Chapter 9 — Clifden

Neglect

She stated that children were sent to families in Galway and surrounding counties for holidays from the 1960s, in an effort to give the children some idea of what family life was like.

Many of the complainants have bitter memories of the absence of any effort on the part of the Sisters to maintain links with their families and, in some cases, the derogatory manner in which the Sisters referred to their families.

Sr Carmella was of the view that the children had little knowledge of the outside world and were insular in their outlook: They hadn’t an idea what family life was like. I remember a child asking me – she saw an ad in the paper for Stork margarine, it was a family sitting around the table and she said to me, “is that what a family is like?” They hadn’t a clue. They hadn’t an idea what a dwelling house was like. They were used to big rooms and big utensils and everything big. They just didn’t have a clue, until they went out on holidays later on.

She found her years teaching the industrial school children very fulfilling: ‘I felt that I was taking the place of their parents and the majority of them could confide in me’.

She agreed that there were some children who should never have been in the School and would have been better off at home. The system had no means of catering for children who required extra care and attention, or bright children whose talents could have been fostered.

The geographical location of Clifden made it almost impossible for children to remain in contact with family. Preparation for departure/aftercare

Mr Granville made a number of references in his inspection reports to the deficiency in aftercare facilities and the lack of co-ordination of such facilities between the School and the Health Board.

Sr Margaret Casey said that the children received industrial training, which consisted of tuition in crafts, needlework, knitting, laundry, housekeeping, gardening, minding young children and serving in the parlour: ‘this was seen as industrial training and as an effort to prepare them for life after the industrial school and for future employment’. She accepted that, until 1969, the primary career envisaged for the children was a career in domestic service.

Former residents complained that they were not given any advance notice that they were due to leave the Institution.

One witness, a resident in Clifden during the late 1950s and 1960s, stated that she was told the morning she left that she would be leaving Clifden that day. The nuns had organised a job for her in the laundry of a hospital in Galway.

Another witness, who spent over five years in Clifden from the late 1950s when she was 10 years old, is adamant that she left the Institution, months after her sixteenth birthday, contrary to certain Department and Sisters of Mercy records. However, the Department pupil file for this witness appears to substantiate her claim. The file shows that her height and weight were measured approximately three months after her sixteenth birthday. She confronted a Sister about this at the time who responded, ‘You are nothing but a pauper’. When she did eventually leave, she was not given advance notice.

The positive witness proposed by the Congregation who gave evidence also spoke about being retained after her sixteenth birthday, and stated that Sr Roberta decided when girls could leave and that her word was law.

Emotional abuse

Sr Margaret Casey conceded: at the very least that the individual needs of the child could not be addressed, that each child’s potential could not be known or realised so we do accept that some children experienced life there as being harsh and also impersonal, in fact even abusive. For this we are deeply sorry.

She puts this down in part to the fact that the child-staff ratio was very high until the 1970s, and in part to the lack of training for staff in childcare.

She was asked whether there was, in effect, an embargo on showing affection. Sr Casey accepted that Sisters were discouraged from showing affection to the children, and said that this had to be viewed in the context of the vows taken by the Sisters when entering religious life. Rather than showing love and affection to one person, you measured out the same degree of affection to everyone.