Chapter 3 — Society and the schools

Part 4 Independent monitoring

Even among external observers who scrutinised the schools, there seems to have been little or no contemporary knowledge of sexual abuse. Mr Michael Viney, for instance, who visited several schools, over a six-week period, in 1966 researching his 15,000-word series in The Irish Times in 1966, did not discover any evidence of sexual abuse (though, in those more innocent days, he was not looking for any). In the Tuairim Report of 1966,72 nothing is said in about sexual abuse because, according to one member, they could not believe what they were being told.

A district court clerk who served in the 1960s remarked: We knew about the sexual abuse in the Schools because one of the Gardai who drove the children from the Court to the Schools told us about it. In today’s climate I’d have protested to the Department of Justice. But in those times, at best my protest would have been ignored, at worst I’d have been disciplined.

It seems that the general public living in the locality of a School had some broad idea of the conditions. It was not uncommon for parents to threaten children who were misbehaving with some such formula as: ‘Stop it or you’ll be sent to Artane / Upton / Letterfrack...’ Both sides knew what was meant. When John B Keane wrote in 1967 about farmers exploiting cheap labour of youths from an Industrial School, it seems likely that he expected his readers to know what he was writing about.Letters of a Successful TD 73 contains the following passage: We will never again see a worker like Topper. I will never forget him a long as I live. You probably don’t remember Jeremy Tlopper. He died of TB when you were about three or four. It still plays on my conscience that I might have driven him too hard. In those days we used to get youngsters out of Kilnavarna Industrial School to work as farm labourers. They were usually aged about fifteen or sixteen. You didn’t have to pay them much and I know for a fact that most people paid them nothing. I had several lads but they were better for eating than they were for working. It was a mistake, too, to get fellows who hadn’t made their Confirmation because you would have to leave them off every day for catechism. Jeremy Topper was different. He had made his Confirmation. He was a great worker and a light feeder. He was as thin as a whippet but I never heard him complain and he worked out-of-doors, hail, rain, or shine. I often worry that I might have misused him, but no, that isn’t true, because he worshiped me as a son would. He had no father or mother but that was during the Economic War when nobody could afford a regular workman and dead calves were blocking the eyes of the bridges. The only labour we could afford were young lads or girls out of orphanages or Industrial Schools. Jeremy died when he was twenty but I think he killed himself. I never touched him, although I know of boys and girls who were whipped and punched like slaes and there were young girls who were badly abused by certain farmers who are pillars of the Church to-day. May God forgive them and the priests who knew what was going on. I put up headstone over Jeremy when he died. There was no cure for TB in those days. ...

In that year, 1988, there was a more sceptical reaction to Paddy Doyle’s story74 of, amongst other things, the violence of the nuns of St Michael’s Industrial School in Cappoquin. He recalled that: ‘I used to hear people refer to me as one of the children from the orphanage, which was the phrase locals used to soften the brutal reality of the Industrial School in their midst.’

The Task Force on Child Care Services 1980 refers to a most striking feature of the pre-Kennedy system of residential care as being ...‘...the alarming complacency and indifference of both the general public and the various government departments and statutory bodies responsible for the welfare of children’.

Until very late in the day, the contribution made by the Oireachtas or the news media towards supervision, or even education of the public, in regard to the Schools, appears to have been negligible. Pressure groups were rare and usually ineffective The general public was often uninformed and usually uninterested. All these pools of unknowing reinforced each other.

A trained social worker who practiced in the 1960s informed the Commission that: we knew that the Schools were ‘institutions’ with all that implied and were alert to try to avoid them or minimise a child’s stay there; but on the other hand we regarded them as safe places where the child would be if not positively cherished at least ‘protected from harm.

Part 5 Family links

The maintenance of family links was adversely affected by three issues, namely the geographical distribution of the Schools and the problem this posed for parental visits; keeping brother and sisters together; and home leave. The long-term social and psychological well-being of the children required that they keep their links with their families. This meant that siblings should as far as possible be in the same School and that resident children should be kept in touch with their families by holidays, parental visits and letters. These areas were often the subject of differences between the Department and the Schools. The Department appears to have appreciated the need for improvements but it was not sufficiently determined to overcome the opposition of the Schools to changes. The reason for this resistance was the Schools’ fear that liberalisation could undermine discipline. Using a mixture of persuasion and financial incentive, the Department effected some improvements. Where there was a cost, a good deal depended on who paid for the change; usually the Department ended up paying.

The fact that so many of the Schools were located a long way from the homes of their residents made contact with families almost non-existent, except for such limited holidays at home as were permitted. In practice, sending a Dublin boy to Letterfrack could sunder the family almost completely. In very occasional cases, family circumstances were thought to be so bad that children were deliberately sent to Schools at a distance from their homes in order to remove them from their parents.

The reason for the uneven geographic distribution of the Schools was explained in the Cussen Report:75 ... on the introduction of the system most of the Local Authorities were unwilling to contribute even towards the maintenance of the children, and as the Treasury grant was insufficient for the building and equipment of such schools, their establishment was a matter of some difficulty. As a result, various Religious Orders were requested to undertake the work, and those who agreed and provided suitable premises had them certified. Certificates were, therefore, granted with little regard to the geographical distribution of the schools.

Part 5 Family links

The difficulties were exacerbated by the fact that committals were disproportionately high in Dublin.76

As outlined in a Departmental memo in 1943, Munster had five senior Schools for boys and two junior Schools whereas Leinster had only two of each. The memo continued: At the present time north of a line between Dublin and Galway there are no Senior Boys’ Industrial Schools; the nearest south of that line is in Clonmel and after that recourse must be had to Glin and Tralee (both of which have now numbers in excess of the certified complement – as also, incidentally, have the schools in Salthill and Letterfrack), or to a cluster of schools in a limited area in the extreme southwest, namely, Greenmount, Upton and Baltimore. Only the two last-named of these are at present short of their certified numbers. They therefore become of necessity the dumping-grounds for Dublin boys who cannot be sent to Artane or Carriglea.

The Department was concerned about this problem.77 One way that it could use to ease the problem was in making transfer orders from junior to senior boys’ schools when boys were aged 10 years, on which occasion the Department could select Schools close to Dublin. In addition, there might be exceptional transfers, at other ages, including transfers to Dublin on emotional grounds.

An example of the way in which the Department could sometimes operate is shown in an internal Departmental memo of 18th September 1963. It was noted that ‘St George’s Limerick was a good school and that its Resident Manager has in a recent phone call, sharply rebuked the Department for its lack of interest in the school and its problems. The memo continues: Dr McCabe has been asked to call on the Inspector of the ISPCC Limerick with a view to channelling more committals to St George’s School and on the closing of Summerhill, Athlone next December, New Ross and Waterford should be kept in mind when arranging the transfer of the children if the addresses and family backgrounds permit this course.

In 1954, when the Christian Brothers announced that all offenders were to be sent to the School in Letterfrack, District Justice McCarthy requested that the proposed schools for offenders be located in a place less isolated than Letterfrack (eg Tralee or Glin) as he felt that Letterfrack would not be the most suitable place for the rehabilitation of boys from Dublin City. However, this aspect of the district justice’s complaint fell on stony ground. Br O’hAnluan of the Christian Brothers replied that they had fully considered the question and that they had decided on Letterfrack.