1,173 entries for Abuse Events

Under questioning, he added: ... I became aware that I was doing things that were not strictly right or not strictly necessary ... Like using the leather too frequently, or using it for failure in lessons, or in work. Also, using my hand instead of what was recognised as a way of punishing.

Shortly before this Visitation, the Provincial wrote a letter to all Brothers to express his concern about levels of corporal punishment. He wrote: In a Circular issued in January 1957 I asked the Brothers of the Province to avoid as much as possible the use of corporal punishment in the schools. For some time after the issuing of that Circular there appeared to be good reason to believe that the request was being carried out. More recently, however, the leather has come back into frequent use in at least some schools. This is a matter for sincere regret. As I have already stated frequent recourse to the use of the leather indicates a bad tone in the classroom. It may make the lives of the children unhappy and nullifies much of the benefit of their Education. It is to be hoped that, in time, wiser counsels will prevail and that the use of the leather will be reserved for cases in which it is really necessary for the purpose of correction.

The Superior General replied to the grandmother’s letter in November 1962. His letter discussed efforts made concerning the boy’s care after he left Artane. He also stated that the School Superior offered the boy a free place in the secondary school, which he declined. He went on to respond to the grandmother’s complaint: As to his troubles at school, he evidently received punishment, but it was not in the manner or in the spirit which you seem to suggest. In this he may have exaggerated things to you, and your affection for the boy may have caused you to see them in a more serious way. As far as we could discover there was no unkind feeling towards him, as all felt that his make-up was not that of the ordinary boy ...

In February 1963, Mrs McCarthy brought her grandson to Artane to discuss with the Superior his difficulty in keeping jobs and to see if he could help in finding employment. What happened in the course of this meeting is in dispute. The grandmother gave her version of what happened in a letter written later that month (26th February) to the Minister for Education: I could not believe my eyes, without word or warning the Superior, closed his fist + struck the boy a most brutal blow on the side of the jaw, saying to him why wont you work. He then said in the most deliberate tone to him, you are mental the boy said I am not. He said you are suffering from a mental dicease, this he repeated about five times; every drop of blood had left the boys face from the blow, which had sent him staggering to the other side of the Office, all the unfortunate boy could say was wh... and his voice went. I was so shocked and dazed from the scene. I was not much better than the boy. I could not think straight. However Bro Colbert34 happened to come in just then and the Superior said look who we have here. He then left the Office. I followed him outside the door and told him it was the yrs of ill treatment of that Kind had the boy the way he was, and told him to get the boy medical and mental treatment ... He was removed to St Brendan’s on The Sat evg 9th February.

The grandmother turned to a clergyman named Canon O’Neill for assistance with her complaint. He wrote to Monsignor Barry,35 who passed on Canon O’Neill’s letter to the Superior General. After meeting with the Superior in Artane, the Superior General, Br Mulholland, wrote to Monsignor Barry on 26th February 1963: Further to my note of 23rd February I have now made full enquiries into the allegations in Mrs McCarthy’s letter. I have ascertained that she is a mental case with a strong antipathy against Artane School and that she is given to exaggeration in all matters she speaks or writes about. It is easy to note that she is a very dangerous type of woman ... Now just to give you an example of her powers of exaggeration I asked the Superior of Artane about the blow he was alleged to have given the boy on the 7th of February. He said he was talking to [the boy] in presence of Mrs McCarthy about the number of jobs he was in and of his leaving each of them without cause. To impress matters on [the boy] he gave him a tip of his hand and that is what is described as a staggering blow. 36 That will give us some idea of what to believe of the allegations made in the rest of the letter. As far as I could ascertain there is no truth in the accusation that boys are taken out of bed at 10p.m. and beaten “for any minor fault”. It must be only hearsay on Mrs McCarthy’s part. We all know how boys are inclined to exaggerate the slightest happening.

In conclusion: A serious complaint was inadequately investigated and was dismissed on insufficient grounds by both the Department of Education and the Superior. The Superior did not deny that ‘to impress matters on the boy he gave him a tip of his hand’. The severity of the blow was subsequently disputed, but it is accepted that the boy was physically chastised in the presence of the grandmother. Neither the Brothers nor the Department of Education criticised the Superior for hitting the boy in this way. The correspondence reveals a lack of respect for the grandmother and her complaints. She is seen as a dangerous troublemaker whose complaints ‘have to be nailed’. The decision by the senior official in the Department of Education not to reply to the grandmother’s letter itself revealed a contempt for her complaint. The Department’s inspectors accepted written statements from the Brothers and did not question them directly, thereby affording them a preferential credibility. Although the grandmother’s complaint was totally rejected, the Superior still sent out a letter prohibiting a method of giving punishment that the establishment claimed had never happened. This odd fact suggests there was an apprehension that there was some truth in what had been alleged. Many witnesses before the Investigation Committee testified that they were taken out of bed and punished, thereby supporting this part of the grandmother’s complaint.

A case of documented abuse was summarised in the Opening Statement by the Congregation. It involved a boy who received treatment in the infirmary following a beating by a Brother: In 1964 a Brother gave a beating to a boy, apparently for misconduct with other boys. The nature of the misconduct is unclear. There is reference to this incident in the infirmary diary for June of 1965 (sic), from which it is clear that the boy was beaten on the back and legs. There is no indication that the matter was investigated or that any action was taken against the Brother.

