Chapter 3 — Society and the schools

Part 5 Family links

Of the 35 girls’ schools, 10 allowed some of the children sent home on holidays the full period (31 days). The other children in these and the remaining Industrial Schools for girls were sent home for an average per child of about 22 days.

Approximately 2,600 children out of an average number of nearly 6,300 children, or about 41 percent under detention, were allowed home on holidays at all during 1948. The reasons why a great number of children were not sent on holidays were given as: 1) unsuitable parents or relatives; 2) unsuitable homes; 3) no parents or relatives; 4) no homes to which they could be sent; 5) inability or unwillingness of parents or relatives to take charge of the children even for a holiday.

In 1960, in an internal departmental survey, it was reported that one-third of detained children were given home leave each year for a period not exceeding 31 days.

Apart from early discharge by the Minister, there were other ways in which a resident might leave a School early. Theoretically, the most promising of these was release by the Manager on licence under section 67 of the 1908 Act (as amended by section 13 of the 1941 Act).83 This provision allowed the Manager of either type of school to ‘licence out’ a child or young person to live with a named ‘trustworthy and respectable person’. Thus a gradual assimilation of the child into society could have been effected.

Part 5 Family links

But at no period does licensing appear to have been given a fair trial. Barnes notes84 that in 1884 the Aberdare Commission [into reformatory and Industrial Schools in Britain and Ireland] found that managers were not using the licensing system extensively enough. Nearly a century later, Kennedy85 found that only 32 out of 2,476 children had been licensed, and commented: the licensing system is being used only in very rare cases. This may in some instances be due to the difficulties which managers experience in contacting, without the aid of an aftercare service, suitable persons to accept the child or it may be due to a reluctance to release a child and suffer a reduction in the capitation fee payable to a school. Whatever the reason, it is obviously regrettable that the licensing system is not used more extensively.

Part 6 Changes

Throughout the 1940s, the total boys’ Schools’ population ranged around 3,000 and during the period 1942-44 it exceeded 3,100. The total authorised accommodation capacity for boys’ Schools was 3,380. The result was that the senior boys’ Schools were overcrowded and there were protests from justices and Gardai, in open court, that the Children Act had become unworkable owing to lack of accommodation. In addition, it was assumed that after World War II had ended conditions as regards juvenile delinquency and poverty that had followed World War I would be replicated, which would have meant a further increase in demand for places.

To meet the increased demand, the Department’s view was that a new School of capacity 200-250 was necessary. A contrary view was expressed by Managers of provincial Schools to the effect that the establishment of the proposed School would affect their financial viability and perhaps make it impossible for some of them to continue.86 Because so many of the children or young persons came from Dublin, it was thought appropriate to locate the new School so that it would be accessible to Dublin.

The Department wrote to Br Quinlan, Provincial of the Christian Brothers.87 At the moment there are over 250 senior boys from Dublin City and County in country industrial schools, and about 23 boys in the junior schools (all of the latter are situated outside the Dublin area). Many of the latter boys are due for removal to senior schools in the near future, and a large proportion of them may be regarded as having a claim to vacancies in Artane and Carriglea by reason of the fact that they already have brothers there and that their parents or relatives live in the Dublin areas. Owing to the distribution of the other industrial schools for boys it would be most convenient if the new school was situated to the north rather than the south of Dublin city, as it could thus absorb committals from the counties of Cavan, Monaghan, Louth, Meath etc, as well as Dublin.

As regards which Order would provide the School, Archbishop Mc Quaid proposed the Christian Brothers; but this offer was conditional on the State providing capital assistance. It was therefore politely turned down because the Presentation Brothers had offered to provide the School out of its own resources.88 Accordingly, an arrangement was made with them to acquire land (160 acres to allow for the farm) and construct an appropriate building for a School in Celbridge, County Kildare, 30 miles from Dublin. The total cost was £150,000, towards which the Department paid a grant of £40,000.

In fact, the boys’ Schools’ population peaked in 1946-47 and then started to decline steadily with the result that Celbridge School never opened and the building was eventually used, as St Raphael’s, by the St John of God’s Order, to teach skills to children with intellectual disabilities.

There was little in the field of fundamental change. One of the few considerations of structural change is the following brief statement by T O’Raifeartaigh, Secretary of the Department of Education, on 15th March 1967 in an internal memo: One line of approach to the problem of the Industrial Schools is the provision of a Prevention Centre. The importance of the Prevention Centre will lie not only in the turning back the youngsters from their first steps in delinquency and the caring for innocent youngsters from broken homes, but also in that it will reduce considerably the number of children who will be committed to industrial schools. This raises the question of the second line of approach. It is that the industrial schools will in future have to devote themselves more to rehabilitation type of work. This will mean that they will have to organise the children into smaller groups and so have to employ a much larger staff of skilled personnel. The children will, learn by doing (as Senator Quinlan mentioned in the Seanad debate on ‘Investment in Education’). The maximum number in any institution should not exceed 250. The only school which accommodates more than 250 is Artane. The question of breaking up that school into smaller schools was recommended by the Commission of Inquiry 1934-36 but nothing came if it mainly due to the opposition of the conductors and the extra huge expenditure involved. I consider that in fact 250 is altogether too big a number for a school and that 50-100 would be the ideal number.

The Schools’ population peaked in the late 1940s and then there was a steady decline through the 1950s, which accelerated in the 1960s. In the light of the figures, the Department of Education noted, as early as 1951, that since 1945 there had been an average of 250 vacancies in the boys’ Schools. 89

Despite the obvious trend it took a long time for the Department to realise that the reduction in the Schools’ population was irreversible and consequently that certain of the Schools should close. The Christian Brothers discussed the possibility in 1954 at a Christian Brothers’ Managers Meeting,90 and the Department of Finance had read the figures accurately at least as early as 1955. In that year the subject was tentatively mentioned by the Secretary of the Department of Education in negotiations with representatives of the Schools. In a letter to the Minister of Finance on 21st January 1965, the Minister for Education noted ruefully that Finance had been urging closures for years and then continued: Naturally your main concern is economy while mine is the upbringing of children. Certain aspects of the matter of transferring children to other schools have to be carefully considered. Many children have god-parents in their school localities and quite a number of children attend schools, national, secondary and vocational outside the industrial school. It may not be possible to accommodate such children suitably if transferred to another district.

As of 1950, there were 50 Industrial Schools. In the 1950s four senior boys’ Schools closed – Baltimore (1950); Killybegs (1950); Carriglea (1954); and Greenmount, Cork (1959)91 and one girls’ School: Sligo (1958). In the case of each of the boys’ schools, there were particular reasons that were at least as significant as the general trend. The only closure before 1964 was Birr, Offaly (1963). But during 1964-70, 17 more Schools – more than a third of them – closed including the senior boys Schools at Upton, Glin and Clonmel, in each case with the full agreement of the Orders concerned. By the time of the Kennedy Report, in 1970, a total of 29 Schools remained.

To a large extent, the closures happened because the Orders wished them. On 23rd May 1966, the Managers Association wrote to the Department: At their meeting on last Friday there was a consensus of opinion amongst the Resident Manager that most of the Schools will be forced to close. If the present system is not acceptable to the public or the Government the Managers are prepared to close the schools next year, because they feel that the strain of working under present-day conditions is too acute to be continued.