Chapter 9 — Record of abuse (female witnesses)

Neglect

The following table details the distribution of neglect reports according to the witnesses’ discharge period.

Decade of discharge	Number of neglect reports	%
Pre-1960s	131	35
1960-69	170	45
1970-79	67	18
1980-89	6	2
Total	374	100

The distribution of neglect reports for the decades of discharge are similar to those reported by witnesses for physical abuse. Ninety six percent (96%) of reports of neglect by female witnesses were in conjunction with physical abuse.

This Report categorises neglect of care under the headings of food, clothing, heat, hygiene, bedding, healthcare, education, supervision and preparation for discharge, all categories that were referred to by witnesses with varying levels of detail. As throughout the Report, there was inevitable overlap between the different categories of neglect and other types of abuse. Witnesses described the impact of the reported neglect on their social and emotional welfare, and many reported the particularly vulnerable position of orphans and those who had little family contact. The girls from the workhouse ...(orphans)... they were treated worse, they suffered worse. ... When we were out for a walk we would bring them back bits of chewing gum and haws that we found on the hedges and on the ground, we were all so hungry and they didn’t get out. ... (Orphans)... clothes were different, big patched knickers, boots with no soles in them.

Hunger, together with the inadequate provision and poor quality of food, was the area of neglect most consistently reported by witnesses. There were 335 witness reports of the food provided to residents being of poor quality and/or inadequate quantity. These reports referred to 37 Schools across all the decades from which there were neglect reports. One hundred and sixty eight (168) witnesses (46%) described being constantly hungry, and at times ‘starving’, while resident in the Schools. The constant state of hunger led to witnesses attempting to supplement their diet in whatever way they could. ‘If you saw anybody eating anything you just went up and grabbed it, we were always hungry.’ A cup of cocoa and one slice of bread for breakfast. Lunch was cold soupy type thing, lumpy potato, you were so hungry you’d eat it. Then in the afternoon it was scraps, bits of stale bread ... we’d be killing each other to get as much as we could, trample each other. We were all like vultures, like dogs eating off the ground to get as much as we could. We were so hungry. ... You were always looking out for a bit of food, the teacher’s dining room, you’d run in and grab what was left.... Or you’d get the key of the pantry and go in you were so hungry.

Prior to the 1960s many Schools had bakeries associated with the kitchens. Working in the bakeries and kitchens allowed access to the pantry, extra bread and leftover food. Seventy (70) witnesses described taking food, if and when they had the opportunity, as a means of survival. Witnesses reported taking food from the kitchens and pantries and also reported taking fruit and vegetables from the nun’s kitchens, orchards, glasshouses and vegetable gardens. They recalled ‘stealing’ apples and sweets from shops in the town, ‘stealing’ lunches from day pupils and fruit from local orchards. In addition to food taken in this manner 53 witnesses said that they foraged for leftover scraps and took animal food and slops intended for the farm animals or from ash pits in the gardens where kitchen refuse was dumped. Witnesses described fighting with co-residents for the contents of the scrap bucket from the nun’s kitchen. One witness remembered with gratitude a staff member who worked in the School’s staff kitchen: I never had enough, I used to eat from the bins. There was a nun in the kitchen, she was an angel, Sr ...X.... I can honestly say she was an angel, she used to throw food away in such a way that it didn’t get ...pause... contaminated you’d say now. She threw it away in such a way that we’d get it, she put it in a place she knew you would get it. She was very good, she’d leave apple skins and something that was nice.... A boiled egg, I used to love, but we got them very rare. I was always hungry. If you were punished you were put starving anyway. I used to be caught picking food out of the bins and you would be put starving, for 2 or 3 days, you wouldn’t be given anything, all meals ...(were stopped)... for a couple of days.

Twenty seven (27) witnesses provided reports of seeing and preparing more plentiful and appetising food in the Sisters’ kitchens and dining rooms. Serving food to clergy, staff and visitors in the parlours allowed illicit access to some of this food. A small number of witnesses recalled being sent to post food parcels to nun’s relatives at Christmas time and of potatoes and other food being given to visiting professionals to take away with them. I was hungry all the time. I was caught robbin’ bread and they were all told not to talk to me. ... I was working in the kitchen and you’d see the carved roast for the convent but you never got it. You might get the leftovers if you worked in the kitchen.

Witnesses said that poor supervision by staff during meals resulted in older residents taking food from younger and more vulnerable co-residents. It was also reported that some witnesses took the food and milk provided for infants and younger residents they were looking after in the nurseries.

