Chapter 9 — Record of abuse (female witnesses)

Neglect

Nineteen (19) witness accounts were heard of the best clothes being given to residents who were regarded as ‘pets’ of staff members while others fought for something that would fit them.

There were 241 witness reports of poor heating in relation to 35 Schools across all decades. Witnesses described enduring memories of being cold, a particular feature of which was the pain of chilblains on the hands and feet. Chilblains were a common ailment in the pre-1970s period and witnesses reported that the pain experienced after being beaten on chilblained hands and legs was extreme.

The heating arrangements described in Schools during the years before the 1960s were mainly of open turf and coal fires in classrooms and some recreation areas. Witnesses reported that the furnaces used for heating water for the laundries supplied heat to the refectories, classrooms and dormitories in later years and a number of witnesses reported that heating was limited to times when the furnaces were lit for the laundries. Dormitories were generally described as large cold rooms with bare wooden floors and windows. Witnesses also reported that inadequate clothing and bed-coverings contributed to being cold. Reports regarding heating from witnesses discharged in the 1970s and 1980s were mainly concerned with being poorly clothed for cold weather and having to spend long periods outdoors in cold and wet weather.

One hundred and ninety five (195) witnesses reported poor or inadequate supervision by staff leaving them unprotected from harm and exposed to abuse. Orphans and those with little family contact while resident in the Schools were reported to have been particularly affected by the lack of supervision. Witnesses stated that ‘orphans’ did not have the protection afforded by visits from parents or relatives or older sisters to defend them from abusive staff and co-residents. The three most frequently reported consequences of poor or inadequate supervision were: Bullying and physical abuse Sexual abuse by staff and co-residents Compromised care of babies and toddlers.

Twenty nine (29) witnesses reported that supervision at play times was inadequate and that bullying by co-residents was a frequent occurrence. Components of the bullying behaviour reported by witnesses included being sexually and physically abused, in addition to being exposed to less direct forms of abuse such as being reported to staff for punishment, forced to do unpleasant tasks and being deprived of food. Supervision in the refectories and dormitories was generally described as minimal, with, in some Schools, as many as 100 residents routinely reported to be supervised by one staff member. Witnesses stated that the lack of supervision in the refectories allowed older residents to have first pick of the food or simply take it from younger residents, who were generally left to fend for themselves. There was fighting among the girls, there was no supervision at all. On Saturday there would be no staff and the beatings by the older girls ... they were terrible, terrible.

The Committee heard 71 witness accounts of negligent care where residents were left in charge of younger co-residents without support or supervision. Witnesses from a small number of Schools reported that residents from the age of eight years were left in charge of babies and toddlers. Some witnesses reported that minding babies was their exclusive occupation and that they were taken out of class for this purpose; others reported being rostered to mind the babies, including getting up at night to feed them. Some were so tired the next day they fell asleep in the classroom. Witnesses reported that staff checked to see that residents had fed, dressed and changed the infants, otherwise there was no ongoing supervision of the ‘charges’ care. I used to have to look after the babies. I used to have to wash them, feed them and clean them, get them ready for bed. They were like little babies.... You learned, the older girls would show you. I was about 11 or 12 ... there were about 6 or 7 babies. • I remember my brother and his girlfriend coming to visit me, he heard he had a sister. I remember it because he brought a cake. They wanted to take me out for an ice cream and they said “no”. I was minding the babies. ... I was only a child myself. I used to have to sleep in the nursery with these babies and there was a row of all these babies and you would have to get up in the night, if they cried, or to go to the toilet, or that. You did it a week at a time, there was only one consolation the next week you were allowed to have a lie on....

Twelve (12) witnesses reported being so hungry that they either ate the babies rusks and dried food or took their milk, substituting it with water in the babies’ bottles. Several witnesses expressed regret about their own harsh treatment of babies and commented on feeling conflicted about resenting the infants they were obliged to look after when their own care was neglected. Others felt sorry for the infants and developed close affectionate bonds with those they had cared for over an extended period of time.

Witnesses reported that there was poor supervision in the absence of staff in many of the Schools over different periods of time. Residents from three Schools were locked in dormitories overnight in the absence of a staff member. Witnesses also reported that there were few domestic staff employed and as a result the residents were required to do the housework, including working in the convent and other areas. This work was reported as generally checked by older residents or lay staff.

Most Schools employed some lay staff who were generally believed to be untrained for the task of providing care for children. Witnesses reported that there were some residents retained when they were 16 years old by the nuns to work as lay staff, many of whom were believed to have been in the Schools all their lives. Witnesses expressed some understanding for the frequently harsh behaviour of these staff: ‘They treated others as they were treated themselves’. Witnesses said that lay staff including the former residents received no specific training for their work with children until the 1970s and 1980s when it was reported that staff from certain Schools were trained as childcare workers: The workers were the same age as ourselves like, if we were 15 they were 18.... They started training when I was there; they used to tell us one day a week that they were going for training.

