Chapter 9 — Record of abuse (female witnesses)

Sexual abuse

Vaginal and anal rape, forced masturbation, oral/genital contact, various forms of vaginal penetration and attempted rape with associated violence accounted for 92 of the witness reports made to the Committee. Five (5) witnesses reported that they sustained injuries as a result of the sexual abuse to which they were subjected.

One hundred and two (102) other witnesses gave accounts of what was recorded as inappropriate contact including touching and fondling of breasts, genitalia, and buttocks.

The application of white lotion for the treatment of scabies was reported by 10 witnesses as a form of sexual abuse. The witnesses described both religious and lay female staff applying the lotion, paying particular attention to their genital area and breasts and passing derogatory remarks about their bodies. Four (4) witnesses reported being forced to wash the breasts of female religious staff.

Thirty five (35) witnesses from 16 Schools reported the practice of being stripped naked to be beaten as sexually abusive and stated that this happened most often in view of others but occasionally in private. Two (2) witnesses reported being observed by a workman and a priest in the course of naked beatings. She ...(Sr X)... would lay you across the bed and give you unmerciful beatings. I remember one day she had hit me on this side so much that I had to move and turn around, there was this priest there, and I looked around, and he was smiling.

Non-contact sexual abuse also included enforced nakedness that witnesses considered voyeuristic. Seventeen (17) witnesses described the manner in which they were made to stand in line without clothes waiting for a bath while being observed by staff and co-residents as sexually abusive. This practice was reported consistently from four Schools for both pre- and post-pubertal residents.

Six (6) witnesses reported being subjected to indecent exposure by men including clergy who visited their Schools and men in families where they were sent to work or for holidays. The other form of non-contact sexual abuse reported by eight witnesses included being exposed to inappropriate sexual conversation and adult sexual activity.

Witnesses consistently reported that sexual abuse occurred in an environment of fear and secrecy. Sexual abuse was also described as prevailing in circumstances where special relationships of trust existed between the abusers and those responsible for the welfare of those they abused. In particular witnesses commented on the relationship between religious Sisters and clergy. One witness stated ‘He ...(Fr X)... was always around the School, morning, noon and night, including bath time and bedtime. He was in the School for all meals’. Witnesses who had little or no family contact formed the majority of those who reported being sexually abused among the female cohort. These witnesses were believed to be particularly vulnerable to the effects of harsh discipline. Sexual abuse was also reported to have occurred in the absence of appropriate supervision, particularly in holiday and work placements in the community, and when adults from outside the School, understood to be in positions of trust, were given unsupervised access to residents.

The culture of fear engendered by persistent physical abuse, affectionless discipline and inadequate supervision provided circumstances where witnesses reported being sexually abused without recourse to protection or appropriate intervention. The following sections describe particular features of the circumstances in which female witnesses reported being sexually abused.

Fifty three (53) witnesses described how abusers forcibly coerced them to comply with and remain silent about sexual abuse by means of verbal threats and actual violence. In the most extreme instances witnesses reported that their lives and the lives of their siblings were threatened. One witness described being taken down to the furnace room when she was a young child by a workman and told he would put her in the fire if she told anyone their ‘secret’. A witness who reported being raped, by a named lay ancillary worker, on a number of occasions was silenced by threats: He ...X... got us back to his house, said he had a sandwich for us. After that he used to follow me around the place, the nuns would have to be blind not to see this. He threatened to burn down the School and threatened to kill my sisters, so you went to bed at night petrified, thinking he was going to break in and burn down the School. You were just petrified, so if I didn’t go to his house, this is what he would do, burn down the School and kill my sisters. He ...(witness described anal rape)... several time over years ...crying.... It stays with you, it sticks in my mind, and the threat to burn down the School.

