1,173 entries for Abuse Events

The witness remembered one nun in Cappoquin with particular fondness: The reason I have always loved Sr Adriana is one particular incident involving again Sr Carina, the time when we went to the toilet, you went to the toilet at certain times, right ... So you were lined up and you were told when to go into the toilet, when it was your turn, in you go, the nun would tell you. It came to me anyway and I didn’t want to go, I didn’t want to, you know what I mean. So with that I was brought back into the office. I must have been about eight, nine at the time, eight at the time. I was brought back into the office. Again I got beaten. I was stripped and put on the, what do you call it, the office desk, she used have a big desk she used have all her things on it. I got put on that, and I was beaten. But when I woke up on that I didn’t wake up on the desk, I woke up in the bed. The first thing I see when I woke up was Sr Adriana. She had one hand on my forehead and she was holding her beads with the other hand. That’s a picture I never forgot and I never will. Because that brought home to me, in later years as I got older, the difference. That there was good and bad. And that’s why I have never blamed the nuns or anyone else for what happened to me. I have never even blamed the Christian Brothers, because that particular incident always stayed in my mind.

Another complainant spoke about a particular incident with Sr Carina: I remember Sr Carina bringing me in between – down on the nun’s side of the School, like, and when I looked at this woman I could see fire in her eyes, like, and I knew what I was expecting from her and I couldn’t prevent it and she caught me and she put me over her knee and she literally whipped the backside off me with her whole hand. She said to me, "I am going to leather you ... until I put blisters on your backside", and she meant it what she said, like. I remember after that I couldn’t sit down. I looked at her hand and her hand was sore red from swinging it. The ring that she was wearing you could see the white of the band, that will just tell you how red her hand was from lashing me, like. She was a good woman herself with the cane, like, you know ... Once or twice that happened to me. Bed-wetting

One complainant said fear was the cause of bed-wetting, as far as he was concerned: Normally if I destroyed the bed it was because of the person present, I would be afraid to go to the toilet, and if I didn’t go to the toilet and I got to bed I would be afraid afterwards that I would be chastised.

He said that the consequence of wetting the bed depended on who was on duty. Some of the staff just cleaned it up, others would slap the child.

Another complainant, who had a problem with wetting the bed, said that the nuns would hit children for this: The boys that wet the bed, they’d have to take off the sheet, their face could be dipped in it first, their face could be shoved down into it and they would get a few clouts and clatters.

A witness recalled the fear he felt at night, knowing that he would be beaten by this staff member the next day if he wet himself: ... I had a habit of wetting the bed and she Ms Lambert would come in in the morning and ask anyone that wet the bed to stay in your bed, which I did stay in the bed ... If you went back to your bed, you had to go back into it and sit there and wait for your turn ... She came around, hit all the other young kids, you are sitting there and you are waiting and you are watching her, waiting for my turn, to lie over the bed and a big cane before you went to school, before you had breakfast ... That went on all the time I wet the bed and I wet the bed for a long time, for years. That was my torture for that. Sometimes I used to stay awake, try and stay awake, I couldn’t, I was young. Try to keep my friend awake beside me. I used to have nightmares ... Yeah, I know that’s what I was frightened of, going to sleep. If you wet it a second time you get more, you know what I mean. It might be five of the best and then ten of the best.

Another witness had a similar experience of this staff member: Ms Lambert would come up in the mornings and if we wet our bed we had to lie in our own bed. Often the case I ended up lying in my own urine and excretion at times and she would hit us over the legs, the buttocks and on the back. She was quite cruel, Ms Lambert ... It went on for a long period of time ... there was a little red dimmer light with Jesus on it in the cross, in the bottom, and I remember I used to look up at it and I used to say to God, "Please, do not let me wet the bed tonight, do not let me excrete." I used to be awake.

Some witnesses described the lay staff as being more abusive than the Sisters. One witness recalled being lined up after returning from a family holiday and being beaten by the staff member identified in the bed-wetting section above, Ms Lambert: I remember when we came back from holiday with my mother and father and that, and we were all lined up and she just started hammering us with the stick, she did ... She done it on many occasions, you know.

