Chapter 9 — Record of abuse (female witnesses)

Emotional abuse

Having to observe others being punished was regarded as being a deliberate strategy to deter residents from whatever behaviour was being sanctioned. Witnesses described the particularly harsh treatment to which returned absconders were subjected as an example of punishments being used as a deterrent. Some witnesses reported that watching others being beaten was worse than being beaten oneself, particularly when the resident being beaten was a younger resident or one’s sibling.

Twenty seven (27) witnesses reported watching their own brother or sister being beaten, including at times being forced to assist by restraining their hand or limb while they were being hit. Other witnesses, who were themselves immature, had responsibility for caring for younger co-residents, including siblings, described the distress they experienced when their ‘charges’ were beaten. Some of the kids ...(charges)... used wet the bed they used to have to clean their own bed up and they would be hit. They used to have to clean the faeces and everything, that was not fair, that’s ...(soiling)... a nerves thing. I used to feel sorry for them. I remember a nun beating a child up because he wet his nappy or something, she slapped him with her hand over and over. I said “you shouldn’t beat him”. • I was like a mother hen to them, I loved them and was afraid of anything happening to them. I’d hug them and mind them, I can’t do it now ...(to own children).... My mind was full up of watching my 2 sisters ...(being beaten).... I was never able to say to my children I ...(love you).... • The girl who was in charge of you ...(older girl)... would have to wait by you while you were being beaten, and then they would take you away and clean you up, and stay with you until you were OK.. • My sister ... was making her Holy Communion, I was 5 and she was 7 at the time ...crying.... I was waiting for her to come down with her dress on.... You know the way you were not supposed to eat before Holy Communion? I was waiting and the next thing she was tumbling over the banister, because she ate a sweet. She was thrown over the banister, by Sr ...X.... They were saying, “she ate a sweet, she ate a sweet”, that was totally against the rules you know. I could hear the nun screaming at her, she hit her and she put her over the banister there was kind of a long stairs. I saw blood, I saw her on the floor, that’s my first memory of ...witness’s sister... and I don’t remember anything after that, all I remember is her lying there. I just wanted to see her in her dress. I still have nightmares of that.

Many witnesses reported that they preferred to be beaten themselves than watch others being beaten. They reported that they intervened with staff when possible if a younger or more vulnerable child or sibling was being beaten. The Committee heard three accounts from witnesses who were transferred to more restrictive institutions following such altercations with staff.

Eighty two (82) witnesses gave accounts of being isolated, ostracised and segregated from their peers. They reported being locked up by religious and lay staff under stairs, in broom cupboards, fridges, washing machines, coal sheds, toilets, furnace rooms, outhouses and in sheds with animals, as punishment for various behaviours. There were many reports of some of these locations being infested with mice and rats. The cubby hole ... was the worst, if you were bold or wet the bed they put you in there, in the dark on your knees and you daren’t come out. Sr ...X... said before she put me in “mind you don’t get eaten by the rats”. There were brushes in there and polish, I can’t forget that smell. There was someone in there daily.... A lot of my punishment was because I wasn’t eating.

Witnesses also reported being separated from their co-residents for periods of time in bathrooms, on corridors and staircases and alone in dormitories. Reports of isolation included being confined in these places in the dark, which exacerbated the distress experienced. Witnesses described hearing the Sister turning the key in the locks of doors and cupboards and walking away. Seven (7) witnesses reported that they were forgotten about and were rescued by others in response to their screams. Four (4) witnesses from one School reported being made to spend the night in an outside shed with the pigs. Another witness reported being locked into an outside toilet by religious staff and that her cries were heard by a man passing on the street who came in and drew attention to the fact she was there. She was released by one of the Sisters who berated her for being silly enough to lock herself in to the toilet and causing everyone to worry about her.

