Chapter 8 — Cappoquin

Neglect

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.

He concluded by arranging that Dr McCabe would visit the following month to discuss this and other outstanding matters, such as the accommodation limit, fire precautions etc, with the Superior.

The Department’s reservations regarding the suitability of the new Resident Manager were not acted upon. Dr McCabe visited the School on 27th February 1945 and, in a detailed handwritten report dated 12th March 1945, she advised the Department that the food had improved and the children had gained weight. She was still not happy, however, as she found that children had dirty necks and ears and, when this was drawn to the Manager’s attention, she said it was as a result of the boys playing about in the turf. Dr McCabe did not feel that this was from where the dirt had emanated.