Another witness who was there in the 1940s and 1950s recalled that the day-to-day running of the Institution was left to lay staff and that the Sisters had more of a supervisory role. He had no problems with any of the nuns, but he said the lay workers could be cruel. He found bath-time particularly difficult: ... they would hit me and hit my hands if I am holding the bath on the side, you know when you are very small and you are trying to hold the bath and I was fearfully afraid of water, and they would hit your hands away and catch your head like that and push you down underneath and try to get the soap off you. Sometimes they would be laughing while they are doing this and they would take a great bit of fun in doing – ducking you under the water and making you feel like you are going to drown.

Another lay member of staff was mentioned by one complainant, who described her using the handle of a brush to beat him: ... she swung at me, I ducked from her and got under the table, but she used the handle of a brush and beat me wherever she could hit me.

Physical punishment in Cappoquin continued after the Industrial School had been closed and the group homes were established. One care worker in Group Home A described seeing a child with marks on her legs as a result of a beating by Sr Callida.

One complainant described an incident that occurred in the evening when all the boys were in one room watching television. He alleged that he was being sexually abused by two older boys, and this aspect of the story is told below. These older boys had been transferred from Artane and they were put in charge of all the boys in the evening, when the lay staff and the nuns were off duty. They had canes and used them on the boys: my brother was being belted with this bamboo stick by the other man ... he was crying and I heard my brother crying and I was sitting down looking at the television ... I just turned around and as he had it over his shoulder like that I caught it and I said to him, "if you don’t stop now I am going tell what you are doing to me."

Mr Restin told the Committee that he did not know the identity of the two boys in respect of whom he had pleaded guilty: I am doing two years for a victim in Passage West and I am doing two years for a victim in Cappoquin and I do not know who either of those victims are, at this point ... I pleaded guilty ... I am convinced that whoever they are I ... did abuse them or I wouldn’t have said I did.

Soon after he arrived in Passage West, he came across Mr Restin. Initially, he thought he was friendly. The sexual abuse started soon after meeting him and continued until Mr Restin left the Institution. He was forced to engage in mutual masturbation and, after his first experience, he initially tried to avoid contact with Mr Restin by trying to keep a low profile and staying out of his way. This did not work and the abuse continued on a regular basis in a variety of locations in the Institution. He always felt under threat of a beating or punishment if he did not co-operate with Mr Restin. He then began absconding from Passage West. On one occasion, one of the nuns and Mr Restin came to the Garda Station to bring him back to the School and, when they got back, they gave him a severe beating with a stick. Another time, when he was on a visit home, his father noticed marks on his body from a beating. He told his father that Mr Restin had beaten him, and his father planned to confront Mr Restin when he called to collect him after the weekend to bring him back to Passage West. Some form of altercation took place, and it required the intervention of the Resident Manager and her assistant, before his father agreed to allow him to return to the School. He did not tell his family about the sexual abuse at the time.

Some time later, he realised that Mr Restin was abusing others. He began to notice signs as boys emerged eating sweets, having spent some time with Mr Restin. He and two other boys went to the Resident Manager, Sr Vita, in her room and told her what Mr Restin was doing. She seemed sympathetic and asked them to name the boys who were being abused. He named about 12 to 15 boys, and the other boys named a few. He was called to her room later that evening, where the boys he had named were lined up. The Manager asked them in turn if Mr Restin was ‘doing stuff’ to them, and all the boys except for one denied it. The witness and the other boy who confirmed the abuse were taken to the hall and given beatings, which were so severe that the other boy was injured and required stitches. The witness absconded a few days later with two other boys. He thought that he was not caught for about two and half weeks and did not recall being punished, which he felt was because the Resident Manager was well aware of why he ran away. Mr Restin did not bother him after that, and he could not remember when Mr Restin left Passage West.