Chapter 7 — Record of abuse (male witnesses)

Emotional abuse

A cause of considerable fear that was recounted by 59 witnesses from nine Schools was the prospect of being stripped to be beaten or having to watch co-residents being beaten without their clothes. Such beatings were frequently in front of co-residents and staff and in public areas such as the dormitories, refectories and recreation yards. One boy tried to abscond, it was Br ...X’s... class. There was an incident and he ...(Br X)... got the whole class to come to the classroom, there were 2 other Brothers there too. This Br ...X... took his tunic off, and he had a striped shirt with, not a collar but a half collar on it and he had braces on. I will never forget, I can see it to this day. They took this boy’s pants off and put him over a form, a type of stool, you know a long stool, and he beat the living daylights out of him. He got the biggest hiding of his life with a leather strap with coins in it, you could see the track of them on his skin. Br ...X... threw water on him. A lot of the boys watching got sick, listening to the screaming like that, no pants on, you know, it was like watching Mutiny on the Bounty. That boy was not able to walk for a month.

Witnesses described the staff and others who abused them as creating an atmosphere of fear to augment control that they reported was reinforced in many Schools by the use of military-like regimentation. Examples of regimentation included: marching in formation, using whistles in place of verbal commands, public punishments, placing boys on a ‘charge’ for misbehaving and patrolling the yards and dormitories with sticks. Br ...X... he was brutality personified. The moment he came out into a yard of 150 boys playing, cheering, laughing there was silence. When you just saw him in his long soutane, silence, he marched in, blew the whistle and you would automatically line up in your lines of 12. If he ...(Br X)... blew the whistle, within 10 seconds you would not hear a sound, 150 boys were in line within ten seconds or otherwise you knew you were in for punishment. ... When he was in charge the life of every boy went into a depression, he was that cruel. Every day at 4 o’ clock on the dot we were lined up in the yard and the punishment names were called out, those boys would have to line up in front of the others, roll up their sleeves and get their beating for bed-wetting.

Witnesses reported being particularly fearful at night as they listened to residents screaming in cloakrooms, dormitories or in a staff member’s bedroom while they were being abused. Witnesses were conscious that co-residents whom they described as orphans had a particularly difficult time: The orphan children, they had it bad. I knew ...(who they were)... by the size of them, I’d ask them and they’d say they come from ...named institution.... They were there from an early age. You’d hear the screams from the room where Br ...X... would be abusing them. • There was one night, I wasn’t long there and I seen one of the Brothers on the bed with one of the young boys ... and I heard the young lad screaming crying and Br ...X... said to me “if you don’t mind your own business you’ll get the same”. ... I heard kids screaming and you know they are getting abused and that’s a nightmare in anybody’s mind. You are going to try and break out. ... So there was no way I was going to let that happen to me.... I remember one boy and he was bleeding from the back passage and I made up my mind, there was no way it ...(anal rape)... was going to happen to me. ... That used to play on my mind.

In addition to the constant fear of being beaten or watching others being beaten, 15 witnesses reported that following a severe beating they were left with the threat that the beating would continue at a later time. Anticipating further abuse and the dread associated with the uncertainty was described by witnesses as particularly distressing. You are standing up against the wall for hours and then you are told to come back the next night and the following night and you knew damn well you were going to get the hiding of your life.

Five (5) witnesses from two Schools described the terror they experienced when threatened with guns by staff. As previously reported, seven witnesses from three Schools reported being set upon and injured by dogs handled by religious and lay staff, some of whom also handled or threatened them with guns. One witness described a gun being discharged by a religious staff member who was pursuing him across a field. Another witness who had been previously assaulted was further terrified when his abuser carried a gun; Once, I had been there about 3 months, it was the autumn, and Br ...X... who assaulted me when I first arrived. He called me and he had a shot gun, he gave me an axe. He took me off to the woods and he made me take my trousers down, he took out his penis and he tried to rape me but I ran away and found my way back to the School. Later I met him and he gave me a half crown.

The allocation of age-inappropriate tasks on farms, operating machinery and tending livestock were reported at times as exposing the witnesses to frightening situations, as this work was often performed by them on their own, unsupervised or under the direction of particularly harsh staff.

Twenty eight (28) witnesses reported being subjected to ridicule about their parents and families, most often in public in the course of being abused. The sons of lone mothers, ‘orphans’ or ‘conventers’ were reported as particular targets for such abuse, being told that their mothers were ‘sinners’, ‘slags’ and ‘old whores’ who did not want them or could not care for them. Others reported hearing their families described as ‘scum’, ‘tramps’ and ‘from the gutter’. Witnesses admitted to institutions in the context of family difficulties reported being subjected to the constant denigration of their parents. Witnesses recalled being constantly told their parents were ‘alcoholics’, ‘prostitutes’, ‘mad’ and ‘no good’. Seven (7) witnesses reported being verbally abused and ridiculed about their Traveller and mixed race backgrounds. ‘Br ...X... called me a knacker and said my parents didn’t want me, I felt worthless and degraded.’ It was a very tough place for me, one nun locked me in a closet, beat the hell out of me with a leather strap. She didn’t like blacks, she called me Baluba, every time the Irish soldiers were attacked in the Congo she attacked me.

