Chapter 2 — Upton

Sexual activity amongst the boys: documented cases

The Inspectors submitted their report to the Assistant Secretary of the Department on 14th December 1936. In it, they noted that the ‘supervision exercised in both schools is adequate in ordinary circumstances and the recent occurrences will tend to keep the school authorities on the alert’. However, the Inspectors gave it as their opinion that there was always a danger of sexual activity occurring between boys, which could be increased in particular circumstances: there is an ever present danger of these cases arising no matter how well planned the supervision and the danger is aggravated when, as in the case of Greenmount, a member of the staff is known to have been implicated.

The Inspectors particularly stressed the need for supervision of the older boys: The problem, as we understand it, is for obvious reasons a most difficult one to deal with and we consider the only action that can be taken is to impress on the Manager (verbally for preference) of each boys school the possibility of such cases occurring and the necessity for close and constant supervision of the boys, especially the senior boys i.e. boys over 14 years of age, in all their activities.

The Inspectors noted that members of the Community were always present during boys’ recreation and free time. In addition, a Rosminian priest or Brother slept in each of the dormitories, and the Superior made visits to the dormitories. Furthermore, the Resident Manager had prevailed upon the senior boys who were destined for the Novitiate, unbeknownst to each other, to report to him ‘doubtful conduct among the boys’, in an attempt to prevent such activity occurring.

The Department informed the Attorney General’s office on 30th December 1936 of the outcome of the special investigation, and that the Minister for Education was ‘satisfied that everything possible is now being done to stamp out and to prevent a re-currence of the practices referred to in the cases in question’. The letter added that the Minister ‘also approved of a suggestion that the Inspector of Industrial Schools should impress upon managers of Boys’ Schools the danger of such practices existing and the importance of continual and close supervision of the senior boys’.

The importance of the court cases was clear to the Upton authorities and beyond. Writing to Fr Orsino in Rome on 20th October 1936 about his brother, Fr Giuseppe, the Resident Manager, Fr Gerodi,53 described how the Manager was detained on urgent business: Fr Giuseppe was unable to be away from Upton, owing to a matter which had troubled him much for several weeks and during last week he had to be on call on the telephone ... Some ex-Upton boys got into very serious trouble, and there was very great danger that the reputation of the School would suffer.

That appeared to be the end of the matter, in the eyes of the Department, until another case involving a former Upton boy came to the attention of the Gardaí in Cork in 1944.

The Inspectors considered the supervision as described to them to be satisfactory, while acknowledging the difficulty of dealing with the problem, and the only step they took was verbal exhortation as to supervision. No new measures were put in place, yet the Minister was able to inform the Attorney General that he was satisfied that everything possible was ‘now’ being done to deal with the problem. The School authorities were concerned about the ‘very great danger’ to the reputation of the School.

Alarming evidence of more extensive sexual activity among the boys at Upton came to light in August 1944. A former resident of the School, who had been detained there from the late 1930s to the mid-1940s, was arrested and charged with larceny. The boy had been released early from Upton on licence to a farmer and was considered very troublesome. He was convicted and sentenced to two years’ detention in Daingean Reformatory in 1944.

The boy was medically examined while he was in custody, and he was found to be suffering from venereal disease. He admitted that, while he was resident in Upton, he had engaged in anal intercourse with other boys on several occasions, and he made a statement to the Gardaí in which he named seven other boys with whom he had engaged in such acts, one of whom had died in the intervening period. The Gardaí interviewed the six boys, of whom all but two denied the allegations.

In their statements, the boys who admitted such sexual activity with each other gave explicit details of the acts, which took place in a number of locations such as the kitchen attached to the infirmary, the farm, water closets, the dormitory and the infirmary. One of the boys complained in his statement that he had been anally raped on approximately 10 occasions during his time there. He said that he told one of the Brothers what this boy was doing to him but, when the matter was reported to the Resident Manager, Fr Fabiano, the latter beat him. This boy named five other boys with whom he had committed these acts.

The two boys who had made admissions had been discharged from the School on the expiration of their detention orders and were residing with their parents. The prosecuting authorities decided that they, together with the first boy, who was in Daingean, should be charged, and that the remaining boys who had denied the allegations were not to be prosecuted.

The authorities at the School did not relish the prospect of another trial of sex charges involving boys from Upton, and they went to work to try to prevent the prosecution going ahead. When the local State Solicitor was at the District Court in Cork, he was approached by a senior member of the Order, who pointed out to him that the offences took place a long time ago when the boys were very young. He said that the boy in Daingean was to blame for the incidents, that the other boys ‘did not realise what they were doing’ and that they had been punished accordingly at the School and were now leading good lives. He specifically asked the State Solicitor ‘that no prosecution should be taken’.

The Resident Manager of Upton, Fr Fabiano, followed up this representation with a letter to the State Solicitor in 1944. He stated that the School had been aware of sexual activity amongst the boys in question, and had dealt with the two boys at that time who ‘afterwards became very good’. He impressed upon the State Solicitor that no good would be derived from prosecuting the two boys who had now changed their ways and were now upright citizens. He said: We believe that we have attained our object when we make of these boys upright law abiding citizens, but it is now unjust to draw into the limelight the sins of their youth or perhaps I should say misdemeanours as they may not have been sins at all.

Fr Fabiano took a benign view: I wonder if the law in this case is being interpreted rightly or if the name attributed to the crime of adults can rightly be applied to children who often may not know that they are breaking the law of God let alone the law of the State.

In praise of the children, he asserted that they ‘are good normal children perhaps better than the average and have a right to their good name’.