Chapter 8 — Cappoquin

Neglect

The children had not in fact put on weight and still looked undernourished. She suggested that a letter be sent to the Manager with the following recommendations: To increase butter from 7lbs to 30 lbs per week; To introduce chips fried in dripping several times per week; To give all children a cup of milk or soup at 11am.

In an internal Departmental report dated 9th September 1944, the opening sentence set the tone, and went on to describe the appalling state of affairs that continued to exist: This is another school run by the Sisters of Mercy which has a long record of semi-starvation. Dr. McCabe’s report following her inspection last November disclosed such an appalling state of affairs that we went over the head of the resident manager and issued an ultimatum to the Manager. Dr. McCabe’s latest report shows how far we have got. Out of 75 boys, 61 are under the normal weight for their age-height groups by from 3 lbs. to 21 lbs. The butter ration is exactly the same as it was in November, 1943 – 7 lbs. (At 6 ozs. per head it should be 28 lbs.) The boys continue to look pinched, wizened and wretched and look lamentably different from normal children. It is abundantly clear that the only hope of the required improvement lies in drastic action. The first and most obvious step is the removal of the present resident manager. Dr. McCabe informs me that she is a ruthless domineering person who resents any criticism and challenges advice. Her explanation of the children’s failure to gain weight – their "activity" – rivals Marie Antoinette’s "why don’t they eat cake?". She has bedded down long since into a groove out of which she cannot be shifted by some annual criticism, and it seems clear that she holds the manager in the hollow of her hand. I see no hope of improvement while she continues in office. The state of affairs existing in this school is so deplorable and indefensible that I think further strong action is required. I suggest that payment of the state grant be suspended for three months and, that the manager be informed that there will be a special inspection say, early next December. If that inspection shows that the underfeeding has ceased and that the weights generally are on the increase and tending towards normality, payment will be resumed. If not, consideration must be given to the withdrawal of the certificate. I might mention that Dr. McCabe’s account of the nuns’ schools generally is most alarming. Underfeeding is widespread. In fact, she tells me that in only one school Kinsale – is she completely satisfied with the diet. The general rule is what she describes as a bare "maintenance diet" – sufficient to keep children from losing weight but not enough to enable them to put on weight at anything approaching the normal rate. A third junior boys’ school run by the Sisters of Mercy – Passage West – is in the same category as Rathdrum and Cappoquin, and she proposes to visit it again shortly. She is strongly of opinion that we must hit the schools in their purses by threatening to stop grants – and stopping them if necessary in one or two of the worst cases – if we are to effect an improvement. This was followed by a series of notes between [the] (Inspector of Reformatories and Industrial Schools) and Dr McCabe. [The Inspector] was reluctant to take such drastic action as recommended by the Chief Inspector especially as he felt stopping the funds might make it worse for the children. Dr McCabe felt the only way to bring about improvement was to hit the school through the purse strings as similar action in other schools had brought about change. A decision was taken to insist on the removal of the Resident Manager with a follow up special inspection in three months. If conditions had not improved by then the grant was to be suspended. A further suggestion was mooted, to approach the Bishop of the Diocese, if things did not improve under the new Resident Manager.

On 21st September 1944, a statutory request from the Minister to remove the Resident Manager was sent to the Superior of the convent. This was accompanied by a strongly worded letter, setting out in detail why the Department could not allow the present state of affairs to continue: The Minister for Education has had before him the report of the Medical Inspector following on her recent visit to St. Michael’s Industrial School, Cappoquin, and has learned with regret that the physical condition of the children continues to be most unsatisfactory. Only ten boys have reached the normal weight for their age. Sixty-one boys are below the normal weight by amounts ranging from 3lbs. to 21lbs. I have already informed you that the Minister cannot allow this state of affairs to continue. Repeated representations to the Resident Manager having failed to bring about the desired improvement, I am directed by the Minister to inform you that he is satisfied that the Resident Manager has failed to discharge efficiently the duties of her position and that she is unsuitable to discharge those duties, and I enclose a statutory request to you to remove her from her position.