Sixty seven (67) witnesses reported being deprived of contact with their parents, brothers and sisters while they were in the Schools. They also reported being actively denied information about their parents and siblings. Some witnesses commented that they were too young when they were first admitted to know who their brothers or sisters were and were never told. The deprivation and loss of contact with parents and siblings was reported to be a matter of deep distress, grief and anger that led to the fragmentation and loss of family networks by the time many witnesses were discharged from the Schools: We were all split up and we still are, 5 of us were in 4 different Schools. One brother, I did not know of his existence until I was 13 ...(years old).... • I found out after 50 plus years that I had a brother, my brother was looking for me for 20 years and he couldn’t find me. He was fostered out, he had a better life. He knew he had a brother. I was never sure but he was younger than me. It made an awful difference to me to meet him, it is brilliant like, it’s a great thing. Why, why did they break us all up? Why didn’t they leave the 2 of us together? They didn’t have to break us up. They should have told us about each other.

Forty four (44) witnesses described how contact with their siblings was actively discouraged or denied. They reported being separated from their sisters and brothers while in the Schools and being denied contact with them. Witnesses also reported being punished if found attempting to communicate with their siblings who were in other sections of the same School. Some witnesses reported that their brothers were transferred or discharged from the School without them being told or having an opportunity to say goodbye and as one witness remarked: ‘in time I forgot I had brothers’. Twelve (12) witnesses reported learning as adults that they had spent several years in the same place with a brother without ever knowing he existed, and others spoke of their loss of contact with sisters who were in nearby Schools. A witness, whose sisters were in the local girls Industrial School reported: I was absolutely devastated, when I discovered my sisters were down the road in ...named School.... I know them now, but I don’t know them, we never were meshed, we have occasional contact. I never met them while I was in ...named School.... At 13 years I met my sisters, someone said “they are your sisters”. I didn’t know what a sister was. • I remember talking to a boy in ...named School... who asked me my name and said he thought we were brothers, he then left. I now know it was my brother, and I have discovered not long ago that I have 3 other brothers and sisters. • I didn’t find out I had 3 sisters until I was 21 years of age. ... I didn’t know if my father was alive or not, I didn’t know my mother. I ended up in a place I didn’t know, I was 4 years ...(there).... ... I met my grandmother and she said to me “it wasn’t for the want of trying” ...(that contact was not maintained).... She told me none of my family were allowed to have any information about where anyone of us were. I had 2 brothers, they were there with me. I have no family recollection. ...(When discharged)... I left for England and never wanted to come back.

A small number of witnesses reported that personal and family information was deliberately denied and withheld by failure to inform residents of their family details. Eighteen (18) witnesses reported being told that their parent or parents were dead or that they had no family and learned as adults that this was not the case. They told me that my mother was dead and that it was no wonder as I was a bad boy, that it was my fault. I grew up thinking I had killed her somehow. Recently I discovered that she only died ...(a few years previously)... and that for most of our lives we lived quite near each other.

The Committee heard reports from four witnesses of their siblings being adopted while they were in the Schools. Witnesses from a small number of Schools described being lined up and viewed by visiting couples who they believed selected a child for adoption. A small number of witnesses reported that their siblings ‘disappeared’ and they discovered later they had been adopted. Witnesses consistently reported that they got no further information and there was no further contact once their sibling left. One witness reported he was the only member of his family who remained in the School: One day he ...(witness’s brother)... was there, the next day he was gone. It was like a slave market, you were all lined up, people walking up and down, they picked him out and left me. ... The family were separated forever on the day we went into care.

A small number of witnesses reported not being told when parents or close family members died and of not being allowed to attend their funerals. They commented that they were often given this information some time after the event. A witness who represented his School in boxing competitions reported that the news of his mother’s death was withheld for three months ‘so as not to take my mind off boxing’, hesitated: ‘they tried to break your spirit there’.

Twenty three (23) witnesses reported being denied visits home for holidays and that letters were withheld as punishment. The morning the boys were going home it was a nightmare ...(for those deprived of home visits as punishment).... They would get up, have their cup of tea, then they would be down in the hall with their little suitcases or whatever. We would be up in the dormitory looking out the window at them going up... to the bus. I never heard so many children screaming in all my life ...distressed.... I lost my privileges once, I was caught smoking. My mother tried to intervene with the Minister for Education, but he said no you have to do it according to the rules or whatever. I lost my holidays over it.

Circumstances surrounding the denial of contact with parents, withholding family information and the provision of false information about parents were reported by witnesses to be the cause of profound and unresolved upset and anger. What kills me to this day is why they did not give me my belongings when I left ...named School.... My things, who my mum was and where I was born and where she was from. I felt hurt, I had to wait 50 odd years to see an ad in ...English newspaper.... Why the Brothers did not give me that ...information... who my mum was ...crying .... I talk to her friend now and she ...(mother)... always tried to find me. She used to look at the kids going up to school and she used be always talking about what age she thought I ought to be. She always spoke about me when she seen the kids and she wondered whether I was alive or whether I was dead. Why was I not given that information? Why was I not told? I made inquiries, but I had nothing to go on.

There were 99 witness reports of bullying by co-residents from 16 Schools. The practice of bullying in this section refers mainly to the intimidating and aggressive behaviour reported by witnesses in relation to co-residents. Threats of physical violence, intimidation and bullying by religious and lay staff while also referred to is described in more detail in the context of physical, sexual and emotional abuse reports. Explicit and implicit threats of physical harm were the most frequently described demonstrations of bullying by male staff. Witnesses reported being forced to behave as they were instructed by the threat of punishment or physical abuse.