1,173 entries for Abuse Events

Some complainants gave evidence of kindness shown to them by different Brothers. However, one Brother described a failing in the Institution, when he said that the boys became institutionalised. He said that the ‘personal touch wasn’t there. Well, I suppose from men that is what you would kind of expect ... that the personal touch wasn’t really there’. He also pointed out that, when the boys left the School and ‘went out on their own’, they could not cope. ‘They lost the back-up of routine that they were used to’.

Br Mahieu spoke of the difficulty of dealing with bed-wetters. He had nobody to help him, and trying to cope with it wore him down. The only resource available was an old-fashioned laundry. He acknowledged that he would get frustrated and would use the strap, which he bitterly regretted. He felt he was put into an almost impossible situation. There could be six or eight bed-wetters and soilers in a dormitory.

Br Mahieu, when referring to the difficulties experienced when the boys from Glin and Upton arrived in Tralee, stated: Now, that made it extremely difficult for us. Like, when I was sent to Tralee ... I got no training whatsoever, not even one single word. All I was given was, I was given a leather strap. Nobody thought it worthwhile to give me training for residential care.

The fact that boys were separated from their families created major problems and had an emotional effect on the boys. They felt alienated from their roots, their family and friends, and suffered a loss of personal identity. For example, one witness told the Committee: The biggest abuse really is being denied any information about my family. Outside, the abuse I suffered, that has gone. You have your abuse, you have your beatings, you take it and you go. But the abuse that stays with me, and it stays with me to this day, I am now 76 years of age, is that I can never prove ... I don’t suppose there is one here in this room who doesn’t know who their mother was, right? I never knew who my mother was and why take me away from my mother, take me away from my brother or my sister and my friends and, take me and put me away? I had done no wrong to anybody and I have been put away, sentenced to all those years for nothing.

The Visitation Report for 1939 noted that the new Superior had ‘done much to restore the discipline which had become relaxed. Good order and good conduct among the boys have been re-established’. This was attributed in part to the fact that he had changed the class schedule back to three school sessions per day. The previous schedule based on the one in ordinary national schools meant the School closed at 3pm. The 1936 Cussen Report had recommended that teaching in the evenings cease. However, teaching in the evening was now re-introduced. The latter was an initiative introduced by the previous Superior. The fact that the teachers left at 3pm every day had only served to weaken discipline. The Visitor once again criticised the calibre of staff in the School: The staff on the Brothers side is neither a strong or capable one. The Superior who is in his 73rd year has found it necessary to keep charge of the discipline and general supervision of the boys in dormitories and playground. None of the Brothers are capable or assertive enough to act as disciplinarian. Br Rene’s nerves have got a bad shake and he had lost confidence in his powers to control the boys.

He was fully aware of the hardship he would face on leaving the Congregation, having spent most of his life there, but had no doubt whatsoever that it was the lesser of two evils. He literally begged the Superior General to accede to his request. His plea fell on deaf ears and, once more, his request was refused.

Br Rene accepted the decision of the General Council but his personal torment and anguish did not subside. He made a further plea five years later, at the age of 55. He referred to a previous letter from the Vicar General of the General Council and wrote: My devotion to duty to which you so kindly refer actually did much harm. Lacking every qualification for the work in Carriglea I had recourse to harshness and severity. As a result many of the past pupils have lost the faith and some are active, capable and influential communists. When these become sufficiently vocal it may be some help to the Brothers if they can say concerning me and in defence of the Congregation he is not in the Order now. I recall the relief it was to the Brothers to be able to say this about another ... years ago when a Dáil deputy spoke bitterly of the punishment he received in school from the man concerned. My utter failure in Carriglea caused me great remorse. Having no fitness for the work it was only to be expected that my efforts would result in failure and harm.

The Vicar General responded on 24th June 1952, informing Br Rene that his application had been submitted to the Sacred Congregation of Religious in Rome and that they had decided that he should remain in the Congregation. He commended Br Rene on his splendid work within the Congregation. The Vicar General conceded that ‘the nervous tension from which you have been suffering is admittedly a sore trial’, but assured him that such anguish was not confined to those within the religious community. He concluded that Br Rene should accept with resignation the decision made by his representatives. In doing so you will find your peace of mind restored and your happiness here as well as hereafter assured. Do not attempt becoming a judge of your own case. That would be the height of folly.

The result of this poisoned atmosphere between the Brothers was borderline anarchy among the boys. The Visitation Report for 1945 described the situation: The boys were very much out of hand during the past year and showed a very rebellious spirit. Boohing the Brothers was not uncommon and they refused, more than once, to submit to control. They made a determined attempt on one occasion to burn down the place and had actually got a fire going in one of the dormitories before they were discovered.

The Investigation Committee heard evidence from an ex-resident of Carriglea who described this Brother as ‘an animal’. He alleged that Br Maslin was random and indiscriminate in his use of corporal punishment. He stated, ‘He would go behind you and he would just give you a whack. A whack of the leather on the head or the ears’. He used a leather strap to inflict punishment and he carried a cat-o’-nine-tails around with him, which was terrifying for the children.

Br Maslin supervised the washroom in the evening time and would beat the boys with a strap if they were too slow. This former resident described the daily scene in the washroom as follows: In the evenings if you had to go up to the washroom, there was a big washroom with all the taps and all that, and everything was cold, it was all cold, there was water in them. What you used to do was the kids used line up in two, one and then one behind him, and what you had to do was he just roared first ‘right leg’, you put your right leg in and you got the soap and you washed it and then he would say ‘wash off the soap’. Then you had the stand back and the next kid would go in and he would put his right foot up on the thing.

A witness, who was in the School from the mid-1930s to the early 1940s, recalled being beaten with a leather strap embedded with metal. He also gave evidence that boys were hit over their fingertips with a wooden stick for not knowing their schoolwork.

The leather strap was normally used to inflict punishment but a witness who was in Carriglea from the mid-1940s to the early 1950s alleged that a T-square was also used. He described how Br Luc19 inflicted punishment with this implement: He would tell him to bend over the stool. He used get the T-square, T-square that you had on the thing. Then he would pick out a match that was played that particular weekend, and it would always be the hurling, always the high scoring games used to with in the hurling in them days with the Tipperarys and the Corks and the Wexfords and all that, what he would do he would take the T-square out and he would ask the class what was the score of the game yesterday. It was 2-3 to 1-15 or whatever it would be where you got – he used to – I don’t mean just tap you, he used to just swing it like a hurley stick at the boy’s backside and he would give him a smack for every point and three for a goal. Now, that’s what it was.

A complainant, who was resident in the School in the early 1950s, alleged that he was sexually abused on two occasions by Br Vic, one of the Brothers who had been sent into the School in 1946 to restore order and discipline. The alleged abuse took place at night, when the Brother would take the boy out of his bed and bring him to a room downstairs. He made the complainant perform oral sex. When asked by counsel whether he was in a position to resist, he stated, ‘No, you were never in a position to resist, they owned you body and soul once you were inside them walls’.

The second complaint was made by a former resident who was present in Carriglea from the late 1940s to the mid-1950s. He was 10 years old when he was sent to Carriglea, and the abuse, which involved masturbation, began shortly after he arrived there. He alleged that he was sexually abused on three or four occasions by an older boy aged approximately 15 years. When the perpetrator left the School, the abuse stopped. The witness stated, ‘I just kept it quiet. When you are institutionalised you don’t tell anybody, you keep it quiet’. It was significant that the alleged abuse occurred during a time when Visitation Reports indicated that immoral practices had been stamped out in the School.