Chapter 7 — Record of abuse (male witnesses)

Emotional abuse

As previously reported, witnesses were routinely humiliated by the methods used to punish residents for bed-wetting. Fifty two (52) witnesses described the humiliation associated with having to wear wet sheets on their head and in other ways endure public embarrassment. Twenty three (23) witnesses said that they were constantly ridiculed when called offensive names by staff, such as ‘slasher’ and ‘smelly’.

Other witnesses reported being forced to carry out certain tasks intended to punish and humiliate both themselves and other residents. Examples of such tasks were being made to watch steps for three hours ‘so as to be sure they were still there’, kneel in their underpants in the yard for hours, being forced to run into a wall and injure themselves in front of co-residents and to repeatedly shift a load of potatoes from one side of a shed to the other over an entire day. Another witness described a co-resident’s punishment for giving him extra bread: He ...(co-resident)... had to carry the food down to the turkeys and then he had to kneel in with the turkeys and have his bread and water in there. That was his punishment for 3 weeks. • If you did a job like bring in the coal, there might be some extra food. You’d stand with your plate at the end of the table ...(in the refectory)... and waiting to be called. There would only be a few pieces of food and you wanted to make sure you got a bit. He’d ...(lay ancillary worker)... call you up and then when you were half way up he’d say “false alarm” and you’d have to go back with nothing. They do that to small children. ... These are the things that stay in you, it happened so many times.

Four (4) witnesses reported that as native Irish speakers they were ridiculed about their poor spoken English. Others with speech impediments reported being made to read aloud in front of others and were both ridiculed and punished for their lack of fluency. Witnesses who had a disability described being subjected to additional ridicule; for example a witness who had a physical deformity described being made the target of ridicule by staff during communal bath time. Witnesses remarked that while children in day schools may have suffered similar ridicule, those in the Schools lived with it all the time.

One hundred and twenty (120) witnesses reported being constantly afraid. They described a range of circumstances in which they were in fear for their own and others’ safety. In a number of different Schools witnesses described their experience as a ‘living hell’, ‘pure terror’, and ‘mental torture’ referring to being beaten, the anticipation of being beaten and the sight of others being beaten. Eleven (11) witnesses reported the fear and threat of harm being so extreme that they feared for both their own lives and for the safety of their co-residents. Five (5) witnesses reported co-residents were never seen again following particularly severe beatings. All five believed that these residents, three of whom were from the same School, may have died. There were some Brothers there who were A1. ... Then there was ...crying... ...Br ...X..., nasty bastard. The man doesn’t deserve to be called Brother. I was only 5 feet away the day it happened ...crying.... He had a habit, every day ... he’d walk up and down the refectory, that was his ritual. If he walked in everyone was on edge.... I’m not sure why but this evening he Br ...X... walked straight down the passage way and he dragged ...named co-resident... out of his chair ...crying... and he gave him an unmerciful beating, an unmerciful beating. I’m telling ye he did not stop with that leather strap. Now all the Brothers used to carry the leather strap, but I’m telling ye, you wouldn’t beat an animal the way he beat ...named co-resident.... To this day it haunts me, the whole place was full and he was left lying. Br ...X... cleared the place out, you all had to get out of the refectory, I was even told to get out of the kitchen. That was the last time, the very last time, I seen ...named co-resident.... I think it was 3 days afterwards I heard he was dead.... It has haunted me. After that Br...X... quietened down for awhile. I think he knew anyway.... • You were in constant fear, you were terrified all the time. There would be a sudden explosion of punishment as the poor souls were thrashed or whacked. In class I would be so fearful I would be shaking as the Brother passed, who might hit you for no reason. ... In the first 4 years ... I was filled with fear and terror, for yourself and for the next one to you. I would shut myself down and make myself invisible, I must not be seen or heard. You could be punished for anything at anytime and for nothing at anytime.... I resented someone exploding and beating someone senseless just because they were in a bad mood. • Fear is what we were ruled by and every day you lived in fear, as those so called Brothers, lay staff and older boys, either appointed or self-appointed head boys, could do what they liked to you for even the slightest wrong and you had no one to turn to. You just had to try and keep your head down and get on with it. • Everything operated on fear, you suffered, and you suffered big time, some physical, some mental. You could be put facing the wall for 2 hours, you would have your nose touching the wall, and if you moved at all, you’d suffer, it was mental suffering as well. You also had to put your fingers touching the wall, whoever ...(Br X)... was on rec...(supervisory duty in recreation area)... would watch you and if you moved you’d have to go to his office later and be leathered ... it was an inhuman way of treating people.

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.