1,173 entries for Abuse Events

One witness said Br Bevis physically assaulted him in the classroom, schoolyard and recreation hall. He was slapped with the strap that Br Bevis carried, not just on the hands. He does not know which classroom this was in, but it could have been any as he did chores for the Brothers. Br Bevis did not teach him. Br Bevis acknowledged that he may have slapped this boy, but denied beating any boy over the body or head or breaking bones. He only punished boys on the hands or maybe gave a clip on the bottom, on the trousers.

One other witness confirmed that Br Kalle ‘often used the leather and his fists’ and that he received both forms of punishment on a lot of occasions, mostly in class but once outside class. Boys were punished for getting questions wrong.19 It was done routinely, in second and third class. Once, he was punched for talking and his nose bled. He did not remember seeing the Brother punch other boys.

Another witness said that Br Cheney would ask him a difficult question that he was unable to answer, and then he would call him to the blackboard. He would be too frightened to answer and Br Cheney would then get his head and beat it across the blackboard. He also beat him on the legs. This happened ‘quite often’. He urinated with fear on the way up to the blackboard and Br Cheney called him in front of the class about it and made him clean it up. This has remained in his mind over the years.

Another witness recalled how he was in the cobbler’s shop one day and somebody who worked there pointed out Br Cheney’s leather strap to him. He told the Committee, ‘The whole front of it was all loaded down with washers. That was Br Cheney’s leather strap. We used to wonder why it was so hard’.

Another witness made a number of complaints against lay staff. First, he mentioned a lay teacher who tried to get him to march properly and threw chairs at him and hit him. He said that one of the lay teachers would be ‘on the prowl’ where the boys went to darn socks with the nurse or to the tailor to get measured. ‘If he saw you you were dead unlucky because he would grab you by the knackers and squeeze you until you scream for mercy’. If he could not catch you, ‘he would chuck a chisel at you or something’.

Br Bevis was Principal in the primary school from the mid-1950s to early 1960s. In his evidence to the Committee, he said he accepted that he may have given a boy a clip on the bottom with the leather strap or on the ear. He also said that he never saw marks on any boy from abuse or excessive corporal punishment by any other teacher. He would have noticed marks ‘when they were coming up to be examined before going to bed’ if the marks were on the upper body or, if they were wearing short pants, on their legs.

Br Mahieu acknowledged that from time to time he would have used a strap on the boys in Tralee, in particular for bed-wetting: I had my six hours teaching day job to do. I was then put in charge of the dormitory ... I now discover that there is such a thing as bedwetting, persistent bedwetting. I was not able to cope with that. Partly the reason I wasn’t able to cope with that was that there wasn’t sufficient back-up facilities or persons to help me with that ... sheets are wet. How do you dry them? There was some kind of a laundry there, to me it was very old fashioned looking, just full of steam and things like that ... I found it very difficult ... The result with not coping with it would be that it was a headache. It was something which wore me down after a while. It would mean that I could hit somebody, beat somebody ... using the strap didn’t work either. But I would just physically at times get tired, get frustrated and would use the strap and I bitterly regret that. I have always said that and admitted that a way back. I regret it, that that’s the way I tried to cope. But it was putting me into almost an impossible situation.

Another complainant, reiterating this, said that the Brothers never asked him questions about bullying. He said that the Brothers: were always standoffish, you did what you’re told and that was it. They didn’t make you feel like you could come to them with a complaint because you were frightened to go near them in case you got a beating for making a complaint.

One complainant who was in the school in the 1940s said that he was bullied by other boys and had: many the thick lip and many the black eye for no reason whatsoever. But I wasn’t one to fight back, I never was. I was bullied by the boys I think because, you know, I was different. I wasn’t brought in from the country for some mischief or something or another.

Another complainant said that he was beaten up for being a ‘pet’. He described the situation as follows: When I say a pet, a pet would be the kind of person that would be hanging on to a Brother and, the other boys, especially the bigger boys, would perceive that you were telling them everything that was going on. Now, there was incidents where boys used to rebel and like – at one time they went downtown, a lot of boys from the school went downtown and raided Woolworths downtown and, took a lot of stuff out of Woolworths, a lot of boys now. Obviously, like, the Brothers wanted to know where the stuff was. So we were the pets like and, of course, we would tell them everything. Where the stuff was ... You were picked on then because you were small and you were trying to get protection from the Brother. But in actual fact, like, the Brother couldn’t protect you because you were out amongst all the boys and the boys would beat you up. If they said to you “if you tell a Brother, we’ll beat you, you are going to be killed the next time again”.

He went on to say that they would get you: Anywhere in the school. The school is only a small place that you can go in, it is one square little area like. You couldn’t go far unless you ran away ... you wouldn’t get a bad beating, like, in a sense you wouldn’t need hospitalisation or anything like that, no. You got a belt across the head, a kick that kind of a way. “If you say anything like, we will beat you up again”. It wasn’t that the Brothers could protect you it was that kind of an environment.

In a Garda statement responding to allegations made against him, Br Marceau acknowledged that Br Garon used to be in the showers with the boys. He said: On one occasion I had reason to look for Br Garon who was in the showers with the boys and he and the boys were naked. I was shocked and never approved of that.

In the statement made four days later, on 31st January, Br Lisle explained that about four or five boys between the ages of nine and 16 complained to him that they were reluctant to go for showers because Br Garon would ‘interfere with them while in the showers’. They said that Br Garon would shower them and request that they wash him also. Br Garon would be naked with them in the showers. The boys also told him that Br Garon would take a boy from the yard for an ‘individual shower’ every day.

When giving evidence to the Committee, Br Lisle said that the allegations against Br Garon had not come as a great shock to him, as Br Garon himself used to take boys off the yard, telling him that he had to ‘bring this boy for a shower’.

When this happened, he reported it to Br Sinclair,24 the first of the three Resident Managers. His complaint was dismissed and he was told, ‘Oh don’t mind that man, sure, he was in China for years’. He could not remember the word used by the first boy when complaining to him, but he believed it was something like ‘fiddling’. He did not recall if he went to Br Sinclair with complaints more than once, but it is possible that he did, since several boys would be talking about it. His view at the time was that he had done enough by telling Br Sinclair because he would ‘let him look after it’. He did not go back to the boy to follow up on it. Br Garon, however, kept giving showers.