Chapter 3 — Ferryhouse

Neglect and emotional abuse

There is plenty in this report to alert the Department to the dangers of overcrowding and poor hygiene within Ferryhouse, but the report falls far short of being a shocking indictment of the place. It did not stop the Department allowing 31 more boys into the crowded School.

Apart from Dr Lysaght’s report, there were three reports from Dr Anna McCabe for August and September 1963 and January 1964, when the School population was nearly 200 boys. They are generally very positive. On 15th August 1963, she wrote under the heading ‘Condition of premises’, ‘Clean well kept. Improvements have been made and will be made. Outside and inside re-decoration is being done’. Equipment, sanitation and health were all described as very good. Food and diet, and clothing were described as ‘Improved’. Her general observation was that the new Manager was ‘keen to make improvements’. She recorded that she had ‘discussed many points with him and he will endeavour to have improvements made’. In an addendum following an incidental visit, she wrote, ‘Improvements are being made and in time the school will be much improved’.

In January 1964, she wrote an almost identical report. Again, the premises were ‘clean well kept’ and she commented, ‘Improvements are being made and continue to be made’. Accommodation, equipment, sanitation, and health are all described as ‘V.Good’ and food and diet and clothing are again described as ‘much improved’. She again ended with another optimistic comment. She wrote: Improvements have taken place and the new manager is most anxious to help in every way he can to making the school brighter and more cheerful.

Just two years later, Dr Lysaght found the dormitories ‘the worst I’d seen’, with a ‘depressing air of mass communal living’ and a ‘general air of “dinginess”’. He found the number of boys, about 160, bordering on overcrowded. A year after his report, the Public Health Officer found the dormitory was sleeping ‘exactly twice the number of boys recommended’ and the School was ‘a hazard to the health of the child’. The numbers were about the same as when Dr McCabe inspected the School three years earlier.

It is hard to explain the inconsistencies in these reports. The Department of Education Inspector concluded ‘in time the school will be much improved’ and found the accommodation ‘very good’.

Just three years later, a Public Health Officer had the Health Board remove their children to protect them from a ‘grave’ situation wherein children’s health and lives were at risk. Ms Fidelma Clandillon, in her memorandum of 17th June 1967, did indeed have grounds to write, ‘It is scandalous that only the death of one of the boys has led to the conditions there coming to light’.

There were rumours and innuendo about cruelty and neglect in Ferryhouse, so it would be expected that the Department of Education’s Inspector would have heard and seen things to cause concern. However, Dr Anna McCabe’s reports gave no indication of the conditions found by Dr Lysaght and the Public Health Inspector just two or three years later.

Even when the ‘shocking report’ arrived, and after the death of one boy through meningitis, there seemed to be no sense of urgency to effect change. On 8th January 1968, the following letter was sent from the Department of Health to the Minister for Education: I am directed by the Minister for Health to refer again to the minute of 12th September 1967 (ref. 6.43 ) regarding conditions at St Joseph’s School, Ferryhouse, Clonmel, and to request you to indicate the present position regarding the arrangements for the provision of increased accommodation in the institution.

A handwritten note is added by an official in the Education Department. It reads: Phoned Miss Little45 to inform her that Inspector T. McD. had visited Clonmel recently but was unable to complete re-assessment of school’s capacity owing to illness of Manager; that Inspector had since sustained broken ankle and would re-visit Clonmel to complete inspection as soon as possible.

Reading this note, one would never guess that the matter under consideration was the ‘serious hazard of overcrowding’, causing a grave risk to the health of some 170 boys.

If Dr McCabe’s reports in the 1960s are not a good indicator of the conditions within Ferryhouse at the time, her earlier reports are more illuminating. The DES records include a report of a visit on 2nd June 1939. Inspection Reports are available for each of the years that follow until December 1944.

Initially, she reported that the School and premises were in a satisfactory state, and that she found the Resident Manager very capable and kind. During the years that followed, conditions began to deteriorate. In April 1941, the sanitation came in for criticism and she referred to a general slackness about the School. In October 1942, she found the premises very unsatisfactory and complained again about the outside sanitation facilities. This time, she warned that, if there were not appreciable improvements all round, ‘drastic measures’ would have to be taken.

This threat had some effect because, in July 1943, she noted ‘much improvement’. The premises had been cleaned and painted. However, she condemned the fact that most of the boys were barefoot. She noted that, whenever she recommended improvements, the Resident Manager complained that he did not have the money. She added that, with the increased grants, her suggestions for improvements should be insisted upon. In a further discussion of her visit on 19th July, she added details: she had found the sanitary annex obsolete and ‘dangerous to the health of the inmates’, and the improvements needed included a whole new water carriage system and modern W.Cs. She continued, ‘If this is not done immediately the money will be used for some other purpose and on my next inspection the same rigmarole will start’. Apart from condemning the boys going barefooted, she asked for a height scale to be bought, for the toothbrushes to be replaced and the bathhouse improved.

The report of October 1944 is quite damning. While there were some improvements – the new sanitary block had been erected and the bathhouse had been repaired – there was a general lack of supervision. The boys were untidy and unkempt, the food and diet were unsatisfactory, and the children were underweight.

She blamed the decline on the rheumatic disability of the Resident Manager, who was 73 and gradually becoming senile, and she felt he was ‘unable for the arduous task of Resident Manager’. She wrote: He always looked after his boys well and I feel if he were active and capable would still do so. He is unable to get about as actively as heretofore. The chaplain is on his sick bed too and poor old Brother B. (76 years old) is nearly past his work too.