Twenty two (22) witnesses provided accounts of eating grass, leaves and berries. They reported that they ate field crops including oats, ‘crows’ bread’, ‘bread and cheese leaves’, ‘sally grass’ and juice from rose stems, hawthorn berries and apple cores, orange peels and chewing gum from the pavement. Others reported eating flowers, eggshells, candles, glue and, in the reports of two witnesses, the pink ointment used to treat boils. I was always going around looking for food. If I was down the town and someone threw away an apple core I would pick it up off the ground and eat it.

Twenty six (26) witnesses reported on the lack of access to drinking water, and stated that drinking from the toilet bowl was their only means of obtaining water. They described being given nothing to drink except what was provided during their mealtimes. This practice was reported in relation to 10 Schools and to have continued in some Schools until the 1970s. You’d be more thirsty than anything else, we’d drink water out of the toilets, there would be little worms in the water, the older girls would show us how to spit them out like that ...demonstrated.... But you weren’t afeared ...(afraid).... It was the nuns you feared.

Reports regarding food from witnesses discharged in the 1970s and 1980s were more concentrated on the type of food than the quantity of food provided. Witnesses said they were expected to eat food they did not like and were not offered any choice in what they had to eat. They also reported that access to food was strictly limited to meal times.

The Committee heard 277 witness reports of poor facilities for the provision and maintenance of personal hygiene in 35 Schools across all the decades, with particular emphasis on those discharged prior to 1970. Many of the hygiene practices were described as primitive and degrading.

The use of communal and shared baths was reported to be a common practice. A small number of Schools were reported to have large communal baths where many residents were bathed together. Others had regular bathtubs that were shared by more than one resident at a time and consecutive groups used the same water. ‘You would line up naked, you would be with your own age group but your dignity was taken, the same bath, same water for everyone.’ Bathing was reported to take place at the end of the week, usually on a fortnightly or monthly basis, and coincided with the distribution of clean underclothes. There were several reports from witnesses discharged before 1960 where baths were provided infrequently in tubs with water carried from the kitchens. Cold-water baths were reported as routine in one School in the pre-1960s period unless the laundry was in operation. In other Schools, cold-water baths were reported as punishment for bed-wetting: ‘Cold bath if you wet the bed, otherwise you had to put on this frock going into the bath in front of others’. Witnesses said that the furnace was lit to provide hot water for the laundry and residents were then bathed in laundry tubs. Witnesses had to dry themselves with large sheets and towels shared by many co-residents. In one School residents were bathed in tubs in an outside building and waited in line without clothes in the open air. By contrast, in other Schools modesty was closely monitored when bathing, residents in those Schools had to wear a chemise when they were in the bath. Older residents were reported to wash younger co-residents under this garment and great care was taken to keep one’s body covered at all times. You got in to the bath with the chemise and there were 2 nuns holding a big sheet so you got out and went into the toilet to dress, still in the chemise.

Witnesses discharged prior to 1960 reported that in some Schools residents shared toothbrushes, other witnesses reported having no toothbrushes and cleaned their teeth with their fingers dipped in salt. The majority of witnesses had no individual toiletries, including toothbrushes, toothpaste and soap, which they reported were put in the bathrooms before inspections and later removed.

Ninety one (91) witnesses reported that arrangements for the management of menstruation were poor or non-existent in relation to almost all Schools across all decades covered by this Report. Witnesses from four Schools stated that there were no sanitary towels provided for their use. Residents were obliged to use newspaper, rags and whatever suitable material they could find as substitutes. In a number of Schools witnesses described being provided with reusable sanitary cloths. In the period up to the 1960s it was commonplace for residents to hand-wash their own sanitary cloths, the adequate provision of which was frequently problematic as they were carefully rationed. Witnesses from 13 Schools reported that in addition to their own, they also had to hand wash nun’s personal garments including sanitary towels. Witnesses stated that the poor facilities for bathing and the changing of personal garments led to considerable discomfort, chapped skin, rashes and offensive personal odours. And the periods, queuing up for sanitary towels, you got 2 that was it. It was horrible, you would smell. You would wash them out and put them back on wet.

Four (4) Schools were reported to have dry toilets prior to 1960; these toilets were outside and unlit. Cleaning toilets and clearing blocked drains was a work task reported as given to residents without protection for their hands and minimal washing facilities. At night time chamber pots were provided under beds for residents of all ages in most Schools prior to the 1960s. In one School a witness reported that ‘a bucket in a cupboard was the only toilet for 50 girls locked in the dormitory overnight’. The toilets were always overflowing, it was terrible, we kept ...(cleaned)... them, the girls, you had to keep the toilets the same as the floors, we unblocked them. The stench was terrible. • I had charge of the toilets downstairs and they were ... filthy, you had to clean them. There was no toilet paper or anything, oh God, they were awful.