Chapter 3 — Society and the schools

Part 3 Facts and figures

In 1949, there were 212 boys in Daingean, 31 girls in St Joseph’s, Limerick and 13 in St Anne’s, Kilmacud. In 1967, there were 124 boys in Daingean and a total of 18 girls in St Joseph’s, Limerick and St Anne’s, Kilmacud.

The category of Industrial School covered a very wide range of institutions, from the equivalent of orphanages run by nuns to usually larger institutions, which took young offenders. In the case of a girl, a resident would usually remain in the same school until released at 16. But junior and senior boys had separate schools. If a boy had been put into a school below the age of 10, he would at that age be transferred from junior to a senior school.40 A number of senior boys Industrial Schools in effect acted as Reformatories. There was no Reformatory for those under 12. Almost all male offenders in this age group were sent to Letterfrack Industrial School, County Galway.

At their maximum, in 1898, there were 61 Industrial Schools caring for approximately 7,500 children in the 26 county areas. By 1922, there were 53 Industrial Schools. During the 1920s High Park (previously a Reformatory) was receritified as an Industrial School and the girls’ Schools at Roscommon and Tipperary were closed. Thus, by the time of the Cussen Report, there were 52 schools in operation certified for 6,400 children.

For much of the period under review, there were 11 senior boys’ Industrial Schools, five junior boys’, 35 girls’ and one mixed for girls and junior boys. Two senior boys Schools were closed for particular reasons in 1950. 41 Later on, with the fall in numbers of residents, in the 1950s, two senior boys’ (Carriglea, 1954; Greenmount, 1959) and one girls’ School (Sligo, 1958) closed.

In the 1960s there was a steady stream of closures and by September 1969,42 there had been a sharp drop to 31 schools. The remaining Schools numbered: senior boys – five; junior boys – three; girls’ schools – 23. The remaining Schools were certified for more than 4,000 (1969-70) children but were actually catering for 1,700. Artane, by far the largest school, closed in 1969. Its numbers had fallen from 700 in the early 1950s to 300 as late as 1968.

After the closure of the last School under Protestant management in 1917, all the Schools were owned and run by Catholic religious Orders, apart from two Catholic Schools that were run by the local clergy and which closed in 1950. One of the consequences of the lack of positive control by the Department is that the Orders that carried out the work of running Schools were usually self-selected. This did not always make for an appropriate match. Kennedy43 remarks gently ‘some of the Orders in charge of Industrial Schools and Reformatories are engaged in other work which is of more direct concern to them and which comes more into the public eye’. Likewise a Departmental memo of 30th September 1963 noted that: The Good Shepherd’s are not a teaching order and by vocation are better fit to look after underprivileged children than the Sisters of Mercy where, perhaps the Industrial School Section could be the poor relation in a foundation catering for Secondary, Primary and Domestic Economy training.44

The largest male Order involved in Industrial Schools (as also in regard to general primary or secondary education) was the Christian Brothers who operated schools for senior boys (10 to 16 year olds) at Artane, Salthill, Letterfrack, Glin, Tralee and Carriglea. Two others were run by the Rosminians (Clonmel, Upton) and one by the Presentation Brothers (Greenmount).

The Sisters of Mercy ran two-thirds of all Schools consistently accommodating about 60 percent of girls and 40 percent of all residents. As of 1950, they ran 22 of the girls’ schools, three of the junior boys’ schools and the mixed school for girls and junior boys in Killarney (which was the only mixed school before 1954) The remaining girls’ Schools were conducted by the following Orders: Poor Clares (one); Sisters of the Good Shepherd (four); Sisters of Charity (four); Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge (one); Sisters of Saint Louis (one); and Sisters of the Presentation Order (two).

The Sisters of Mercy also ran four of the junior boys schools and the fifth was run by the (Irish) Sisters of Charity of St Vincent de Paul.

The only School formally categorised as a ‘Mixed School’ (as far back at least as the Cussen Report: para 18) was St Joseph’s, Killarney, which had accommodation limits of 98 and 50 for girls and boys respectively. However, in the 1950s, because they were short of residents, a few of the girls’ Schools started to take in junior boys. Commencing with Goldenbridge in 1954, eight Girls’ Schools became what the annual reports describe as ‘Girls Industrial Schools certified for the reception of a limited number of boys of tender years’. In practice, this seems to have meant that they had accommodation limits for boys up to about 10-15 percent of the figures for girls.

The aggregate Schools’ population, from all sources (courts, health authorities, voluntary committals) during the entire 1936-70 period, contained 47 percent boys and 53 percent girls (though, in the case of Dublin County Borough this imbalance was reversed, with 56 percent boys for the period 1939-59). The following Table gives the figures for particular years:

	1937*	1939	1950	1960	1970
Boys Schools, Total	2,733 (45%)	2,786 (45%)	2,819 (47%)	1,709 (45%)	534 (43%)
Girls Schools, Total	3,341 (55%)	3,440 (55%)	3,165 (53%)	2,105 (55%)	722 (57%)

During the 1936-70 period, the average percentages of boys committed in each year were: 93 percent (offenders), 90 percent (non-School attendance) and 75 percent (uncontrollable: a relatively small category).

On the other hand, in the case of those sent by local health authorities for the 1949-69 period (figures from Kennedy Report), the aggregate average figure is 49 percent for boys. For the large group of children within the category ‘lack of proper guardianship’ (including ‘having no home’) committal figures for the period 1936-70 show an average of 45 percent for boys. From 1949-50 until the early 1960s, when there is a clear change in the pattern, more girls than boys were committed every year under ‘lack of proper guardianship’. Again, while the real figures are small compared to the other categories, it is striking in the case of voluntary places the average figure for those sent annually during the period is only 16 percent boys.

One major reason why there were more girls overall lies in the age at which the children were committed. The annual reports from 1937-46 show that for children committed under the age of six the number of girls was 63 percent of the total. After 1946, annual education reports do not give figures for those committed under the age of six. The closest information (in Table F of the Kennedy Report) gives figures for the three categories: 10 years and under; 12-14; and over 14. It is possible by comparing these figures with the total numbers to deduce the numbers of boys and of girls below the age of 10 who were admitted. If a girl was committed at a younger average age, she stayed for a longer period in the school.

It is impossible to come to any definite conclusion on the question of whether the system was in some way biased in favour of sending girls to Industrial Schools. The difficulty is that almost the only information available is the net result, in other words the numbers of each gender sent to the Schools.