The 1964 infirmary diary contained an entry regarding a boy who complained of a sore back and legs. The entry simply stated: ‘got beating by Br Lionel for bad conduct with other boys. Resting’.

In evidence, Br Lionel denied that this had happened. The Brother said that he was never reprimanded for this incident and said that he had no recollection of the particular boy named in the diary. He went on to say that he had indeed severely punished another named boy for sexually interfering with three younger boys. He described the beating as follows: I had to deal with just one incident of [peer abuse] ... I literally gave the person responsible when he had admitted doing it – he admitted openly to having done this to three children and I gave him literally a hiding. I mean a hiding ... I would have slapped him on the hands, I would have slapped him on the backside. It was literally – it was something to deter him from ever doing this again ... It stands out in my mind, it was the toughest thing I ever had to deal with.

In their Opening Statement, the Christian Brothers referred to an incident in the mid-1960s when an employee injured a boy: The Manager’s diary contains an entry ... which states that two boys, who were brothers, were sent unaccompanied to the Mater Hospital and did not return. This note is followed by the word “readmitted” which seems to indicate that the boys did eventually come back to Artane. It appears that one of the boys was injured, his brother accompanied him to the hospital and both absconded. Two lines below the original entry there is another entry as follows: “The injury received was caused by an employee of the School, who was the object of a jeering attack by the injured boy and others”. It is obvious from the handwriting that the two notes were not written by the same person. It is not clear whether the two notes refer to the same boy, nor is there any indication what the nature of the injury was.

An article about discipline in church-run schools in Ireland appeared in a newspaper report in the late 1960s. In it, the journalist wrote about a pupil from Artane Industrial School, who had recently become emotionally disturbed and had been kept under sedation in the School infirmary. Despite this fact, he was punched in the stomach by a Brother as he came out of the toilets that morning. The boy also said the nun in the infirmary kept a cane there. The journalist went to the School to confront the Brother Superior about the matter. The journalist wrote this account of the meeting: “Brother, is it true that Delmar39 punched Michael40 in the stomach last week?” Brother Gilles41 moves the papers about on his desk, nibbles a biscuit. “Sure, I asked Brother Delmar about it this morning. He says he can’t recollect punching Michael at all.” “Could that be because he punches so many boys that he can’t recollect this particular instance?” Brother Gilles looks sideways at me and giggles, leans back in his chair, twiddles his thumbs and does not reply. “Is it true, what Michael says, that the nun keeps a cane in the infirmary?” “I couldn’t say,’ says Brother Gilles. ‘It’s news to me.” “But you’re in charge here, aren’t you? Surely you must know what goes on?” “I really couldn’t say.”

The Superior wrote to the Assistant Secretary in the Department of Education. He had been asked for a statement in response to the article. In it, he protested that he had not given an appointment to the journalist who had accompanied a Mr O’Neill,42 who had requested an interview. He explained: Mr O’Neill asked for the interview because Michael used to visit his home in Blackrock on the second and last Sundays of each month. On [a particular Sunday] Michael was out in Mr O’Neill’s house when he complained of a pain in his stomach which, he stated, was the result of a punch he received from one of the Brothers that morning. Mr O’Neill brought the boy back here that night and put him into our Infirmary. The Matron took charge of him and put him to bed. In a matter of minutes Michael was sitting up viewing the television programme. The following morning he was examined by the school doctor who didn’t discover any marks on his stomach: in fact he told the boy to get up and go to school. Michael got up but stayed in the Infirmary that day and attended school as usual the following morning. He was never under sedation tablets here ...

The main interest of this article is that it made an allegation that a Brother in whose care the boy had been placed punched the boy in the stomach. Mr O’Neill had found the boy retching, brought him to the infirmary when he returned the boy to the School, and made an appointment with the Resident Manager. The man was clearly very concerned. While a doctor was called and he found no marks on the boy’s stomach, the key allegation, that a Brother had punched him, was not investigated. The overwhelming concern in the correspondence was for the reputation of the Institution and the insult sustained by Br Gilles. The Department dismissed the complaint in the article out of hand, and merely sought the Manager’s response ‘to complete the record’.

Br Fontaine,43 who was on the staff of Artane from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, said that he never witnessed Brothers losing control or punishing boys excessively and that he himself had never done so. However, he did say: At times you would hear the boys talking and you got the impression that somebody had gone overboard and you would have a feeling that something had happened that shouldn’t have happened. But it would be from listening to the boys themselves. The Brothers themselves would not talk about something like that.

Br Burcet,46 who had two spells in Artane, in the mid 1950s and then throughout the 1960s, told the Investigation Committee how one witness had moved him to recall an incident. The former resident gave evidence that the first time he received the strap was from Br Burcet when he was one of the youngest boys in Artane, aged eight or nine: The first experience I have with a strap or a leather as they are called, it was from Br. Burcet. again there is a lot after that but because it was the first one it stuck with me ... I remember retracting my hand ... and then receiving ... the strap around that area (indicating) and then on the buttocks area. That was for retracting my hand ... All I remember, and that’s why it stuck with me, was the stings, the stings in the actual body areas. It was more than two or three [strokes].