In addition to reports of being physically isolated, a number of witnesses reported being ostracised by co-residents on instruction from religious staff. Witnesses reported being made to sit apart from co-residents in the classroom and refectory and being ostracised in the playground: The priest was told that I was bold and that no one was to talk to me, they were all told not to talk to me.... There was no one to talk to, no one knew what you were feeling, there was no one to say “you’re alright”. You would be mortified, the whole School would know, you would be called out for robbing ...(food)... or talking. The others would be told not to talk to you, it sounds silly now but it was the fear ...(of being ostracised).... It was all you had, the cha cha ...(chit chat)... with the others, and then they would be afraid to talk to you. It was awful, you would be isolated, it was awful. • When it came to Sunday they used go out for a walk, I was locked in there ... (small room)... as a punishment. There was no toilet, no chair to sit on, no running water, if you needed to go to the bathroom you couldn’t.

Forty one (41) witnesses reported being deprived of their individual identity in various ways, including being called by a name other than their own, by an allocated number, or by their surname. Witnesses reported being told when they were admitted to the School that they would be called by another name because there was already a resident with their name or because their name was not a recognised saint’s name. ‘Sr ...X... called me ...Y...(not own name).... My name wasn’t saintly, so she gave me a different name.’ Reverend Mother never called me my own name, I was ...X.... She said because I reminded her of a girl who had been there and had left there. I was supposed to be the living picture of her, so my name was changed from ...X... to ...Y.... She called me her name. • I was always called orphan, the “orphans” this and the “orphans” that. I was never called my name, I never knew when my birthday was. One time ...on birthday... Sr ...X... called me and said to me “now you see it, now you don’t.” She dangled this, a bracelet, in front of me and said it was my birthday. I didn’t know, she took it back.

The use of a number to identify residents was regularly reported prior to the mid-1960s. The allocated number was put on the residents’ clothes and was reported by some witnesses to be the most frequently used form of identification. ‘I was called by ...number.... It took away who I was, I was never called anything else.’

Witnesses also reported being punished for certain personal attributes and characteristics, for example being left-handed or having red hair, which they stated were referred to as ‘signs of the devil’ by some Sisters. Witnesses said that at times they were punished simply for the way they looked, and for what was perceived as vanity by religious staff. I was hit for ... having red curly hair, for nothing ... you were not allowed have curly hair, you had to have straight hair like Our Lady. Another girl ... she was battered for having curly hair. I was beaten mercilessly for that, Sr ...X... was a monster, she beat me for it. ... She’d drag you into the office and take her long cane and just beat you and beat you, she was monster in her heart, she beat me black and blue. She had a bamboo cane 4 foot long, she beat me into pulp. She’d be frothing at the mouth anywhere she could get me, she wouldn’t stop. She’d say “you curled your hair last night” and when I’d say “yes, I curled it” she’d stop. I can still hear the cane swooshing, she would hit you anywhere she could get a lash at you, face, head, hands, back ... because I had curly hair. She would call me before I’d go to school, she had castor oil, she would press it into my head, to make it ...(hair)... straight, my face would be swollen from the beatings, the oil would be running down your face. ... You couldn’t have curly hair.

Witnesses reported that not being told they had brothers and sisters in the same or adjacent Schools, in addition to the lack of family contact, contributed to a sense of having no real identity and of being ‘nobody’. This feeling was compounded by being called by number rather than their name and having no sense of being part of a family network.

Many witnesses who had no family contact reported never knowing basic facts about their own history such as their correct birth name, when their birthday was and where they were born. Birthdays were reported to have been rarely acknowledged for residents in the Schools before the 1970s and many witnesses reported being discharged without any information or record regarding their date or place of birth. They reported being forced by circumstances in later years to search out the necessary records in order to register their marriage, to apply for a passport and for other reasons. It took me years of writing before I found out my own background ... after years and years of searching and negative responses. I have found out my own family ... it was 25 years of looking. My names are wrong on the paperwork, my mother had registered me under ...family name.... I have been writing various letters to different departments, even to Government Departments to find out my own family. I learned last year that the nuns in ...named School... knew that I was not ...allocated family name.... I was ...actual family name.... We all went in ...(to the Schools)... for different reasons, I know there was poverty in Ireland.... When I found the records, from the Courts through the Freedom of Information, I have been dealing with ...Government Department... for years and they never told me about my records being wrong, even though they had the information, they just did not tell me. I found out my mother had been paying for me and had contact, then I was moved to ...School some distance away and contact was lost....

