Chapter 13 — St. Patrick’s Kilkenny

Allegations of physical abuse

A witness who was in St Patrick’s during the 1960s recalled the punishment for bed-wetting: My memories are very limited. One of the most profound memories in my mind was being made to stand against a wall for hours and hours on end ... In the end I would end up banging my head off the wall.

He said that this standing against the wall occurred mainly during the night in the dormitory: Mostly at night-time. I remember it used to go on until it became dawn outside ... I think it was a standard form of punishment, if you like.

There would sometimes be other boys with him, and it would be a form of punishment for doing things like wetting the bed. It happened about twice a week and it was also accompanied by physical punishment: I remember a cane used to be brought down on the palm of the hand ... I remember the sound of the cane as it hit the apron as a warning sort of thing and then you got it.

When asked whether he had any happy memories of Kilkenny he said: None at all. I have no other memories of Kilkenny whatsoever.

A witness, who was in St Patrick’s in the 1960s for five years, recalled two lay teachers who inflicted severe punishment: Ms Adams,2 she was a very big woman. One could imagine a child of seven years of age or around that age group, this woman, we wore short trousers in the School at the time, she would open the collar of the shirt, you could have been caught talking in Mass or they would see fit at the time themselves that you would be misbehaving, she would be able to catch you by the collar of the shirt like that (indicating), with the strength of her upper hands she would be able to lift you up that way, upside down. Ms Spencer3 would give you a good beating with a leg of a chair or lump of a stick, whichever she would have at the time. That could happen maybe two or three times a week depending on what way they felt ... It wasn’t an isolated, no.

He explained: Ms Adams would have held you up and Ms Spencer would have done the beating ... She held you up by the back of the collar of the shirt and trousers being short trousers, she was able to catch the two legs of the trousers and she would hold you horizontally ... Ms Spencer would beat you on the legs and on the bottom with a stick ... A leg of a chair.

This witness attended school at a local De la Salle National School. He said that three Brothers took the view that the boys from the convent needed toughening up: They always had the tendency, there was myself and another chap there, you were from the convent, you were maybe soft as in too well looked after and plenty of good beatings with the cane wouldn’t go astray on you. It would harden you up and toughen you up for the outside world when you went away from the nuns.

Another ex-resident, who was in St Patrick’s in the 1950s, recalled a particular beating of a boy, during which four other boys were required to hold him down: It wasn’t me that was held down. It was one of the boys that was asked to accompany the boy that had supposedly done something wrong to hold him down. One had to hold each hand and the others had to hold a leg each and the nun spanked the boy on that table like that.

He did not know what had merited the beating: No, we were playing. And the nun just picked at random, picked four boys to come in with this particular other boy.

He only recalled this happening on this one occasion, but he was unhappy about it: I didn’t like the idea at all. But to say no was – that was not a possibility either, you couldn’t say no.

When asked whether the nun had struck him with her hand, he replied: There was an instrument used, yes ... I can’t remember. I believe it could have been a stick, there always seemed to be one item used.

In the classroom the stick was used: Yes, we used to get slapped on the hand ... Three or four maybe, I can’t be sure.

This complainant also recalled another incident of punishment: That happened before lights out in the dormitory. A cat or a kitten came in and was running around the dormitory, started climbing up on the curtains and that, three or four of us just hopped out of bed to chase the cat and we were caught doing that by the nun. I believe it was three or four of us, I can’t remember for sure. But we were ordered down into a room with a tiled floor on it and we were asked to strip off and lie on the floor. She said she would come back later on and not to move, don’t dare move. When she did come back later, I could not tell you how long it was, she gave us each a few slaps on the backside as we were lying on the floor, told us to get dressed. On the way up to the dormitory, we met the head nun and she asked the other nun what were we doing. I remember the nun clearly stating that we were knitting mats. I couldn’t believe that a nun would tell a lie to another nun. He explained that the boys often knitted mats in the School.

He remembered other children being taken out of the dormitory to be punished, but he did not know what punishment they received: ‘No, you very seldom spoke about things’.

In the course of her Opening Statement, Sr Úna O’Neill, the Superior General of the Congregation of the Religious Sisters of Charity gave general information about St Patrick’s. This included the Congregation’s view as to how the Institution operated and what life was like there.