Chapter 2 — Upton

Neglect and emotional abuse

The Rosminians concede that boys were hungry in Upton. Fr O’Reilly, at the Phase III public hearing, said, ‘I absolutely accept that children were hungry ...’.

Dr McCabe’s reports were not of great assistance, because she describes the food in very general terms as being ‘satisfactory’ or ‘could be improved’. Nevertheless, she repeatedly recommended to the Brother in charge of the kitchen to vary the diet.

Dr McCabe, in her report dated 21st June 1939, summed up the boys’ food as ‘good in quantity, quality and variety’. Thereafter, in the 1940s it appears to have deteriorated, as Dr McCabe described it as ‘fairly satisfactory’ or ‘satisfactory’. No precise details of the quality, quantity or type of food provided can be elicited from these reports. A number of reports are missing for the 1940s and early 1950s. The reports of 1943 and 1945 characterised the food as ‘fairly satisfactory’. In 1946, 1947, 1948 and 1952, Dr McCabe described the food as ‘satisfactory’. There are no Inspection Reports from 1949 to 1951.

When Dr McCabe visited the School on 27th November 1953, she commented that the food was ‘much better’. Between 1953 and 1962, her reports regularly described the food as ‘improved’, although it is not clear what it had improved from or what it was actually like. Her report of 1955 categorised the food as ‘very good’. But, by the following year, problems had arisen again with the food, as her report of 29th November 1956 asserted that the food ‘could be improved’.

Dr McCabe’s report of 1956 gives some indication of the problem regarding the food, namely that not enough food was being given. In particular, she was critical of the insufficient quantities of meat and milk provided for the boys. At the time, only 15lbs of meat per meal was provided for 180 boys, and she recommended to the Brother in charge that this should be increased to between 30lbs and 45lbs. She also recommended that each boy should be given one pint of milk per day. In addition, she suggested that honey or golden syrup and ‘vitaminised’ margarine should be supplied at lunchtime.

In 1957, when Dr McCabe called on the School on 1st November, she again reported that the food ‘could be improved’ but added that it was ‘on the whole not too bad’. From her 1957 report, no information can be gleaned as to what the nature of the problem with the food was or how it could be improved. Unlike her report in 1956, she provided no recommendations to improve the food. Neither did she report whether her 1956 recommendation had been implemented.

Former residents of Upton complained that they were constantly hungry and that the food provided was of poor quality. One witness, who had been resident in Upton throughout the 1950s, complained that he was ‘always hungry’ while he was in the School. His hunger was such that he had to resort to eating the slops and leftovers from the priests’ kitchen. In evidence, he recounted this vivid memory of watching and waiting for his own brother, who worked in the priests’ kitchen, to bring the slop from the kitchen to a pit so that he and his friends could eat from it. He said: He used to take the slop from the kitchen, he used to take it down to this pit. It was quite a way away from the house. I used to watch him. I used to see him take the food down to this pit, apple skins and bits and pieces. When he left I used to go down there with my little team and we used to go eat all the apple skins.

A witness from the mid-1950s described the food as ‘absolutely terrible’ and insufficient in quantity, particularly for boys who had to do heavy farm work: The food was absolutely terrible; a starvation diet is all I can say it was, everything was rationed. We were expected to work, do men’s work on that kind of food.

He said that breakfast consisted of bread and dripping, with porridge on some mornings, but no milk. Bread with margarine was provided for supper, and the dinner he described as ‘pea soup’, which had the consistency of ‘gruel’.

Another witness, who had been in the School for a short period of time in the late 1950s, stated that the boys were starved in Upton, and the situation was one of ‘a total lack of food’.

The issue of lack of meat for the boys was also attested to by another witness. He remembered each week that two sheep were killed on the farm, but the meat from the sheep was not given to the boys. His only recollection of meat was of black pudding and sausages, in a stew with potatoes for dinner. But, as regards other forms of meat, he stated adamantly that they never got any: Meat, you would never see meat. You might get a chunk of fat now and again but you would never see meat even though I was there and I knew it was there. The boys never got any of it.

This witness who worked in the kitchen peeling potatoes saw a distinct difference in the food provided for the priests and the boys: ‘there was food for the clergy and food for the boys’.

Fr O’Reilly at the Phase III public hearing, conceded that the Brothers received better quality food than the children: I accept that the food was so much better for the people who lived and worked in the place, yes. I would say it was a better quality of food.

In 1958, Dr McCabe noted that the food for the boys had ‘improved’ but, at the same time, she felt that more could be done as she ‘had a talk with the Br in charge and advised several improvements I thought could be made’. Again, there are no details provided as to what was needed to be done to ameliorate the food situation.

A complaint about the food was made in May 1959, when fathers of two boys who had been transferred from Greenmount Industrial School to Upton complained to their local TD about the poor conditions prevailing in Upton, and he forwarded their complaints to the Minister for Education, Mr Jack Lynch. One of the complaints was that the boys only got three slices of bread with dripping for their tea each day, compared to Greenmount where they received bread and jam each evening and two ounces of cheese four nights of the week (other complaints were made about punishment). He felt compelled as their local TD to forward the complaints on to the Department of Education, but he did not think there was much merit to the complaints, as he qualified his letter by saying that much of what they said was hearsay and that, having questioned them very closely on some of the information, he had formed the view that some of it ‘is obviously exaggerated to say the least of it’.