Chapter 13 — St. Patrick’s Kilkenny

Allegations of sexual abuse

There were no documented cases of children being sexually abused in St Patrick’s. The Community annals covering the period 1879 to 1966 contained no records of any incidents of that nature. Sister Úna O’Neill, in the Phase I public hearing, said the first time the issue of sexual abuse was mentioned was when: in the summer of 1999 a past resident called to St Patrick’s for a visit ... He was trying to trace a man whom he said had worked in the laundry in St Patrick’s while he himself was a resident. He alleged that the man had abused him sexually and the sister undertook to try and make inquiries which she did, but no-one in St Patrick’s remembers the man. That’s not to say he wasn’t there. Nobody remembered him.

Within a few months, the Sisters of Charity received a solicitor’s letter. She explained: We first became aware of allegations of abuse in St Patrick’s I suppose formally on 27th January 2000 when we received correspondence from a firm of solicitors regarding a past resident who had been in St Patrick’s and who was alleging abuse.

When the Sisters of Charity received these three complaints, they made a general review of the documents and files relating to St Patrick’s. Again, the results were the same: We found nothing in their files nor indeed in any of the documentation to substantiate the specific allegations that were made by the 11 men who are appearing before the Commission ... There is neither documentary evidence nor is there supplementary evidence from the sisters who would have lived there at the time.

One resident, who was in St Patrick’s from the mid-1940s to the early 1950s, made allegations of sexual assault against a farmhand. He told the Committee: His name was Bruce4 and he used to look after us at playtime, you know. He always carried a stick with him. There was one occasion where I had 25 on each hand, well several of us had that, we don’t know the reason for it. He use to take me down to the hay barn and strip me off and he would strip himself off and, you know, I had to do things to him and he tried to do things to me of a sexual nature ... it happened – six, seven and eight years old, during the summer months mostly ... I knew what he was doing. I didn’t feel right, if you know what I mean, but I didn’t know what it was all about. I knew I was doing something wrong.

When asked if the perpetrator was a teenager or an adult, he replied: A teenager I would say ... Small type of fellow, with ginger hair ... [It happened] at playtime. He would take me down to the hay barn. He would just “come along, come with me” and you knew something was going to happen and there was nothing you could do about it; you couldn’t go to anybody ... I wanted it to stop, but I didn’t know how to go around about it ... he was violent ... He worked on the farm and I think he used to look after the boiler house as well, He was an odd job man if you like ... He would take me up to the hay loft, make me take my clothes off and he take his off. He’d lie me on the hay and he’d started interfering to me and I had to do the same to him. He would lie on me and press up against me and all that type of thing.

In his statement, he said he had a clear impression the nuns had known what was going on. He explained: they brought a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and we had to go into the classroom. I can’t remember the nun’s name but she asked me about it, did he do anything to me, did he interfere with me. I had to look at the statue and I said no because I was frightened. All I know is that there was some of us standing outside and then we was called in. We went through one classroom and it was in the other classroom you had to go in ... I never seen him after that day.

The witness was very explicit about the abuser, the nature of the abuse, and the subsequent investigation. He said he did not know in advance why he was being brought into the classroom ‘until I got in there’. The statue of the Virgin Mary ‘wasn’t normally there, no, and I had to look at it’. He recalled the kinds of questions that the nun asked: I can remember asking about Bruce, did he ever do anything to me, and I must tell the truth and all this. I remember looking down and shaking my head and saying no.

‘I was too frightened’, he added. ‘Of Bruce, of getting beaten up and that again’.

From this witness’s account, it would appear that the abuse had been detected, and involved several boys, although until then the witness had believed ‘I was the only one’. When the investigation was taking place, he recalled, ‘I wasn’t the only one that went in, I think that quite a few of the young fellows went in’.

He could not, however, recall the name of the nun who questioned him He said, ‘I can’t remember, I have been trying to think of it. She was in charge of the classes’.

Another witness, who was in St Patrick’s from the late 1940s to the early 1950s, and who was under 10 years of age, also alleged he was abused while there. He told the Committee: there was a lay worker as they call ’em ... As far as I could see he was a handyman, he was working on all parts of the School. ... He was a kind of under handyman to a man called Mr. Fitzgerald5 and he used to give him his orders ... I only know his first name, Charles,6 I never knew his second name ... Well, he was always abusing boys, always. It was well known amongst the boys themselves. Mr Fitzgerald and him lived in an apartment, they both had a room each, he used to take us in there when there was nobody about and then let us out, you know, tell us to say nothing and let you out when no-one was looking. It was so frequent or so often that the boys, we used to be waiting for it to happen to see who was going to be picked next., that type of thing. You just happened to be nearest to the door or whatever, you know. Whatever opportunity he got you know it was going to happen, ’til one day Mr Fitzgerald caught him letting me out of the door, out of the bedroom. He came back to his bedroom for something and he actually took him out in the yard and he hit him two or three times in the face over it, and he had a black eye for weeks ... I heard Mr Fitzgerald saying, “don’t ever let me catch again, I told you about that” ... he caught him with my trousers down and telling me to pull them up, and pushing me towards the door ... Mr Fitzgerald knew exactly what he was doing and he gave him a good three or four smacks in the face ... It was the talk of the school for a week about what happened.

He was able to describe the man: At that time I would say he was about around thirtyish I suppose, thirtyish mark. I always remember his face, he was like a weather beaten fisherman, he had a wrinkly face. I could put him in his 30s, between 20 and 30, 25 and 30, something like that. Maybe more.

He did not report the abuse: there was no-one to tell because the people above you were too, you were frightened of them, you know. I mean you couldn’t treat them as a mother or a father, you just couldn’t run to them and say “someone done this to me” because you were all in the same boat. When nobody else is saying anything you don’t say anything.

Despite receiving a black eye, the man continued to make advances: We always thought, “has it stopped?” He tried it again several times. He tried it even after I left the School.

He said he was followed some time later, when he was in another industrial school, to his home town, and Charles had got him into a field, but he had hit Charles and escaped on his bicycle.