Fifty three (53) witnesses reported that punitive aspects of religious conviction were emphasised at considerable emotional cost to them as young people, while they were isolated from all forms of reassurance and affection. Puberty, menstruation and adolescence provided the context for abuse reported by witnesses around religious themes. Fear of the devil, hell, eternal damnation and being told that they were innately ‘bad’ and ‘sinners’ were described as powerful means of emotional abuse. For example, a witness reported that a nun burnt her with a hot poker so that she would ‘know what the fires of hell were like’.

As previously remarked, witnesses who were left-handed or had red hair reported being persecuted by certain nuns in a small number of Schools. There were reports of witnesses being stigmatised and being told they were ‘the hand of the devil’, that they were evil and would burn in hell because they were left-handed. Others reported that their red hair was the subject of criticism and contempt, that it was cut short and at times kept covered. She ...(Sr X)... told me I was the devil’s child ...(because of red hair)... and put me into this room ...(furnace room).... She said “you are the devil’s child, see those flames, you are like the devil”. I thought it was the devil, and she left me there for ages. It was dark, and I definitely thought I was going to die. It was the most frightening thing I ever saw ...crying.... • The worst thing was my period.... When she’d ...(Sister)... beat me, she’d say “I’ll knock the devil out of you if it’s the last thing I do, your mother is a whore, she is a prostitute”. When I got my period I thought this was it, it was the devil coming out. When I got my period, I had to queue, my knickers were all stained and wet. Well, what she ...(Sister)... did, she took me down to a room, where the younger kids were, all the girls were sitting there she lifted my dress up and said “you see this, this is the devil coming out of her, this is what happens when you are like ...surname of witness...”. Those kids would not play with me. The following time it happened, I was so afraid, I hated it so much that I robbed knickers from someone else and flushed my own down the toilet.

Ninety six (96) witnesses reported being bullied by older girls who were co-residents in the Schools. There was a tradition described in the majority of Schools of the ‘older girls’ being in charge and, at times, having premature responsibility for the care of co-residents. These older girls were often reported to be about 15 years old and soon to be discharged. They were often believed to be favourites of the Sisters and known to have special privileges in some Schools. These particular residents were described as having the freedom to bully younger residents without fear of reprimand. Some were also described as kind and often had favourites of their own. They were described as left in charge of groups of children at different times, including: Sundays, evenings, night and play times, without any supervision by staff. The older girls, along with the teachers from outside the school were put in charge of that ...(dormitories)... and life became unbearable. The older girls had to do the laundry and because I wet the bed every night, when the nuns were gone into pray, we were flogged. We were beaten with sticks, legs of chairs, twigs, planks, anything, by the older girls and the teachers ...(lay care staff)... who had to supervise the dormitories, they didn’t teach in classrooms, we had lovely teachers there. We were beaten, called all sorts of names, had the hair pulled out of our heads.... We were threatened when we screamed with pain, with bars of soap stuck in our mouths and towels tied around our mouths so that the nuns couldn’t hear us screaming whilst they were praying. ... The older girls would count up to 20 and if you weren’t in bed you got beaten, and they would count to 20 again and if you weren’t asleep they would beat you again. I would do anything to avoid these punishments and they used to say “I will let you off the flogging if I can have your 2 slices of bread and dripping”.... The older girls were sort of bullies, they used to have dresses of their own, they would wash them and you used to have to dry them under your sheet with the heat of your body and have them dry by morning and you got beaten if they weren’t dry in the morning. There was no heating in the dormitory we used to have to heat their beds and then get into your own cold one.

Knowledge of abuse

Knowledge of the abuse experienced by residents in Schools was reported as established by various means. Witnesses reported disclosing abuse to their parents, relatives, and people in authority both within the institution and outside, including to Gardaí. A number stated that their parents made written complaints to the Department of Education about the neglect and abuse of their children. Witnesses also commented that awareness of abuse arose from direct observation of abuse as it occurred generally in the presence of staff, co-residents and others. A number of accounts were heard by the Committee that witnesses were treated by external medical and nursing staff for injuries resulting from abuse. The outcome of abuse disclosure ranged from disbelief to investigation, witnesses being punished, perpetrators being moved and being protected from further harm.