Chapter 7 — Goldenbridge

Emotional abuse

Children drank out of the toilet, which was confirmed by Sr Venetia when speaking to Mr Crowley in 1996. This happened irrespective of whether the fountain in the yard was working. Some children were deprived of water in an effort to cure bed-wetting, and they found water where they could.

The calling of children by number is another specific allegation made by complainants. They assert that staff referred to them not by name but by number. This is an allegation which appeared in the ‘Dear Daughter’ programme. It is also an allegation which was made by 11 complainants in their statements to the Commission and in oral evidence. One witness said: The numbers were used when they were giving out the clothes or anything like that that belonged to the children. Anything that you had marked you always had a number on it. You never had a name on it.

Another witness also stated that clothes were distributed according to the number of the child. However, under cross-examination, this witness went further and stated that the children were referred to by number.

Another witness recalled the day that she entered Goldenbrige and was stripped of her own clothes, washed and given a set of clothes that were ‘hard, rough, horrible’ and was given a number and told ‘never to forget it’.

Another witness recalled that, when she entered Goldenbridge, her name was taken away and she was given a number. She said: ‘In Goldenbridge I was a number’.

This witness was adamant that she was never called by her name, and that it was always by her number. Even when she was cross-examined about the use of the number for the purpose of clothing, she stated that she was called by her number irrespective of whether clothes were being distributed or not.

Again, another witness when questioned about how he was addressed in Goldenbridge said: You were called by your surname or your number. It was mainly your surname. You were never called by your name ...

He also confirmed that the numbers were used for the system of laundering clothes.

One other witness disagreed with the contention that the numbers were only used for laundry purposes: Some people they knew very well, the ones that were always in trouble, always getting slapped, some of them would be well known. You would be called by your number ...

Another witness recounted that she did not recall staff referring to her by her Christian name, but did recall being called by her number.

The Sisters of Mercy assert that this was never the case; children were never called by a number. The use of numbers was for the purpose of laundry and distributing children’s clothing. Each item of the child’s clothing was numbered so that, when it was washed and ironed, that same item of clothing could be returned to the appropriate child. Sr Gianna, who worked in the laundry and workroom of Goldenbridge for three years, gave a detailed account of the washing and distribution of the children’s clothing. In evidence, Sr Gianna recounted that the children’s clothing, once it had been washed and ironed, was brought down to the recreation hall for distribution: And the numbers called out then. We had them in the big baskets and then you picked out your three articles or four articles and you called out a number and the child who owned these came forward. She went down and she undressed and you had the senior girls there helping the smaller ones to dress and undress. They would bring up their soiled laundry and put it into the baskets.

Another witness stated that she disagreed with certain aspects of the ‘Dear Daughter’ programme. In particular, she disagreed with the suggestion in the programme that children were called by number. She said as follows: Yeah, it wouldn’t be always numbers I have to say, because I wasn’t always called by numbers. Maybe some other people may have felt it that way, but when I heard that I thought, no, that wasn’t me.

From the evidence of the complainants, what is clear, apart from the issue of the numbers, is that children were not called by their Christian name. In the main, they appear to have been referred to by their numbers, their surnames, or by nicknames.

The use of numbers instead of names was not widespread in Goldenbridge. Numbers were used, however, on occasions such as dealing with laundry.

This specific allegation, that babies were strapped to potties for long periods of time and suffered a prolapsed rectum, first emerged in the Gay Byrne radio show in 1992. It was repeated on the ‘Dear Daughter’ programme. A number of complainants made this allegation in their statements of complaint to the Commission. However, in oral evidence it did not feature very largely as an allegation.