The letter went on to state that, if St Michael’s was to continue as a certified industrial school, it would be necessary ‘to effect a radical improvement in the feeding and care of the children’.

To achieve this end, a Resident Manager who would take ‘an active and sympathetic interest’ in the welfare of the children would have to be appointed, and she would have to comply with the suggestions and advice of the Medical Inspector.

The Superior responded with a letter dated 10th October 1944, and asked that the Resident Manager be allowed stay on and promised that things would improve.

The Minister, by letter dated 20th October 1944, refused to withdraw the statutory request. He again wrote on 6th and 7th November 1944, as he had not heard from the School about the new Resident Manager. On 11th November 1944, the Department received a telegram from the Superior to the effect that ‘the suggested arrangements at St. Michael’s School have been in effect since 21st ultimo’. The Department understood this to mean that a new Resident Manager had been appointed.

The Department then wrote to the Superior on 15th November 1944 and asked for the appropriate form to be completed with regard to the new Resident Manager. This elicited the following response from the Superior: Immediately on receiving a negative reply (22/10/44) to my request, that the then Resident Manager of St Michael’s School, be allowed to hold the position provisionally, I appointed Sr. [Adriana]2 to fill the post. I thought it well to defer notifying this waiting the Inspector’s visit. The strong censure contained in your Communication came as no small surprise, as apart from the failure of the children to put on weight we had no reason to think that Dr. McCabe was not satisfied with the general status of the School.

The Superior wrote to Dr McCabe directly on 27th November 1944 and suggested they meet to discuss the situation.

When the Department received the letter advising them of Sr Adriana’s appointment, the Inspector of Industrial and Reformatory Schools sought Dr McCabe’s views, particularly in the light of the fact that the appointment papers revealed that Sr Adriana was in her mid-60s. In a handwritten note, Dr McCabe described Sr Adriana as second in command to the previous Resident Manager: She is completely under the influence of the previous occupant of the post. She is a bit of a martinet and in my opinion unsympathetic to children. In short, she is unsuitable for the appointment.

On 22nd December 1944, the Inspector wrote to the Superior, setting out all the points that had led to the decision to request the removal of the Resident Manager. He also pointed out that the new Resident Manager was unsuitable by reason of her age and her identification with the previous unsatisfactory regime: The unsuitability of the appointment is emphasised by the special circumstances in St. Michael’s. As I pointed out to you in the course of our long correspondence early this year, the Minister for Education is satisfied that the former Resident Manager persisted, in the face of repeated representations from the Medical Inspector and the Department, in maintaining an inadequate scale of diet for the children.

The letter went on to remind the Superior that the diet was to have been improved: Yet, when the Medical Inspector visited the school in August last, she found that the medical charts, far from showing the normal increase in weight which would inevitably have followed upon such an improvement in the diet, indicated that the weights generally were about the same as they had been on the occasion of her previous inspection in November, 1943. Generally speaking, there was no significant increase in weight at all.

The Inspector went on to say that because the Resident Manager had been: identified so long with this unfortunate state of affairs and had shown herself so unwilling to take the advice or act upon the recommendations of the Medical Inspector or the Department that it was felt that no improvement could be hoped for while she continued to hold office.

Because the new Resident Manager, Sr Adriana, had acted as assistant to the former Resident Manager, and because she was older than her predecessor, the Inspector regarded it as unreasonable to expect her to implement the ‘fundamental changes and improvements’ that were necessary.

He went on to address the Superior’s surprise at the strong censure contained in his previous letter: I would impress upon you that this Department could have no graver charge against any school than that the children are not properly fed. As you said in your letter of 5th April last, health is one of the few advantages that will probably fall to their future lot, and underfeeding in their tender formative years constitutes the gravest threat to their enjoyment of it. The position of Resident Manager in a school like Cappoquin calls for a young, active, Sister who is sympathetic and kindly disposed towards children, and preferably one who has been trained as a nurse.