Chapter 5 — Family contact

Following discharge

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.