Chapter 13 — St. Patrick’s Kilkenny

Allegations of physical abuse

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.

She was asked about corporal punishment in the School: Well, slapping was obviously a form of punishment that was used to discipline the children. As far as we can gather it was normally done with the palm of the hand and a cane or ruler was sometimes used.

She had been unable to establish what other forms of punishment were used, such as placing the children in isolation, but found no evidence of this. In the later years of the Institution, there was a shop and the children could be deprived of pocket money.

Bed-wetting was a problem: Indeed, yes, it was a problem. We are quite clear I think as to what happened. We were told that in the earlier days that any older child who wet his bed had to bring down the wet sheets to the laundry in the morning. He might be left standing beside his bed for five to ten minutes when it was discovered that the bed was wet ... Then in the play hall when they lined up to go to school they would have been called out and they would have been slapped for wetting the bed.

Children who continuously wet the bed were woken up twice at night and were given limited fluids after tea.

According to Sr Úna, the slapping would have stopped in the late 1950s and 1960s and, after that time, the staff brought down the wet sheets.

On the general regime she said: While we know the general organisation and routine of the school it is possible that events occurred of which the sisters and the staff were not aware, although there is no evidence of this in the documentation. I think I said earlier that no matter how much you tried to care for your child or your children even in a family you cannot preclude the possibility of bullying or exploitation or whatever, as we know, tragically. The children were closely supervised but this may not have precluded isolated incidents of rough play, bullying, etc. The harshness of punishment would probably have varied depending on the personality of the staff and the sisters. I’m sure that some of the punishment must have been experienced by the children as harsh and humiliating and unmerited. Undoubtedly each child and each Sister and each member of staff has their own interpretation of what life was like in St Patrick’s institution.

In their final submission after the Phase III hearings, the Sisters stated: The Committee heard evidence from nine former residents of St Patrick’s Industrial School. This school closed in 1966 and the Sisters of Charity were unable to respond to the evidence because, given the passage of time, there was no-one left who could evaluate or respond to these allegations by means of firsthand evidence or even by hearsay. It is undoubtedly the case that physical punishment took place in St Patrick’s but the Sisters of Charity are not in a position to comment on their own behalf as to what occurred. They are prejudiced in that regard due to the delay in these allegations coming to the fore.

The Sisters of Charity accept that some excessive punishments were inevitable over the years, but no record of them exists. There was no punishment book in St Patrick’s and no record was kept of any punishment, so no contemporary documentation is available. It is impossible, therefore, to judge the extent to which individual memories of St Patrick’s were typical of the Institution as a whole.