Chapter 14 — St. Joseph’s Kilkenny

Positive witnesses

She went to school in St Joseph’s until the age of 11, and then on to the Presentation Convent in Kilkenny, which was a 20-minute walk away. Two or three girls walked to and from school together each day. They returned home for lunch. She had no problems in school and made a lot of friends, especially through sports. She did not recall any difficulty integrating with the girls in the Presentation Convent. She was encouraged by the Sisters to stay on and further her education, and she believed herself and two other pupils were the first girls to do their Leaving Certificate from St Joseph’s. She passed it and went on to Secretarial College and subsequently had a successful career.

She made good friends within St Joseph’s and was still in contact with many of them. They were scattered widely around the world, in London, Germany, Italy and the United States.

During the summer months, there were outings to the seaside. In August each year, St Joseph’s closed and all the girls went out to families. She went to a family in Sandymount, Dublin, which she found a very positive experience.

She described Sr Astrid as a very gentle person who did not slap the children. She hardly ever raised her voice to anyone. She was very good to them. The main means of discipline was to remove privileges, such as the film night or the weekly pocket money.

That was the situation in the blue set. From what she has heard, the experience in other sets was a little different: control was achieved more by voices raised in temper, and the atmosphere may have been different, as some of the nuns and staff were more strict. She has not heard any complaints about physical punishment, but she knew that bed-wetters probably had to wash their own sheets.

She did not remember any children in her set ever being put in a cubby hole as a punishment. She did recall that there was a cubby hole which held sweeping brushes and the like. She had heard of the threat of being put in a cubby hole in the other sets, but not in her set. She did not know what went on in other sets.

Overall, she found the experience in St Joseph’s a good one, but she did find life a bit restricted. This may have been for security reasons, but everything, even hours of play, was regimented to a certain time.

She has kept contact with Sr Astrid over the years. When she left St Josephs, she stayed in a house in Dublin which was solely used for the purpose of looking after the girls when they arrived in Dublin. She has attended reunions in Kilkenny every two years for the past 14 or 15 years.

The second positive witness had been in care from the age of four, and was 12 years old when she arrived at St Joseph’s in the mid-1960s. From the start, she thought it was really good and settled in easily. She was placed in the red set with her sister, who was two years older. Mrs Dunphy17 was in charge and personally she found her nice, but thought she could be strict, and some younger children may have found her a bit cross. Discipline was enforced by stopping pocket money or not allowing children to view the film.

She remained in the red set until she was transferred to the green set two years before she left St Joseph’s. She did not ask for the transfer, but was pleased with the move and thought there was a very good atmosphere in the green set. Sr Tilda18 was in charge and she was kind to all the children. She was older by then and was allowed a lot more freedom. The girls were friendly and she was very involved in sports. She won All-Ireland camogie medals. She believed that every opportunity was given to her to develop in St Joseph’s, and she felt she did a lot better than many children from ordinary homes. During summer holidays, she went to a befriending family who were extremely kind to her. She did her Leaving Certificate and said that anyone inclined to do so was encouraged to study and do well. Subsequently, she did a commercial course in Dublin in a private college and eventually got a good job. She thought the driving force for all of this was Sr Astrid.

She believed that St Joseph’s, Kilkenny would have been a role model as a school, had it remained single sex. The introduction of boys was not good for the School. One of the things she missed about the School was not being part of a family and not being shown affection. She found things were sometimes a bit rigid, but felt this was mainly because there were a large number of children to cater for.

Sr Astrid was asked whether she agreed with the suggestion that those who were in the ‘blue set’, which was under her immediate control, fared much better than the children in the other sets. Sr Astrid insisted that she did not treat any of the children differently. The groups were very separate. She did not accept that the blue set got things that the others did not. She said that the Superior gave all the groups the same things, but thought that perhaps sometimes someone from her own family might come and give her group extra sweets and things like that. She agreed that Traveller children could be called names by the others, as they had a lot of children round the place and name-calling was inevitable.

The group care system could not replace a loving family, but it did offer a more child-centred environment where children were encouraged both socially and educationally. Attending the external school worked well for the children, and there is evidence at this time of good integration between the children from St Joseph’s and the local community.

The Group Homes

The system of grouping children into smaller units appeared to work reasonably well throughout the 1950s and into the 1960s. In 1966, however, a decision was taken to close St Patrick’s, Kilkenny as an industrial school. It had catered for boys up to the age of eight and had been run by the Sisters of Charity. Many of the residents of St Joseph’s had brothers in St Patrick’s and, indeed, this was one of the reasons the Department of Education gave for recommending the transfer of the boys to St Joseph’s. Accordingly, 28 boys were transferred, to be retained until eight years of age.

The sudden increase in numbers, and the integration of boys into the School, caused problems for the management.