Chapter 4 — Greenmount

Peer abuse

The Department of Education received an anonymous letter from the parent of one of the convicted youths after sentence was handed down. The letter stated that the boy had spent eight years in Greenmount, despite an application made by his parent to have him released. It alleged that such sexual conduct had been prevalent in Greenmount for the previous nine years, and named a particular teacher who was complicit in such activity. The Gardaí were seeking him. The whole thing was ‘the talk of Cork City’. The writer requested that the Department requisition all of these cases from the court office or the Gardaí so that the full extent of the problem could be exposed, as ‘the Monks of the school was trying to keep this Case Dark’. It added, ‘my boy was 8 years going in to the school ... so he got his lesson in the school. Any child is safer at Home’. The letter ended, ‘the school should be closed down’.

The Department Inspector, in an internal memorandum, noted that the Medical Inspector had heard certain rumours about the School and suggested that the local chief superintendent be contacted for a full report. Around the same time, the Attorney General’s office made contact with the Department of Education, furnishing copies of the depositions in the 12 cases. Many of the defendants had asserted that their misconduct stemmed from their time in industrial schools. The Attorney General was of the view that closer supervision of the older boys would discourage such ‘unfortunate habits’, and furnished the Department with the information ‘in the hope that the Minister in collaboration with the School Authorities may be able to devise some means of keeping the number of such cases in future at the lowest possible level’. An extract from the prosecuting counsel’s report was also furnished, which stated ominously, ‘... the revelations about Upton and Greenmount at this sittings have given me furiously to think about Industrial Schools and Religious Orders ...’.

The Department arranged for a special Inspection of the two schools in question to take place. An Industrial Schools Inspector and the Deputy Chief Inspector of the Primary Branch were nominated to conduct the Inspections. Their general brief was to ‘... enquire into the supervision exercised over the boys, and the measures taken to prevent or put an end to the occurrences, which gave rise to the recent cases before the Cork Courts’. The Department decided against bringing the matter specifically to the attention of the bishop, on the basis that it had to be assumed that he was already aware of the matter.

The Inspectors conducted their Inspections over two days. They noted that the children were supervised by teachers during school and trades training, and by the Brothers during recreation. Night watchmen patrolled the dormitories at night time.

The Resident Manager, who appeared to have been very much affected by the incidents, stated he had no intention of concealing them from the Department but that the worry of the cases caused him to overlook reporting the matter.

He confirmed that both the Gardaí and an ISPCC Inspector had questioned the children as part of their enquiries. The Manager assured them that stricter controls were in place to ensure that any such misconduct did not occur, and he was satisfied that the problem had been eradicated in the School. The Department of Education Inspectors concluded that: ... consistent with the normal freedom of the children 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: from what we have learned, however, there is an ever present danger of these cases arising no matter how well planned the supervision and this danger is aggravated when, as in the case of Greenmount, a member of the staff is known to have been implicated. 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 Minister for Education approved this recommendation, and the Department’s enquiry into the matter was closed.

The Inspectors do not appear to have spoken to the children as part of their enquiry, and seem to have accepted the assurances of the Resident Manager that sexual activity was no longer a problem in the School.

There is further reference to sexual activity among boys contained in the reports of the Provincial to the General Council of the Presentation Brothers in the mid-1950s. Despite the Provincial being assured by the Resident Manager, Br Carlito, that the boys were at all times well supervised, he received a report shortly after visiting the School from a member of another Community that the boys in Greenmount were engaging in ‘immoral practices’. When this allegation was put to the Resident Manager, he accepted that he was aware of the problem and had taken steps to deal with the issue, which involved separating the culprits in the dormitories and requesting the night watchman to be particularly vigilant. No advice or direction given by the Provincial is recorded, and the issue does not arise in subsequent reports.

The difficulty of trying to control sexual behaviour among the boys emerged from the evidence of a former resident who was transferred to Daingean because he was twice caught engaging in sexual activity with his peers. He was admitted to Greenmount in the early 1950s when he was eight years old. He said he learnt about sex from the older boys, and added ‘it was going on with all the boys’. He would masturbate the older boys and sometimes had anal intercourse. He said: It is a very powerful thing, you may shy away from it to start. You see, I see the sexual business as a disease, but once you start getting the feel for it it is like wanting sugar.

As time went on, he began to engage in sexual activity with younger boys. He pondered the irony of it all: I became an abuser myself of a form, that is the way it goes. So because I was put in, locked up in the first place for committing no crime I ended up committing some kind of crime in the second place ...

When asked whether there was any awareness by the adults in charge in Greenmount of the sexual activity amongst the boys, he said ‘I can only assume that they must have had some idea’.

Sexual activity between boys and peer abuse were serious problems in Greenmount. Despite assurances that it would be dealt with the problem persisted.

Emotional abuse

In their Opening Statement on Greenmount, the Presentation Brothers expressed the view that industrial schools were ‘a flawed model’, doomed to failure. They wrote: Up until the 1960s there was a popularly held belief in Ireland that industrial schools were an institutional response to cope with the problem of petty crime and delinquency by young people. This was a misconception. Children convicted of minor criminal offences were often admitted to industrial schools, But that was usually because they had strayed into breaking the law due to the absence of parental supervision and neglect. Children were also admitted for non-attendance at school. That was, again, usually a consequence of difficult family circumstances. Where one parent had died or departed, an older child might be required to remain at home in order to rear the other children in the family. The consequences of social and economic deprivation were addressed by breaking up whole families, the boys being sent to the Brothers and girls to the nuns. It is clear that, in hindsight, the industrial school system was not, and could never be, a success. It was based on a flawed model. No one today would seriously argue that an institution operating on then approved lines, such as Greenmount, represented an adequate response to serious social problems suffered by some of the most vulnerable elements in society. No one would tolerate the Courts regularly making orders having the effect of separating so many children from their families for up to 8 years. No one would suggest that a child could be raised on the modern equivalent of 22 shillings a week: indeed it appears that that task was beyond the Presentation Brothers at that time. (the Presentation Brothers informed the then Minister for Education, Mr Jack Lynch T. D., that it was not possible to feed and clothe boys on 22/6 per week in the late 1950s). No one would suggest that neglected and abandoned children should be housed and cared for together with, and in the same fashion as, young offenders. No one would consider lodging such a large number of children of varying ages in single institution with so few carers.

They went on to point out that many of the flaws in the system were apparent in 1936, when the Cussen Commission reported but Cussen’s recommended reforms were not implemented, and ‘a further 34 years passed before Ireland was prepared to abandon the industrial school as a means of child care’.