Chapter 5 — Family contact

Contact with siblings

One hundred and forty (140) witnesses (20%) reported that they were admitted to out-of-home care because of parental death and the subsequent separation of siblings was reported to have had a devastating impact on familial bonds.

An exception to the frequently reported separation of siblings was the experience of brothers and sisters being admitted to mixed gender Schools where it was expected in a small number of Schools that the oldest sister would look after her younger siblings. This convention was reported by a number of witnesses to have contributed to maintaining a bond between siblings that endured into later life. However, some witnesses reported that these expectations had a negative impact on sibling attachment through placing unreasonable demands on children to assume a parental role. The Committee also heard accounts of older brothers and sisters returning to visit siblings after their discharge. ‘My brother ... visited me once, he was not encouraged and was told by staff not to be in touch, but I held his address in my head and found him ...(following discharge)... and we are now close.’

Parents and relatives

Three hundred and seventy six (376) witnesses (48%), 173 male (42%) and 203 female (54%), reported that contact had been maintained with and by their family for the duration of their stay in the School. Witnesses reported that the most typical opportunities for contact with their siblings, parents and relatives existed through informal visiting arrangements, on monthly visiting Sundays, visits home and to relatives during school holidays, letters and parcels sent by parents and relatives and occasional phone calls. Witnesses from some Schools were allowed to go home for weekends if they lived nearby. Visits and other forms of contact were treated as privileges and could be withheld for a variety of reasons. I got sent away for mitching from school. ... I did not get harmed there, but I never got home for the 5 years ...(of admission).... I was due to go home once but I broke a window with a football and the Brothers would not let me home. • My mother came down to visit me and she was not allowed in because I was all bruised, she had to wait outside while all the others ...(visitors)... were in.

Witnesses also reported that visits home depended on their parents’ ability to pay the necessary transport fare, which in the case of residents at some Schools was a considerable and often unmanageable expense. Many witnesses were placed too far from home to allow for visits and that poverty and distance contributed to loss of family contact. ‘We had no visits from anyone, they were too poor, we were too far away’, ‘You could have a visit once a month, if your mother had the fare, it would be a week’s wages.’ My mother didn’t want me to go to ...named School.... She wanted me to go to ...named School in local town.... She lived near there, but no, I had to go to ...named School....

The continuity of family contact either in the form of visits home or visits from parents and other family members was reported by 71 witnesses as the only good memory they had of their time in the School. Some witnesses described their parents putting considerable effort into maintaining contact with them during their admission. A small number of Schools were reported to have provided assistance and support for parents who had to travel long distances to visit their children. I was one of a large family. I had both brothers and sisters in separate institutions, our mother visited regularly before going to work in the UK. She spent 2 weeks of holidays in Ireland every year, week one with the boys, week 2 with the girls, nuns in ...named School... (helped her).

Female witnesses recalled sitting in parlours with parents and relatives who came to visit. In some Schools nuns were reported to supervise the visits directly by controlling the conversation and determining when the visit was over or by their presence in the same room while parents or others were visiting. Other witnesses reported an awareness of contact with their parents being monitored by external authorities. My mother, she came in ... to see me down the years and took me out twice, she had to get permission from the ...local authorities... this is on the records ...displayed copy of records.... She got permission, it was written down, that I was to be taken out on such a day, at such a time and brought back on such a day at such a time.

The Committee heard reports of parents in poor circumstances being turned away or treated discourteously when they came to visit. Female witnesses reported that some girls’ Schools had a ‘poor parlour’ where impoverished parents or visitors were directed. In particular, witnesses whose parents were members of the Travelling community reported this to be a common occurrence. In a number of boys Schools witnesses were warned prior to family visits they were not to discuss what happened in the School or to talk about being beaten or otherwise abused. The visits in the boys’ Schools were not generally reported to have been overseen in the manner reported by female witnesses.

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.