Chapter 7 — Goldenbridge

Neglect

In addition to laundry and cleaning, she also recalled looking after babies. She recalled bathing them, putting them on potties and changing nappies. Although she described what, by any standards, was a heavy burden of chores, her main complaint was not so much about the chores she had to carry out but the manner in which they interfered with her education.

One witness described how, when she was nine, she had been required to scrub the cobble-stoned area in the bathroom as punishment for tearing her dress. She had to kneel down on the cobblestones to do this, which was painful. Although this was a chore that the children regularly carried out, she had to do it on her own by way of punishment.

She also stated that she was taken out of Sr Venetia’s class to work in the laundry on Mondays and Fridays. She described the large vat-like boilers with very hot water, and using a stick to pull sheets from the boilers and push them through wringers before they were laid out to dry. The main laundry was done in the large industrial laundry attached to the School, but there was a certain amount of washing by hand that had to be done on a daily basis arising out of bed-wetting.

One complainant who was in Goldenbridge during the 1960s said that she believed that the fact that her father was a regular visitor to the School saved her and her sister from the hardest physical work in the School. She lived in fear of something happening to her father, which would have left her at the mercy of the nuns: I remember thinking, if anything happens to you we are finished. We would be totally sucked in here because people that had nobody were the ones that did – and the ones with low intelligence, God help them, they were the ones that were given the hardest work. We had big hoovers in those days, big heavy hoovers, washing hallway floors, the corridors. I was terrified that this is what would become of us. We would end up like cleaners for the rest of our lives. It devastated me.

One complainant, who was committed to Goldenbridge for four years at the age of five in the early 1960s, stated that he had clear memories of working regularly in the laundry as an alternative to bead making in the afternoons. He recalled an incident, while working in the laundry, in which a boy younger than him caught his arm in a mangle. The complainant was afraid and he ran away. Sometime later, he saw the boy with his injured arm in plaster-of-paris.

This complainant stated that he first started working in the laundry approximately one year after he arrived, which would make him six years old.

A witness, who was in Goldenbridge during the 1960s, spoke in detail of the chores that were required of the children: I remember sweeping that dormitory, that sounds like nothing, but first you had to pull every bed into the centre of the room, right, lift the bed ... Then lift the bed and shove it back in. I could do it with one hand I became so adept at it and they were heavy.

She spoke of other duties: the scrubbing and cleaning of the building. I mean we scrubbed and cleaned that entire building and that was a big building, well it seemed huge to us ... When I went there first they didn’t have heavy, you know, the hoovers? ... They had a reddish floor polish. They had mansion polish, stuff like that. I don’t know is that the same, but there is a very strong smelling kind of petroleum type smell off this oil. We used to put it on the floor and then on our knees polish it.

The flooring was made of lino and, in order to polish it, the children would skid across the room on the polishing rag. This made light of the chore and they enjoyed it. The Sisters later acquired large industrial hoovers which the children used to clean the floors.

Evidence from a number of complainants was heard of girls being required to clean blocked sewers and toilets. The Sisters of Mercy stated that this work was done by a handyman employed by the School, and that no child would have to be involved in such work. However, complainants have stated that newspaper rather than toilet paper was used, which resulted in toilets becoming blocked regularly, and one or two girls would be singled out for the unpleasant job of unblocking them.

Older girls were taken out of class in order to look after younger ones, which was unfair and disruptive to their education. Requiring children from a young age to do chores was not in itself abusive, but chores became abusive because they were too onerous and were carried out under the threat of punishment. The burden of domestic chores and bead making for older girls occupied so many hours that it excluded opportunities for recreation and personal time.

Many of the complainants stated that they were constantly hungry in Goldenbridge and that the food was inadequate both in terms of quantity and quality.

The General Inspection Reports of the 1940s criticised the food and diet of the children; in particular, insufficient quantities of milk and butter were given during the war years. The Department of Education had allotted certain rations of milk and butter for children in industrial schools, and these quantities were not adhered to in Goldenbridge.

Dr McCabe visited the School in 1943 and, in her report dated 21st July 1943, she found that the ‘diet could be more varied and ample’. Following a further inspection less than six months later, on 21st January 1944, Dr McCabe reported that the children were not receiving adequate supplies of milk and butter rations. Dripping was used as a substitute for butter.

This matter was taken up by the Department of Education’s Inspector for Industrial and Reformatory Schools, who wrote to the Resident Manager, Sr Bianca, by letter dated 29th February 1944, calling upon her to remedy the situation. No reply was received and the Inspector wrote again on 17th April 1944. By letter dated 26th April 1944, Sr Bianca responded that Dr McCabe’s suggestions had been put into effect ‘as far as has been found practicable’. She reassured the Inspector that every effort was being made to increase the rations of milk and butter for the children.