Chapter 7 — Goldenbridge

Emotional abuse

Her dislike of the Institution and her sense of unease at her treatment there were clear from a letter she wrote in 1967 to Sr Venetia. In that letter she said, referring to the suggestion that she should return to Goldenbridge because she got into trouble in England: You know what kind of trouble I got into, I believe you wanted to have me back, but I refused to go because I know what I would have to face. I have faced enough with you all there, and you know that I did not like it there. Every time I went out you took a bad impression. Well, Sister, the mothers here try to do all they can to help me, especially the Mother in charge. She cannot help me anymore and I do appreciate all she did. Also, we call them mothers because they treat us as if they were our mothers.

This is quite a significant letter. It was written by this complainant to the one person who had been a mother substitute to her for her entire childhood. It is a sad reflection on the relationship she had with her carers in Goldenbridge. This letter was not the result of any media campaign, or any contamination: it is a contemporaneous document written by a very young girl who had just left the Institution.

Another witness, who entered Goldenbridge as a small baby and spent 13 years there in the 1950s and 1960s, said that her great problem was fear, even after she left Goldenbridge. She said she always felt very lonely and that she couldn’t really mix and was bullied a lot.

One complainant, who was committed to Goldenbridge at one year old in the early 1950s and remained there for 15 years, said: None of us got loved, none of us. When I look back I wonder how I grew up at all. It was the most strangest place for a child to be reared. The nuns were cruel but they didn’t know half of it because they use to be up saying their prayers. The people they had looking after us was horrible people.

This complainant noticed an improvement in Goldenbridge towards the end of her time there in the 1960s.

Another witness was five years of age when she was admitted into Goldenbridge in the mid-1950s. Her mother developed post-natal depression after the eighth child in the family was born and was admitted to St Brendan’s Hospital. She specifically mentioned emotional abuse as being the biggest hurt that she experienced in Goldenbridge.

She spoke of name-calling and jeering, and said that it came from staff members and carers who were past pupils who had been kept on as part of the staff. She said it was very, very abusive, and the comments centred on the fact that her mother had had a mental breakdown and was in a psychiatric hospital. She said that the one person who stood out the most for referring to it a great deal was Sr Venetia. She spoke of practices in Goldenbridge, such as underwear inspections and a lack of any preparation for menstruation, as contributing to the lack of confidence that all the girls experienced.

She said that the effect of their institutionalisation had devastated her family. Her three sisters all suffered from serious psychological problems. She was particularly traumatised by the memory of her younger sister, who she claimed was physically abused in Goldenbridge.

Another witness spent nine years in Goldenbridge from the mid-1950s in similar circumstances to the previous complainant. Her mother was placed in a mental institution following a breakdown.

She said that one of the hardest things about being institutionalised at seven years of age was the sense of isolation. She spoke about being jeered at by Sr Venetia and by workers because of the fact that her mother was in a mental institution. She said that they were all called ‘mad’, especially by Sr Venetia. This had a very deep psychological impact on her.

Another witness spoke of the great sadness caused by her mother’s mental breakdown that resulted in the family having to be placed in care. She gave a poignant description of her relationship with her father throughout her time in Goldenbridge. Her father was a timid man who held the nuns who ran the School in great esteem. She said that he constantly hoped that he would be able to take all his children out so that they could be home together. However, she said that she knew intuitively that this would not happen. She also said that she never asked about her mother. She knew that it affected her father to speak about her, and therefore she never mentioned her. She said that he was very uncomfortable and that she felt like his protector. This child developed an extremely severe respiratory condition, which she claims was not properly medicated by the staff in Goldenbridge.

She described the atmosphere in Goldenbridge as being grey and barren, and said that she had no possessions of her own when she was there. However, she did not tell her father what was going on in Goldenbridge or that they were being bullied, because he was like a co-dependant. She also protected her younger sister who was a bed-wetter, and used to try and replace her sheet early in the morning before the wet sheet was discovered. She was aware, even while she was in Goldenbridge, that the fact that her father visited her was very important, and she was terrified that anything would happen to him.

This complainant has lived in England for a long number of years and said that nobody knows about Goldenbridge, because she has never spoken about it, even to friends that she has known for 25 years. She said that she constantly feels ‘no good’. She said that the journey that she has had to follow to put herself together, and not have a sense of being a marked person in an orphanage with the stigma and abuse, has been a very long one. It has cost her a lot emotionally, physically and mentally. She felt sorry about her father. He may have known what the children were suffering in Goldenbridge, but could do nothing about it. She said that, if it had been her, she would have been challenging the nuns, but her father was intimidated by them and could not question what was going on. She asked why would a man, who was basically a good man, feel so intimidated in dealing with the nuns in Goldenbridge who were caring for his children.

Another complainant spoke about the contrast between Goldenbridge and a care home in England. She left Goldenbridge at 13, and went to live with her mother in England. Her mother was quite abusive and the complainant ran away from home. She ended up in a children’s home in England. She said at first she had thought she had gone back to Goldenbridge again, but she found it a lovely place with lovely people. She said she tasted food that she had never tasted and she remembers how the tables were set. Sometimes she ‘played up’ there, and she would not be given pocket money if she did that, and the people in charge would bring her into the sitting room and talk to her. She said that they were lovely and that she has great admiration for all of them.

She recalled that there were sitting rooms in the care home in England. Whereas in Goldenbridge there were no comfortable chairs or sofas, only wooden chairs and tables.