Witnesses also reported that tradesmen, gardeners and farm workers were employed in most Schools and there were isolated reports of these male ancillary staff being inappropriately involved in the care and management of residents.

A further area of neglect identified by witnesses in the context of poor supervision related to external placements. Witnesses reported being sent to families they had not previously met and were not visited by any staff from the Schools while they were there. In addition to those sent to families for weekends and holidays others reported being placed alone in work settings at an inappropriate age. For example, girls ranging in age from 10-13 years were sent to housekeep for local families, shopkeepers or clergy. Twenty nine (29) witnesses placed with families for holidays or to work reported being sexually and physically abused in such situations where they were vulnerable and unsupervised.

Educational neglect was described by many witnesses both in terms of the standard of education provided and, for some, receiving no education at all. One hundred and eighty seven (187) witnesses reported leaving school with poor literacy skills and no qualifications. Sixty three (63) witnesses reported long-term literacy problems. Witnesses reported that their education was neglected through the competing demands of domestic work, excessive emphasis on religious instruction, fear of punishment in the classroom and being discriminated against as children from an Industrial School. Other witnesses reported that they received no assistance for their learning difficulties and were significantly disadvantaged in later life as a result. If you weren’t bright they didn’t help you and anyway you couldn’t learn with the beatings. I only learned how to clean and cook. Mth ...X... used to say to me “you think you will be a star but you won’t be, the way your mother turned out”. .... When I was leaving Sr ...Y... said “don’t turn out like your mother” ...(mother had been in laundry).... I did not know what she meant.... • My days were reduced to the laundry and cleaning and scrubbing. You would be getting younger children up and cleaning them and potties ...(chamber pots)... etcetera. Then it was cleaning, polishing and scrubbing, cleaning corridors, folding clothes and the laundry.... I left not able to read and I was always embarrassed of my writing, it’s very childlike. Even taking down a message in my job I practice it a hundred times. There was an awful lot of work and no education which is something I always regret. Only a very selective few were sent out to school. • You were constantly told you were a misfit, I had a problem no one could understand, I couldn’t write. There were pets, they got special help with their classes, good looking, sweet little angelic looking girls, they were the pets. I got no help, I asked for it but I wasn’t a pet.

One hundred and seventy eight (178) witnesses (58%) reported that they completed their classroom education by the age of 14 years, of whom 34 reported that they did not attend class after 12 years of age. Eight (8) witnesses stated that they were taken out of class to work full-time before the age of 10 years, including two who reported no memory of ever attending school. We had some sort of education up until about 7 ...(years old)... after that I had no education. After that it was decided who would go to school, outside school ...(local primary school).... I put up my hand, Sr ...X... said “you aren’t going anywhere”.

In a number of Schools the strenuous nature of the work, rising early for kitchen or laundry duties, and caring for younger co-residents at night left witnesses tired and unable to benefit from education. Ninety eight (98) witnesses reported being kept from attending class to work in and for the institution when their stated wish was to continue their education. Forty five (45) witnesses reported that they were at times called away from the classroom or came late to class because of chores they had to do beforehand. Others reported being routinely kept out of class on a rotating basis to work in the kitchens and other parts of the institution. Six (6) witnesses reported that they attended class only for the day of the inspector’s visit and that they were otherwise occupied with domestic chores. In the main these reports related to witnesses discharged before the 1970s: I was a very intelligent child. I would soak up knowledge and really resent not having had the chance to have a really good education. ... (I was)... pulled out at 11 and a half or 12 and worked in the orphanage. ... Work in the orphanage prevented me studying. I got highest marks in Primary Certificate in the whole school ...(local primary school)...(and was)... sent around to the whole school with the certificate. • I was in the secondary school one day, I was there for 6 months, she ...(Sr X)... came in and called me out and she said ...“Y...(named co-resident)... is going today, she is 16 and you are now taking her place”. I was going to work in the kitchen. I was so shocked, I really wanted to stay in school. ... I had to go to the kitchen and then I was moved to the farm.

There were reports heard of 17 Schools where residents and local children shared the same classrooms either within the Industrial School or in the local community. In 13 Schools residents were reported to attend class in the local primary, secondary or technical schools and in four other Schools the classes were attended by both School residents and local children. Twenty five (25) witnesses reported educational discrimination and neglect in these circumstances either in the classrooms attached to the Schools or in the local schools. They reported being discriminated against in different ways, for example reporting that they were not allowed to play with or speak to children from the town and often had to sit together at the back of the class. Witnesses also reported that they were referred to collectively by teachers as ‘the industrials’, ‘the orphans’, ‘the house children’ or similar terms. They reported having to wear clothes that distinguished them from the other pupils and being treated as part of a separate group. Witnesses from three Schools reported that as residents of the Industrial School it was their task to clean the local schools’ classrooms and in another School to clean and work in the secondary school’s boarding house.