Chapter 14 — St. Joseph’s Kilkenny

Sexual abuse incident of 1954

All the girls were part of one group, although they did interact with younger children in other groups at recreation. Dr McCabe observed: The “good girls” are very alert and it is really through them that the nuns got to know about the behaviour in the grass. Now there is a kind of reign of terror there and if anyone of these girls (mentioned above) approaches a child she “runs a mile and screams”.

Following a meeting with the Chief Inspector of the Department, it was decided to transfer nine girls to Kilmacud, and the transfer was authorised on 28th June 1955.

In her General Inspection Report dated 22nd to 23rd June 1955, the entry under ‘General Observations and Suggestions’ stated: I visited this school to investigate a complaint made to me by the Mother General and Reverend Mother of the school about certain children’s behaviour in the school. As result of all this 10 girls were transferred to Kilmacud Reformatory. The chief cause of this outbreak was “lack of supervision” on the part of the community.

The Department of Education made observations on these events in its submission to the Committee. The Department stated: The response to abuse in Kilkenny illustrates how the Department and the religious dealt with issues of child sexual abuse at the time, in particular: The apparent inability of the Sisters of Charity to detect what appears to have been widespread sexual abuse carried out by a long-term workman. It may not have begun with the children mentioned here. The decision of the Department, on the advice of the parish priest, not to pursue the prosecution of Jacobs, having considered the concern expressed by the priest to protect the children from further trauma as well as the reputation of the convent. The absence of professional counselling or sex education for the girls affected. The concern to remove certain girls from the school and the perception that the girls who had been sexually abused were compromised in some way. Some were sent back to their families, with no provision for helping them come to terms with what had happened.

Sr Astrid8 was appointed to the staff of St Joseph’s one year after these events in 1955. She confirmed that she heard nothing about the circumstances that had led to so many of the children being removed and to the dismissal of an employee who had been in the School for over 30 years. She said that no protocols were in place at any time for dealing with allegations of sexual abuse by the children, and the matter was never mentioned. This was notwithstanding the clear responsibility placed on the Sisters by Dr McCabe for failing to supervise the children properly. St Anne’s, Kilmacud

The need for a dedicated reformatory for girls arose in January 1942, when two girls who had been committed to St Joseph’s Girls’ Reformatory in Limerick for ‘serious moral offences’ were deemed by the Resident Manager to be unsuitable. She requested that they be immediately discharged, in order to protect the other children and the interest of the School. It was suggested within the Department of Education that the ‘most convenient solution’ would be to establish a second reformatory school for girls who had committed moral offences. One of the problems this Institution could address was the question of children over the age of 12 who were in an industrial school and were found to be ‘exercising an evil influence over the other children’. Although the Minister had the power to transfer these girls to a reformatory, in practice this did not happen because the only reformatory for girls, in Limerick, would not take such children. St Anne’s was run by Our Lady of Charity Order, who had ‘intimated that they intended to conduct it for the benefit of girls with marked tendencies of a certain nature’.

In fact, it would appear that the only cases envisaged for St Anne’s were ‘where the girl disapproved of the intercourse and made a report to the Garda, or had an illegitimate baby to the public knowledge, or where her relations or friends learned of the act and reported it’.

It was to this reform school that the nine children from St Joseph’s were sent. They were all 13 years of age or younger, and at least four of them had been the victims of severe sexual crimes whilst in the care of the nuns.

A witness who was in the School during the 1954 investigation and who was one of the girls transferred to Kilmacud gave evidence. She had not been abused by Jacobs, and it seems that she was sent to Kilmacud because her sister, who had been abused, was going there.

Sharon9 was one of five children. She lived with her parents in Dublin. The home situation was not good: her father and mother had problems, there was domestic violence and alcohol abuse, and the family faced eviction. In these circumstances, the children were taken into care. She and two of her sisters were admitted into St Joseph’s, Kilkenny. She saw very little of her two sisters in the School. Her parents did not visit, her mother only came once. Her first memories were of being very frightened and trying to keep herself small. She hid under beds or behind her older sister. She remembers being very lonely and isolated. She had no one to turn to except her sister.

Prior to the day of the transfer to St Anne’s, she remembered the ‘set’ she was in were summoned into the sitting room. They were told that some of them had been very bold. She has only a hazy recollection of what else was said, but the outcome of it was that nine or 10 of them were segregated and not allowed to mix with any other girls. They were kept in cubicles in the dormitory and could not leave there, other than to get food and then return. She remembered Sr Ella10 and Sr Liv11 were there at the time, as were a number of other nuns. They were told they had committed mortal sins and sins of immodesty. She and her older sister were transferred, but another sister was left behind and she did not see her again until she was 16.

On the day of the transfer, she was pleased because she thought they were only going out for the day, as they were told they were going to the zoo. She was shocked to discover this was a lie: it was the first time a nun had lied to her. Her transfer papers to Kilmacud described her as ‘not of previous good character’. She only saw these papers recently, when revealed by the Commission, and was deeply upset at this description, as she was only 10 years old at the time.

Sharon said that the nuns in St Joseph’s were obsessed with religion. There was an endless litany of Mass, Novenas, Benediction, retreats, fasting, grace before and after meals, prayers night, noon and morning, and so on. She felt that the nuns were more concerned with saving their souls then anything else. They did not encourage the children to nurture friendships, and she remembered one occasion in particular: when she held the hand of a friend as they went for their Sunday walk, a nun came from behind and silently separated them.

This witness remembered very little about her schooling or the teachers, other than a climate of fear in the classroom. She attended school within the Institution. Sr Liv was the schoolteacher, and she was very strict and used a stick to slap children.

Sharon said that St Anne’s, even though it was a reformatory for girls, was wonderful in comparison to St Joseph’s. There was more freedom, she did not feel she was under the microscope. She never felt safe in Kilkenny, but she did not have the same feeling in St Anne’s. The transfer papers had described her as ‘not of previous good character’, yet the Sisters in St Anne’s never made her feel like that. In St Anne’s, she was recognised as a person. As an example, she described the following: In a little way ... that I was walking on my first walk and Sister Ellen12, who was in charge, actually took my hand. I can never forget that moment because on the one hand what was so sinful in Kilkenny, well maybe that is going too far but I wasn’t allowed to do that and here I was in St Anne’s and Sister Ellen took my hand.