Cheney used the strap on him once only, but he would use it on other boys ‘quite frequently’ on the hands.
The leather could be used at any time of the day or in any place. It was used first thing in the morning, during classes, during recreation, during meal times, and in the dormitory at night. Brothers carried the strap around with them at all times and therefore could use it instantly without accountability and without a cooling off period. This led to frequent excessive punishments and to the boys having a pervasive expectation of receiving punishment.
The regulations and guidelines issued by the Department of Education and the Christian Brothers for the protection of boys in the care of these institutions were not followed. Punishment was not just inflicted on the hands, but was inflicted all over the body, including the bare bottom and even the feet.
For boys who ran away the punishment was more severe, A documented incident occurred in 1943 when several boys were punished for absconding by having their food rationed for a week in addition to being given six or nine strokes depending on their age.
There were no sanctions for Brothers who perpetrated excessive punishments.
As with all other Christian Brothers’ institutions, Tralee had no punishment book, notwithstanding an instruction from the Visitor in 1937 to procure one.
Although none of the respondents spoke of a climate of fear in Tralee, Professor Tom Dunne, a former Brother, referred in an article he wrote to such an atmosphere: It was a secret, enclosed world, run on fear; the boys were wholly at the mercy of the staff, who seemed to have entirely negative views of them.20
A number of former residents who gave evidence spoke of the fear they lived under while in the School, which was caused by some individual Brothers and the atmosphere of the School in general.
One witness, resident in the school in the 1940s, spoke particularly about the climate of fear in the school. He said: No, it was a constant fear of them really. It was a constant fear. There was no “how do you do, well met” kind of thing. There was no “how do you do, how are you this morning?” whatever, there was never a kind word.
Another witness said that the environment was one ‘of constant fear and that fear overrode everything else for me’. He said that it was a ‘frightening’ place and that he was ‘terrified of the place’. This witness was in the school from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s and had spent all of his earlier life in other institutions.
Footnotes
- Dr Anna McCabe was the Department of Education Inspector for most of the relevant period. See Department of Education chapter, Vol. IV.
- The Visitation Report for February 1960 records the total number in the primary school as being 119 and the Visitation Report for May 1961 gave the total number of boys in Tralee as 130, with 107 boys on the roll in the primary school.
- The 1969 Visitation Report refers to 35 boys being still in the School, and the Opening Statement says that by 30th June 1970, the School had closed.
- Prior to leaving, the Visitor gave the Resident Manager directions as to certain matters that should be attended to without delay including cleaning the entrance path and flowerbeds, employing a woman to take over the care of the laundry, teaching the boys table manners and providing them with washing facilities before dinner and tea time. These were reiterated in a follow-up letter to the Resident Manager, without the reference to the paths and flowerbeds.
- This is a pseudonym.
- He said that he thought it was probably another Brother (Br Cheney, the Principal at that time) who made the decision that he was to be kept away from the dormitories but he ‘would totally agree with that’.
- ‘Strong hand’ in Irish.
- The two Brothers referred to were Br Mahieu and Br Cheney.
- The letters to Br Sebastien, Br Millard and Br Beaufort mentioned below.
- He had also worked in Carriglea in the early 1930s.
- This is a pseudonym.
- The school annals note that the Brother resigned from the post due to ill-health.
- One of the others was Br Rayce. The complainant did not know who the third one was.
- Br Aribert accepted that this was a fair summary of Br Lafayette.
- Brs Archard and Kalle.
- This is a pseudonym.
- ‘Senility’ was subsequently changed to ‘septicaemia’.
- This is a pseudonym.
- He confirmed also that it was not the general rule that you would be punished if you failed in your homework or schoolwork at class.
- Professor Tom Dunne, ‘Seven Years in the Brothers’ Dublin Review (Spring 2002).
- This is a pseudonym.
- This Brother worked in Tralee from the mid-1960s to 1970.
- There were three Resident Managers during Br Lisle’s time in Tralee: Brs Sinclair, Millard and Roy.
- Br Sinclair was Resident Manager for a period of six years in the 1960s.
- Question Time was a radio programme
- The annals refer to ‘this tax’ ceasing to be paid when Br Dareau came as Resident Manager.
- This is borne out by the Department Inspector’s Reports, which until 1950 categorised the food and diet as ‘satisfactory’. The 1953 Report said that food and diet was ‘much improved’ and, from then on, was always described by this inspector as very good.
- A later Visitation Report noted that there was no evidence of the pilfering of food that had taken place before this Brother arrived in Tralee.
- The 1940s Visitation Reports only commented on the standard of the boys’ clothing in 1940, 1941 and 1943, and then only in positive terms.
- ‘The School has improved out of all recognition’ and ‘excellent manager’.
- This complainant was in Tralee from the mid-1950s to the early 1960s.
- One complainant told the Committee about how the boys had to creosote the floor in hot weather, and without any gloves or goggles. ‘It was a very nasty job because it would get into your eyes and all over your hands and everywhere else’.
- There was a profit of £98 mentioned in the 1937 Visitation Report, and a profit of approximately £395 mentioned in the 1953 Visitation Report.
- According to the Opening Statement, the main recreational facilities were the hall, schoolyard, football playing pitch and the band room. When the primary school closed, the classrooms were converted into sitting rooms, with TV etc.
- The 1949 annals referred to Mr Sugrue, the Department’s Inspector, having made his first visit to the School and having spoken freely to staff and boys.
- This Brother to whom the shotgun was taken was the Brother who had the long history of physically abusing boys and spent two separate periods in Tralee.
- He also said this of Br Toussnint and of a lay teacher.
- St Helen’s was in Booterstown.
- 67 in 1945, 70 in 1946, 90 in 1947, 90 in 1949, and 45 in 1952. In 1960, the annals note that families were willing to take boys for three to four weeks, but there was no evidence of this actually happening that year. 68 boys went on home leave in 1968.