Another witness reported that she was frequently sexually abused by a visiting external child welfare professional who threatened that her sibling would be placed for adoption if she told anyone about his abuse of her. The Committee heard evidence from three witnesses of sexual abuse by this man. Mr ...X... he sexually abused me, we used to have to go and see him, we had a sick room for children who were sick, we used to have to go in there ...crying.... He used make, you know, make me ...crying... take off all my clothes and used to make me lie on the floor ...crying.... It started happening, um, it seemed quite a long time after my First Holy Communion and then it stopped then when I got my period. He was always on his own. I think Mth ...Y... was probably somewhere around. ... He probably used to come and go as he pleased, he used bring me chocolates. He used to say “this will be our little secret, if you do tell anyone we will send ...witness’s sibling... for adoption”. I was frightened to death, I never ever said anything. It happened more than once.

Thirty seven (37) witnesses reported being sexually abused by men in families where they were placed for holiday or to work. Many reported that the fear of being returned to the Industrial School, sent to a Reformatory School or transferred to a laundry or psychiatric hospital was the most common experience. Many witnesses reported that it was generally known there were ‘worse places’ where girls were sent when they were thought to have disclosed abuse or misbehaved. The threat of being ‘sent away’ was a potent incentive to which several witnesses reported they responded by enduring the abuse to which they were subjected.

Twelve (12) witnesses reported being sexually abused in what they believed was a deliberate manner by more than one person simultaneously. Nine (9) of those accounts referred to abuse within the Schools, eight of which referred to combinations of male or female lay staff with religious staff. The other report was of abuse by a priest and a Sister. Three (3) reports referred to abuse by other adults that occurred while in the care of, but external to, the School, on work or holiday placements.

Five (5) of the above witnesses reported being abused by being molested and digitally penetrated by combinations of religious and lay staff, both male and female. Three (3) of those witnesses reported being sexually abused on different occasions by two religious Sisters, a member of the clergy and a lay male care worker. The other two witnesses reported being sexually abused on a number of occasions by pairs of female lay care workers. One witness also reported that episodes of sexual abuse perpetrated by two female lay staff were associated with physical violence during which she was stripped of her clothes and beaten. Another witness reported being restrained by two male ancillary workers in a farm shed while she was sexually assaulted. The men were employed by the Sisters as farm workers. Another witness gave the following account of being sexually abused by a lay care worker: I was sexually abused by a nun and a carer ... (lay care staff).... He was supposed to be in charge of the boys section. He had no business over with the girls. There was a nun with him ...Sr X and lay care worker... she would come into the room with him. You didn’t need a nun to wash you at 13 years of age, but she did, she would fondle you in the bath and examine you and get you ready for him .... He used then collect me from boarding school and he used do it ... touching, fondling and then you would have to masturbation...(masturbate)... him.... I remember even telling Sr ...Y (Resident Manager)... and she told me to keep the rug over my legs in the car.

Two (2) witnesses reported being sexually abused by lay female staff members and other adults, one by lay female care workers and their female friends, the other by a lay female care worker and an older male resident in the institution. Two (2) witnesses reported being raped and otherwise sexually assaulted by pairs of men while they were placed by the School with ‘holiday’ families. In one instance the men were farm workers employed by the particular family where the witness was placed. In the other instance the men lived locally and were known to be aware that the witness was from an Industrial School. They threatened her that she would be sent back to the institution if she told anyone that they had abused her. Another witness described being sent to work for a family during school holidays where she was sexually abused by two female members of the family. She reported being molested and forced to witness the sexual activity of adults.

There were 11 accounts of witnesses being given inducements or bribes in return for either compliance or silence following incidents of sexual abuse. Money and sweets were the main inducements reported by witnesses. Pennies, sixpences, half-crowns and ten-shilling notes were received from two local priests, two workmen and a doctor. One witness reported being so worried about being asked where she got the money that she threw it away before she returned to the School. Another witness reported being given a gift by the person who sexually abused her which she treasured as it signified some kindness to her and was her only personal possession. Another witness was given items of clothing by a man who abused her over a period of time. She described how good it felt to own nice things that were both new and fashionable. The witness remarked on the fact that none of the staff questioned how she had obtained these items.