Chapter 2 — Upton

Physical abuse

A witness who was also resident in the early 1960s said that, from his earliest days in Upton, the daily routine often involved receiving a smack on the face for minor things, such as not getting out of bed quickly enough in the morning. He was only 10 years old at the time, and remembered how boys had to stand to attention all the time, even when they were being beaten by a Brother. After dressing, the boys went to the yard and then to Mass. Any misbehaviour at Mass resulted in being sent to the office for benders: Punishment in St. Patrick’s, Upton was a regular thing. I would have to say it was – you went to school, you went to bed, you went to work and there was nothing but fear, fear, fear. It was just fear the whole way.

He recalled receiving one severe beating from Br Alfonso. He was about 11 years old when he was accused of ‘scamping’, a name used for masturbation. He also described how it was a regular enough occurrence for a boy to be brought to the office for punishment, this usually related to the boy being accused of ‘scamping’. He also recalled hearing the screams and cries of boys who had been taken from their beds in the evening to the office for punishment, as the office was situated underneath the centre of the dormitory. Punishment by the Prefect was normally administered in the office, but the boys could be beaten anywhere, in the washroom, or in the shower room on Saturdays.

One witness resident during the early 1960s recalled an incident when the boys were watching a film, which they did not enjoy and, at the end of it, they gave a slow handclap. Each boy was brought out into the yard, one by one, and called into the washroom and beaten. He thought there were about 150 boys punished in total. This fact was confirmed by another witness. He recalled one Brother, Br Alfonso in particular who often beat him. The Brother was fond of music and particularly of hurling and golf. He used to make the boys fetch his golf balls and beat them if they couldn’t find them. He said that punishment was normally administered on the buttocks with a leather strap. According to him, the minimum number of strokes with the leather was six, and he said ‘If you didn’t get six you didn’t get anything’ and if the punishment was administered on the hand he would be ‘very lucky’.

Another witness remembered being taken out of school to attend to the needs of an ill priest. He said he did not smoke at the time, but was accused of stealing Lucky Strikes from the priest’s room. He denied he had ever done such a thing, but Br Marcello brought him upstairs to a classroom and told him to put on swimming trunks and proceeded to beat him severely. He also recalled a boy who was extremely thin being leathered in the showers by Br Marcello. This Brother requested that this witness should hold the boy down while he beat him. He said he refused to do this because the boy was so young.

Finding oneself in the wrong place at the wrong time was a matter for punishment, according to one witness. He received the leather for not having his socks darned. He later attended a normal national school, and was anxious to differentiate between the slaps that were acceptable there as compared with the punishment in Upton. He said: The level of punishment, the force, the ferocity of it. It was done in such a savage manner that it was way beyond anything that you could class as being the norm.

He did not agree with the Resident Manager, Br Alanzo,15 who wrote in the late 1950s in response to a complaint, which compared the treatment of boys in Greenmount and Upton, that the leather strap was rarely used. He thought that what was written was an untruth.

One witness said he was not long in Upton before he was called into the office by Brs Ludano and Donato, and questioned about his brother who had been in Ferryhouse and was now in Daingean. Once they established they were siblings, the Brothers said words to the effect ‘we won’t make the same mistake with you’ and proceeded to strike him across the face and gave him ‘benders’ on the buttocks with the leather. He was black and blue from this beating. He recalled being beaten also by a Fr Gian16 on the farm, but the main punishments were meted out by Brs Ludano and Donato.

The witness spoke about the punishment for immorality with others. He explained how, every couple of months or so in Upton, Brs Ludano and Donato would take a boy into the office and strap him until he offered up the name of a boy who had been scamping with him. This went on as the next boy would name another boy, ‘it was a never ending ... circle’.

A decision was made in 2002 by the Rosminian Order to carry out a survey of all surviving Rosminian Brothers and priests, to assess the extent of their knowledge of physical and sexual abuse at the time. The survey was carried out in respect of both Ferryhouse and Upton. In response to a question about knowledge of physical abuse in Upton, the following responses were elicited:

Br Tomasso17 said that, although he had never witnessed anything himself, he did recall hearing that Br Alfonso administered excessive punishment on a number of occasions.

Fr Stefano18 said that he thought that there were a number of cases of excessive punishment.

One anonymous respondent, when asked whether he felt that corporal punishment was excessive, replied: Yes, the longer I spent there: but then, there were few Fr Flanagans in Ireland: nobody knew any better: it was common in most places at that time.

When asked if the Rector was aware of the fact that excessive punishment was being administered, he stated: If he wasn’t Blind, deaf and dumb, he must have known: but he didn’t know any better. In my years as prefect there was a punishment book, wherein we, prefects had to write in all punishment – three slaps were allowed. This was Fr Fabiano’s idea: it ended with him.

Fr Gustavo19 said that he witnessed Br Alba20 beating boys in the old infirmary for talking in the dormitory. He said that he questioned Br Alba but was told to mind his own business. He said that he heard that Br Alfonso was tough and cruel.

Br Flavio21 said that, while he was a scholastic in Upton, he often saw punishment administered. He implied that this was excessive in nature as, in the next sentence, he stated ‘while in charge of discipline in Omeath, I too punished excessively’; when asked whether the Rector, Frs Alanzo and Eduardo,22 knew about the excessive violence, he replied ‘not sure if the rector knew all the sordid details – probably not’. He identified Brs Donato and Alfonso as excessive punishers.