Chapter 8 — Cappoquin

Physical abuse

A witness, who was admitted to Cappoquin as a baby in the early 1950s, described how a particularly severe beating by one of the Sisters destroyed his trust in the adults who were looking after him. He was in bed and was naked because he had been treated with ointment. One of the lay staff gave him a painting set, which he used to colour two religious statues in the room. He recalled a nun (Sr Adriana he thought) coming into the room and: ... she kind of lost reasoning and, I suppose, from her point of view I was desecrating something very religious but from my point of view I was just painting, you know. She just kept hitting and hitting and wouldn’t stop. So, I ran for the door ... I was running in the dark, I just wanted to get away, I was just running in panic. She just kept hitting, and coming after me down the stairs ... and I kept banging on the door and banging and banging until somebody actually came out and she just kept hitting and hitting until somebody came out and stopped her ... Up to then I would have to say while I got a clout every now and again for not doing something or you got a slap, but it wasn’t with viciousness, not in the same way with viciousness, this was just temper let loose. I don’t know if that person, to me, even if they said sorry, I wouldn’t have understood it, I really wouldn’t have.

The Sister beat him with an ordinary, classroom cane, but it was much worse than punishment in school: It was a cane. About two or three feet long, made of bamboo, with a kind of bend on it like that (indicating) ... they used to use them in the classroom for striking the boards or tables or hitting somebody. But when you have a naked child and you stand back at two or three feet and let fly as an adult the cane doesn’t stop when it hits the flesh, it cuts, you know.

Although this witness was only six or seven when this incident occurred, he was able to distinguish this beating from the ordinary corporal punishment he received from time to time in the School. He had been slapped with the cane before, although it had not been a common occurrence. The beating had a lasting effect: After that I would say that the trust had gone out, the trust had gone out of it. You never, ever would allow people get that close to you and you were always looking for a way out. If somebody raised their voice or anything you would instantly go into fear because I didn’t understand, I didn’t understand the power behind it. I am trying to explain that as a child when somebody does that to you it is the sheer power and the frightedness of it that kind of haunts you, it comes back to you and when any other adult raises their voice the next you expect is the assault coming behind it ...

His recollection of Cappoquin was that younger nuns could not challenge older nuns, even if they saw something wrong: It gave that person then the power ... There is no system, nobody said stop if an older person done something. That’s the way it was, they seemed to rule it, you know.

He described the nun who beat him as being ‘very domineering’, and said that the person who stopped the beating had not challenged her for what she was doing.

He said another nun who was there, Sr Mariella,20 ‘was a very standoffish person, very authoritarian ... She would be more than likely to hit you twice as fast as anybody else’.

Although the younger nuns or novices were able to relate to the children, the older members of the staff were more inclined to punish, ‘[They] believed in punishment for the sake of punishment and that if we punish you enough as a child it will make you a better person, you know’.

He went to Artane when he was 10 years old, and notwithstanding his experiences in Cappoquin still believed that the Sisters there did their best and, in contrast with Artane, genuinely tried to care for the children.

Another ex-resident who was in Cappoquin in the 1970s described the nuns there as ‘unreal’: As far as abuse was concerned. They had the bamboo sticks as long as the handle of a brush ... They would actually beat you wherever they would want to beat you. There is no such thing as put out your hands, they would hit you on the legs, they would hit you on the back. I actually seen one incident where there was actually a chap poked in the eye with it and they had the cheek to turn around and go down to the chapel after it. What they went to the chapel for, I don’t know.

He named two nuns, Sr Carina and Sr Lorenza,21 who he said were particularly severe. In the case of Sr Lorenza, he said that, although she could be nice: ... she could get very contrary. She could be a nice nun. I suppose she could be an understanding nun, we’ll say. But yet if she lost the cool she lost the cool, she wouldn’t spare you any more than Sr Carina would spare you.

A witness, who was admitted to Cappoquin at four years of age in the late 1950s, described a severe beating he received from the Resident Manager.22 He had been called into her office and handed a letter sent to him by his mother. Sr Carina asked him to read it, but he could not read: I remember then I got a beating over that. I remember she beat me so much I ended up down at the wall, at the end of the wall, she had beat me that much. Then at the end of it all she just got the letter and she said "seen as you can’t read the letter it is no good to you" and she tore it up.

He recalled another nun, Sr Mariella, giving him a severe beating because he did not hear a bell ringing. He had just come out of hospital after an operation on his ears and had bandages on, which affected his hearing: ... but I couldn’t hear nothing and all I could see was everybody running. So, I didn’t run. Next thing Sr Mariella started belting me with the cane, all over and she hit me in the ear and I ended up back in there again, back in the hospital.

The witness remembered one nun in Cappoquin with particular fondness: The reason I have always loved Sr Adriana is one particular incident involving again Sr Carina, the time when we went to the toilet, you went to the toilet at certain times, right ... So you were lined up and you were told when to go into the toilet, when it was your turn, in you go, the nun would tell you. It came to me anyway and I didn’t want to go, I didn’t want to, you know what I mean. So with that I was brought back into the office. I must have been about eight, nine at the time, eight at the time. I was brought back into the office. Again I got beaten. I was stripped and put on the, what do you call it, the office desk, she used have a big desk she used have all her things on it. I got put on that, and I was beaten. But when I woke up on that I didn’t wake up on the desk, I woke up in the bed. The first thing I see when I woke up was Sr Adriana. She had one hand on my forehead and she was holding her beads with the other hand. That’s a picture I never forgot and I never will. Because that brought home to me, in later years as I got older, the difference. That there was good and bad. And that’s why I have never blamed the nuns or anyone else for what happened to me. I have never even blamed the Christian Brothers, because that particular incident always stayed in my mind.

Another complainant spoke about a particular incident with Sr Carina: I remember Sr Carina bringing me in between – down on the nun’s side of the School, like, and when I looked at this woman I could see fire in her eyes, like, and I knew what I was expecting from her and I couldn’t prevent it and she caught me and she put me over her knee and she literally whipped the backside off me with her whole hand. She said to me, "I am going to leather you ... until I put blisters on your backside", and she meant it what she said, like. I remember after that I couldn’t sit down. I looked at her hand and her hand was sore red from swinging it. The ring that she was wearing you could see the white of the band, that will just tell you how red her hand was from lashing me, like. She was a good woman herself with the cane, like, you know ... Once or twice that happened to me. Bed-wetting

Given the ages of the children in Cappoquin, it was inevitable that bed-wetting was a major problem. The Sisters of Mercy accepted that there may have been occasions when children ‘were punished and consequently humiliated for bedwetting, and, recognising the deep hurt and trauma this must have caused to the children, apologise sincerely for this’.