186 entries for Historical Context
BackBr Hardouin,12 who was in Glin in the 1940s, also recalled the man: I can recall when the Department Inspector called to Glin to investigate a complaint made by a retired Brother against a member of the teaching staff who was accused of being too severe. The Brother accused was removed to a day school and the following Christmas was expelled from the Order. I imagine that the complaint may have been a contributory factor in his expulsion although he had previous problems during second year training.
Br Hardouin,12 who was in Glin in the 1940s, also recalled the man: I can recall when the Department Inspector called to Glin to investigate a complaint made by a retired Brother against a member of the teaching staff who was accused of being too severe. The Brother accused was removed to a day school and the following Christmas was expelled from the Order. I imagine that the complaint may have been a contributory factor in his expulsion although he had previous problems during second year training.
Br Zacharie,13 who replaced Br Serge, said: I came there from Monaghan to replace a Brother who had been moved out because he was over severe ... I was advised to be nice to the kids and not to worry about examination results.
Br Zacharie,13 who replaced Br Serge, said: I came there from Monaghan to replace a Brother who had been moved out because he was over severe ... I was advised to be nice to the kids and not to worry about examination results.
Br Gaston, who was resident in Glin during the 1950s, recalled talk about this Brother being investigated. He said: I cannot recall any situation where a formal complaint against the school was investigated by an outside group or individual, though I believe that there was such a situation in the School within three or four years prior to my coming.
Br Gaston, who was resident in Glin during the 1950s, recalled talk about this Brother being investigated. He said: I cannot recall any situation where a formal complaint against the school was investigated by an outside group or individual, though I believe that there was such a situation in the School within three or four years prior to my coming.
A contemporary of Br Serge, Br Amaury,14 gave more details: The procedure for dealing with complaints would be that if any staff member or child in the school had a complaint he could bring that problem to the Superior/Manager, the sub superior, the school principal, the disciplinarian, or to the provincial or any one of his council. One such complaint was made during my year in Glin. It was made against one of the Brothers on the school staff. I do not know to what outside group or individual the complaint was made but the nature of it was that the man in question was over severe in having recourse to corporal punishment. None of the details of this complaint were made available to the community or staff in Glin. The boy who was named as the one who made the complaint was personally known to me and my impression of him was that he was a boy who would be very unlikely to do anything serious enough to merit severe corporal punishment. He was known to have been a close friend – a “masters pet” – one of the men who regularly did supervision in the school yard during recreation time. This does add more than a little likelihood to an opinion circulating at the time; that it was the “master” and not really the “pet” who caused the complaint to be made.
A contemporary of Br Serge, Br Amaury,14 gave more details: The procedure for dealing with complaints would be that if any staff member or child in the school had a complaint he could bring that problem to the Superior/Manager, the sub superior, the school principal, the disciplinarian, or to the provincial or any one of his council. One such complaint was made during my year in Glin. It was made against one of the Brothers on the school staff. I do not know to what outside group or individual the complaint was made but the nature of it was that the man in question was over severe in having recourse to corporal punishment. None of the details of this complaint were made available to the community or staff in Glin. The boy who was named as the one who made the complaint was personally known to me and my impression of him was that he was a boy who would be very unlikely to do anything serious enough to merit severe corporal punishment. He was known to have been a close friend – a “masters pet” – one of the men who regularly did supervision in the school yard during recreation time. This does add more than a little likelihood to an opinion circulating at the time; that it was the “master” and not really the “pet” who caused the complaint to be made.
There are no grounds to suggest these recollections are unreliable. They all recall similar details and they provide an important illustration of how a violent man was dealt with by the management of the Congregation in the 1940s.
There are no grounds to suggest these recollections are unreliable. They all recall similar details and they provide an important illustration of how a violent man was dealt with by the management of the Congregation in the 1940s.
First, there did not seem to be a standard reporting procedure for either boys or Brothers when violent or abusive behaviour did occur. Br Hardouin summed up the situation as he saw it: Generally speaking there was no redress for any child who had a complaint against a staff member. Again as a younger brother, I certainly was not fully informed of problems that were the responsibility of management.
First, there did not seem to be a standard reporting procedure for either boys or Brothers when violent or abusive behaviour did occur. Br Hardouin summed up the situation as he saw it: Generally speaking there was no redress for any child who had a complaint against a staff member. Again as a younger brother, I certainly was not fully informed of problems that were the responsibility of management.
The procedure referred to by Br Amaury, ‘that if any staff member or child in the school had a complaint he could bring that problem to the Superior/Manager, the sub-superior, the school principal, the disciplinarian, or to the provincial or any one of his council’, was not used in this case of extreme violence. Instead, a letter of complaint was sent to an outsider, the School Inspector. There was no explanation in the documentation as to why this route was taken, but it was clearly deemed necessary or politic to avoid the Congregation’s management structures.
The procedure referred to by Br Amaury, ‘that if any staff member or child in the school had a complaint he could bring that problem to the Superior/Manager, the sub-superior, the school principal, the disciplinarian, or to the provincial or any one of his council’, was not used in this case of extreme violence. Instead, a letter of complaint was sent to an outsider, the School Inspector. There was no explanation in the documentation as to why this route was taken, but it was clearly deemed necessary or politic to avoid the Congregation’s management structures.
Br Serge was removed promptly during the Visitation, and was sent to a day school. Some of the Brothers in Glin informally kept an eye on his later career. As stated above, one of them believed that he had got into trouble elsewhere. He said, ‘we followed his career afterwards, he became a principal outside and a parish priest was in trouble’, but no details are available about such an episode. Given the seriousness of his behaviour, and the excessive violence he was known to have used, this simple expedient of removing him to a day school could not have guaranteed the protection of other children. Br Serge’s career continued as a national school teacher in a number of schools. He left the Christian Brothers in the late 1940s. He subsequently spent many years as a principal of a national school.