47 entries for School Manager

The importance of the court cases was clear to the Upton authorities and beyond. Writing to Fr Orsino in Rome on 20th October 1936 about his brother, Fr Giuseppe, the Resident Manager, Fr Gerodi,53 described how the Manager was detained on urgent business: Fr Giuseppe was unable to be away from Upton, owing to a matter which had troubled him much for several weeks and during last week he had to be on call on the telephone ... Some ex-Upton boys got into very serious trouble, and there was very great danger that the reputation of the School would suffer.

It did not have the desired effect on the Resident Manager. Instead, after having read the statements of the three boys, he wrote a very defensive letter to the Inspector, dismissing his concerns outright. As to the statements of the three boys, the Manager analysed them and pointed out reasons why they should not be believed, and he referred to the difficult backgrounds from which each of them came. He certainly did not think that he was in any way to blame for the misconduct of the boys, and insisted that the acts complained of in the statements were well known to him and he had done everything in his power to be vigilant: I do not know that there is a case mentioned in any of the statements which was not either known or suspected and every vigilance was exercised.

The Assistant Secretary stated in an internal memorandum in 1945 to the Secretary that the letter ‘is reasonable enough on the whole’ and that he did not expect that the Resident Manager would actually resign the certificate. The course taken by the Department was simply to do nothing more about the matter and to let it all blow over. When the Medical Inspector, Dr Anna McCabe,54 carried out a routine General Inspection of the School on 19th March 1945, she had a long discussion with Fr Giuseppe about the situation and particularly his threat to resign the certificate. She considered that the threat was ‘a bit of a bluff’. The Manager informed her that he could always turn the School into a secondary boarding school. By April 1945, a reply to the Manager’s letter had not been issued from the Department, and they felt it was unnecessary to do so and that it was safe to ‘assume that the Provincial will not pursue his threat to resign the Cert. of the School?’.

Apart from Dr Lysaght’s report, there were three reports from Dr Anna McCabe for August and September 1963 and January 1964, when the School population was nearly 200 boys. They are generally very positive. On 15th August 1963, she wrote under the heading ‘Condition of premises’, ‘Clean well kept. Improvements have been made and will be made. Outside and inside re-decoration is being done’. Equipment, sanitation and health were all described as very good. Food and diet, and clothing were described as ‘Improved’. Her general observation was that the new Manager was ‘keen to make improvements’. She recorded that she had ‘discussed many points with him and he will endeavour to have improvements made’. In an addendum following an incidental visit, she wrote, ‘Improvements are being made and in time the school will be much improved’.

He confirmed that both the Gardaí and an ISPCC Inspector had questioned the children as part of their enquiries. The Manager assured them that stricter controls were in place to ensure that any such misconduct did not occur, and he was satisfied that the problem had been eradicated in the School. The Department of Education Inspectors concluded that: ... consistent with the normal freedom of the children the supervision exercised in both schools is adequate in ordinary circumstances and the recent occurrences will tend to keep the school authorities on the alert: from what we have learned, however, there is an ever present danger of these cases arising no matter how well planned the supervision and this danger is aggravated when, as in the case of Greenmount, a member of the staff is known to have been implicated. The problem, as we understand it, is for obvious reasons a most difficult one to deal with and we consider the only action that can be taken is to impress on the Manager (verbally for preference) of each boys’ school the possibility of such cases occurring and the necessity for close and constant supervision of the boys, especially the senior boys, i.e. boys over 14 years of age, in all their activities.

The first indication that the Presentation Brothers were considering closing Greenmount was noted in Dr McCabe’s Inspection Report dated November 1952. She stated that the Manager had indicated to her that, once numbers fell below 150, the School would resign the certificate because it would cease to be economically practicable. The following year, numbers did drop to just below 150, and, apart from a slight increase in 1954, numbers remained below 150.

In March 1959, the Chief Inspector of Industrial Schools at the Department of Education wrote: Bro. Goyo38 of the General Council of the Presentation Brothers, Mount St. Joseph Cork called in to the office about six weeks ago and told me in strict confidence that his order was considering closing Greenmount Industrial School. He enquired what the procedure should be. I told him that under Section 48 of the Children’s Act 1908 the Managers may on giving six months notice in writing to the Minister for Education resign the Certificate. He was anxious to know whether the six months interval between the giving of the notice and the evacuating of the school would be insisted on and I informed him that we would do our best to arrange for the transfer of the boys in Greenmount to some other school or schools as quickly as possible. Bro. Goyo rang me on the 17th Feb. and said his Provincial and he with the Res. Manager of Greenmount were anxious to meet me to discuss matters bearing on the closing of the Greenmount School. I met the three of them in the School on the 26th Feb. I pointed out to them that before considering the transfer of Greenmount school boys elsewhere we should contact the Res. Manager of Upton School to ascertain how many boys from Greenmount he would be prepared to accept. The great majority of the Greenmount Boys are from Cork City and County. We (the provincial and Res. Manager and I) arranged to meet [the] Res. Manager of Upton School and we told him in confidence that Greenmount school was to be closed and we asked him how many boys from that school he could accept on transfer into his school. [The Resident Manager of Upton] promised to consider the matter and let us know as soon as possible. He notified us on the 3rd instant that his school could accommodate 105 of the Greenmount boys. I further discussed with the Res. Manager of Greenmount the distribution of the boys and asked him on the 11th instant to furnish lists of the proposed transfer. He has contacted the Resident Managers of Upton, Artane, Tralee & Glin Schools and has recommended the transfer of the boys as follows Upton 98, Artane 9, Tralee 4, Glin 3. The General Council of the Presentation Brothers is very anxious that Greenmount as an Industrial School be closed as from the 31st March, 1959 and the Resident Manager of Upton is anxious to have a decision on the matter as early as possible in order to arrange for the appointment of two extra teachers. Schedules of the proposed transfers are attached for the Minister’s signature.

