Chapter 5 — Family contact

Parents and relatives

The involvement of grandparents, aunts and uncles in maintaining family contact was reported by many witnesses to have provided continuing contact in the absence of parents through death, illness or emigration: ‘My mother ...(who had gone to the UK)... visited once, my aunt visited every month even though she had a large family of her own’.

A number of witnesses reported having no contact with their parents apart from occasional visits in the early years of admission, particularly those who reported that their families had disintegrated in circumstances of poverty, illness and death. Others reported feeling abandoned when their parents went to the UK in search of work and an alternative life. Anger was expressed by a number of witnesses towards parents who did not visit or maintain contact with them while they were in the Schools and who in their view demonstrated a lack of care and concern for them in this and other ways in the process of their admission and thereafter. Some witnesses acknowledged that their parents were also victims in circumstances of poverty, illness and both rural and social isolation. My ma came down every month. You had one visit a month, and if she couldn’t come she would send my eldest sister. She ...(mother)... was very religious and if you said anything of beatings she would not believe you. • I had 3 visits in 5 years in ...named School... my mother came to collect a borrowed coat I had worn in Court ...(on the day of admission).... A cousin came to tell me my mother had died; and my sister came to tell me the whole family were moving to England and would send for me when they could. I was allowed out to attend my brother’s funeral.

Many male and female witnesses reported an acute awareness of the protective factor associated with having either family contact while they were resident in the Schools or external contact with concerned adults such as ‘holiday’ families or ‘godparents’. Witnesses believed that residents who had family or other visitors were less likely to be physically or sexually abused. Visitors were seen as people to whom abuse could be disclosed abuse and/or who may act independently to complain about evidence of abuse in the form of bruises or other injuries.

Following discharge

Five hundred and seven (507) witnesses (64%), 247 male (60%) and 260 female (69%), reported some form of contact with parents, siblings and relatives following their discharge from the Schools as follows: One hundred and eighty nine (189) witnesses (24%), 125 male and 64 female, reported that they were discharged from the School to their family home. One hundred and ninety three (193) witnesses (24%), 77 male and 116 female, reported that they were subsequently cared for by extended family, grandparents, aunts, uncles and older siblings. One hundred and twenty five (125) witnesses (16%), 45 male and 80 female, reported having no contact with their parents or siblings until recent years when, through their own efforts, and at times with the assistance of family tracing services, contact was re-established.

Witnesses reported that contact with parents or relatives after their discharge from the Schools was influenced by many factors, in particular their age when they were first admitted and the extent of family contact throughout their admission. The family was supportive and kept in contact, visits, parcels, summer holidays home. I went back home.

The nature of family bonds and the strength of extended family relationships prior to admission were reported by witnesses to have influenced their connection with family when they returned home. Contact of any kind with family members while in the Schools was positively connected to ongoing relationships following their discharge. However while almost three quarters of all witnesses were admitted from the care of either their parents or relatives, fewer than one in four witnesses were discharged to the family home.

Two hundred (200) witnesses (25%), 87 male and 113 female, reported that they lost contact with their extended family one way or another through the process of their institutionalisation. They stated that that being separated from parents, siblings and others with whom they had affectionate bonds was traumatic and had a devastating impact on their emotional development. They were giving a man’s salary to the religious to keep us, me and my sister and brothers, but would not give it to my dad to keep us together. After my mother died, we were very poor. My father would be dressed so poorly when he visited us. The local TD did try to help my father and spoke to ...Ministers of Government... to help my father get us, but he did not succeed.... Once we were split the link was broken, it’s hard to link back up again. We think we can be together, my sisters, but we can’t. • My mother tried to get me out when I was 15. She tried, she wrote to ...the Government Minister.... Br ...X...he wrote to her and said “no he is better off here”.... My mother she wrote every week, she had it hard too. We were branded as criminals when we came out just because we were poor. • My father, he tried so many times to get us back and they would not let him have us. I did not know where he was ...(when discharged)... he tried really hard. I think he gave up in the end, I remember him crying from the time he came in ...(to visit)... ’til the time he left ...(contact had been lost).... I didn’t even know he was dead ...crying.... He always came to see us.

Admission arrangements were also described as having an impact on the subsequent contact between siblings following discharge. When sibling groups were admitted to out-of-home care, sisters who were placed together in the same School were more likely to maintain contact following discharge. In circumstances where their brothers were placed in separate Schools subsequent contact was more often minimal, and frequently lost, following discharge. We are all strangers, we don’t know each other, we were all destroyed in our heads, the family is split up, but in touch, the years of separation did too much damage.

Thirty three (33) witnesses reported that they were given inaccurate information about their parents, including being told that they had no parents or that they were dead and discovering in recent years, following search and tracing, that this was not the case. I was told about 15 years ago my mother was dead, they told me all my records were destroyed. ...Then... after 47 years I had contact with my mother, I picked up the phone and she said “it’s your mum”.

A number of witnesses also learned in later years that their parents had visited or written to them but that the contact was denied and letters were not passed on. Such discoveries were particularly distressing for witnesses who learned they had unknowingly lived near their parents and/or other relatives for much of their adult lives. Other witnesses reported learning about the existence of parents and relatives after their mother or father had died and experienced a double loss as a result. The nuns told me my mother was dead, they said “do you see that star up there, well she is up there”. Then a few years ago, I got a phone call to say my mother was dead ...(had just died).... ... I’m in such shock, I can’t believe it. I asked some questions and then said “it’s got to be my mother”, if only I had been given a chance to see her, to say goodbye and to say “look mum I understand and I forgive”.

The upset and associated loss of secure relationships that followed separation from parents and siblings was reported by almost all witnesses, including those who had no known family. In different ways this experience of loss of family left a mark on each witness’s memory and was a background to their reports on life in the Schools. The following chapters outline the everyday routine of institutional life reported by the witnesses and the types of abuse they experienced and wished to report.