One complainant said that, after Sr Alida became Manager: She took over and you were put on the landing when you wet the bed or when you did anything else bold but mainly for wetting the bed. I was all the time one of those people. She would leave you on the landing until she was ready to come up and smack you, and you could be there for a long time.

Dr McCabe’s General Inspection Reports from 1948 until her retirement in 1963 were, without exception, very positive. Her reports during these years were not very detailed and were, in fact, quite repetitive in content. She frequently stated that the School was ‘well run’ and in some years remarked that it was ‘extremely well run’22 or ‘very well conducted’.23 She also commented in her reports that ‘many improvements had been made and continued to be made’ to the School.24 The exact nature of these improvements was not detailed in these reports. Throughout this time period, Dr McCabe singled out the Resident Manager for praise. In her General Inspection Report of January 1959 and 1960, she said ‘Sr Alida an excellent nun ... knows many things about running a good school’. Dr McCabe’s General Inspection Reports of 1963 referred to the fact that ‘Sr Venetia is now Res. Manager and is doing very well being a disciple of Sr Alida she is excellent’.

This disorganisation was confirmed by the evidence of Mr Lloyd,16 Resident Manager from the early 1990s. He described what confronted him when he arrived to replace Sr Callida. He found the buildings were very run down. Lots of very young children were in the Centre. Few, if any, records were kept of the children. The financial records were in disarray. The previous Resident Manager had allowed children to sleep in her bedroom. This practice was absolutely inappropriate, and he considered there were no circumstances in which a young person should ever stay in a staff member’s room. Children and staff told him that children had been slapped regularly and inappropriately. When he first arrived he witnessed a staff member slapping a child and immediately banned the practice. The centre was chaotic; there were staff shortages, impossible rosters and very low morale. Relatives would turn up drunk. There were no boundaries for the children and they had no structure in their daily lives. He set about dealing with the problems.

The Department’s desire to extend home leave to a wider number of children, for a greater period of time, met with resistance from a number of Resident Managers, Glin included. On 22nd November 1944, the Manager of Glin wrote to the Industrial Schools Branch of the Department of Education, defending the decision to send only 74 children out of a total of 207 on home leave. The Manager stated, ‘I kept them in the school because I had no guarantee that their friends would be able to maintain and take care of them’. He also stated in this letter that every boy in the School wrote to relatives regarding the home leave, with 74 positive replies, six negative replies and no replies in the remaining cases. Closing the letter, he remarked, ‘I did not consider it advisable to send boys on holidays to parents and relatives who did not reply’.

The open and frank discussion between the Oblates and the Department of Education throughout the 1940s and 1950s, on the way in which flogging was administered, revealed indifference by the Department to a flagrant breach of the rules. Flogging was administered in Daingean in a cruel, sadistic and excessive manner designed to maximise the terror of all the boys. It was used in Daingean for a wide range of offences, including those which even at the time would have been considered trivial. The pain caused by the punishment was intense, and victims graphically described to the Committee the physical impact on their bodies. Bruising and scars remained long after the beating was administered. Fr Luca’s stated revulsion to the practice of flogging was contradictory. It was within his power as Manager to put a stop to it and he chose not to do so. The Oblates did not condemn the practice of flogging in their Submission to the Investigation Committee. They contended that it was used only for a breach of the school rules and was administered by the Prefect. They did, however, acknowledge that punishment for absconding was ‘over severe’ but not abusive.

The letter then added: There is one further point to which it is felt reference should be made. Father [Luca] took grave exception to the last sentence of Mr. MacConchradha’s account of his visit to Daingean in which it is alleged that the Manager considered corporal punishment to be more humiliating when administered on the naked body. Father [Luca] has no recollection of making such a remark, the theory of which he asserts is neither in his philosophy nor in his character, nor would he have answered any question by a member of the Committee “in a matter of fact manner” on such an important occasion.

On 27th August, the local Garda Sergeant was informed that a fire may be started in a number of workshops, and that four o’clock in the afternoon was fixed as the start time. The local fire brigade were alerted. However, the staff had restored order and no Garda assistance was required. The Manager separated the ringleaders and had them confined in a separate room. These boys were interrogated by a Garda Sergeant at Daingean, and it became evident that a full-scale conspiracy to burn down sections of the Reformatory was in existence. The four boys mentioned above were charged with attempted arson and conspiracy.

By her next visit in April 1942, she found some improvement but listed very many faults: Still much can be done - Floor of refectory needs repair. Recommended for immediate action. Dormitories overcrowded – but only as a temporary measure till new Building established. Drew manager’s attention to sheets and bedclothes which could be cleaner. Lavatory Annexe ... general cleanliness is not good – drew manager’s attention to this. Clothing to be improved ... suggested lumber jackets. Farm boys very untidy looking, especially about legs – suggested small gaiters ... to be worn to keep ends of trousers dry. Suggested rubber aprons to be worn by boys in the laundry because of wet conditions their clothes were in. Manager hopes that new building will soon be started.