1,173 entries for Abuse Events

Facing the wall meant having to stand in the dormitory, wearing only a nightshirt, when the other boys had gone to bed. Boys remained facing the wall for one or two hours before being allowed to get into bed.

Some complainants described how the pain of corporal punishment could be intensified through techniques of delivering the blow, or simply through failure to take account of the physical condition of the boy. A resident in the 1940s complained: When beatings were applied, whether by a leather or strap, no account was taken of whether you had chilblains or you didn’t. You just got it and you took it and who were you to complain to, there was no one to complain to.

A former resident from the same period explained: Another Brother, if you are talking or doing other things in the dormitory that you weren’t supposed to be doing, he would make you go in to the washroom and put your hand into very cold water, because there was no hot water in Artane, and he would make you put your hand in the cold water for about ten [minutes] to quarter of an hour. Then he would call you out and while your hands were still wet, he used to make you put your hand, palm upwards, on the iron bedstead and he had a foot ruler and he used to slice the top of your fingers. It was only afterwards when the blood returned to your hand that you actually got the pain that was involved. Speaking here, it doesn’t seem to imply that being hit at the top of your fingers was a great punishment but it certainly was. The pain afterwards was more than the actual striking of the fingers.

Another technique was to get the boy to hold his hand over a hard object; the same witness explained the procedure: There was one teacher, and if he needed to smack you with the strap, would make you hold your hand possibly about an inch or two away from the desk and then he would smack you with this strap ... and when they walloped you on the front of the hand, your hand came down on the desk, so you got it on the front and the back of the hand.

Another witness, there in the 1950s, described a similar procedure. He said, ‘You would put your hands out and if he missed he would make you put your hands on the wall ... so you couldn’t pull your hand back’.

A resident from the late 1940s described how a teacher would punish boys who got something wrong: If you didn’t get something right in class, if he asked me a question or whatever it was and I can’t remember what it was, if I didn’t get it right, he would come along and he would take your ear. He said “this part of your ear is no good, it won’t do any harm”. He pierced the side of my ear with his nail and dragged you to the board to write the correct answer on the board whatever it was that you got wrong. He would escort you back the same way. You would have to pray that you didn’t get something wrong the next day because although your ear was sore with a scab on it he would still do the same thing with the same ear.

One of the functions of the rules and regulations for corporal punishment was to ensure that chastisement was carried out only for serious offences, so that the punisher knew how and when to punish and the wrongdoer knew what to expect. One effect of these other forms of punishment was to remove predictability about physical punishment. Uncertainty about what was going to happen next contributed to the climate of fear described by many of the complainants.

Some witnesses complained that the punishments they received sometimes resulted in serious injury. A former resident from the 1940s described an incident on the playing fields: [The Brother] was, I would say in his time, a great hurler. He always carried a hurley with him no matter where he went. When I was on the hurling team, when I was fighting to get on it, I was put in goal and I was dropped and he then said, “I will teach you to be a good goalkeeper”. He beat – he hit balls at me, I am not sure you know how hard a hurley ball is. He hit hurley balls at me one after the other. One of them hit me on the eye and my eye came up (indicating) really, really large. He apologised. The other balls that hit me on the body and head quite badly. He was the one in actual fact who hit me on the knees ... with the hurley. A day later my knees came up like balloons ... It was deliberate because I wasn’t doing what he wanted me to do. I wasn’t being a good enough goalkeeper. I wasn’t stopping enough balls properly ... The next day my knees came up like balloons. I couldn’t walk and I was taken down to the infirmary. There was a lady looked after me. I never saw a doctor all the time I was there. I don’t know how long I was there, I can’t remember to be honest with you, he came to visit me when I was there ... I was in a while but I can’t remember how long.

The Superior had known about Br Herve for years, as he informed the Provincial: During the past few years I spoke to Br Herve about these matters, while last September I called him into the Office and abused him and rated him roundly for his kissing of the boys and his fondling of them. On that occasion he promised to give it up for good.

The Provincial took immediate action and ordered that Br Herve be transferred. He wrote to Br Herve notifying him and also referring to the impact of his abusive activities on the Congregation and on the boys who were abused: By indulging in such improprieties you have scandalised your pupils, given rise to a good deal of unsavoury gossip among them and their parents, done grave injury to the reputation of the College, brought discredit on yourself, and, I greatly fear lowered the Brothers in the estimation of a big section of the public. May God grant that the consequences are not worse. Every Christian Brother is bound by his Rule as well as by the laws of charity and justice to do all in his power to safeguard the virtue of his pupils and to assist them as far as he can to preserve their innocence if they have not already lost it. You[r] conduct was well calculated to rob them of this precious treasure of innocence. What greater wrong could you do them? You cannot reasonably make the plea that you did not realise the gravity of your offence.

The second case involved Br Tristan61 who worked in the kitchen. He was found to have sexually abused a number of boys following complaints made by the boys themselves. He was tried by the General Council in 1944 and was unanimously adjudged guilty. When the charges were laid against him, he: denied “some” of the matter of each charge, admitted “jostling” or “wrestling”, said he had “no bad intention” and “never lay on any boy” in the back-store so often referred to by boys. He admitted “tricking” with several boys, denied “touching” a boy’s face or body.

Br Edgard,63 the fourth Brother who was dismissed from Artane in 1944, was a teaching Brother who was not yet a fully professed member of the Congregation. In this case, the statements of six boys who complained of sexual abuse by the Brother were furnished in discovery. The boys ranged in age from 11 to 14 years. The case of this Brother was the only one that provided any information as to the nature of the sexual abuse that was alleged. The allegations were of fondling of their private parts, tickling their bodies, and embracing them. The incidents occurred in the classroom, in the Brother’s own room and in the boys’ dormitory. Br Edgard was transferred to a Dublin day school and was shortly thereafter refused permission to take final vows and left the Congregation. The Department of Education service history recorded the Dublin day school as his last teaching post.

One ex-staff member, Br Saber,64 spoke of the importance of the boys’ sodality introduced by the Resident Manager which met once a week: During my ten years there, there was no case against – of sexual abuse brought against a Brother. I would say due to, I suppose, the group that were there and due to the sodality and that the boss was conscious of it and that he would keep an eye out for it and ask the lads. He was an active man, he would come there, he would walk the dormitories at night, he would be around. He had his ear to the ground. Br Dennet was the same. There were Brothers there who knew more about institutes than I did, the younger Brothers. All we thought of was keeping them occupied, taking them out to games, taking them to circuses, you know.

The complaint was made by the father of a boy who reported to the Superior that this Brother was abusing his son and up to 12 other boys in the primary school. The abuse took place in the Brother’s private room, where he sat the boys on his lap and fondled their private parts. Br Gaillard received a Canonical Warning and was transferred to another Christian Brothers’ primary school, where he remained for three years. In the mid-1950s, he wrote to the Superior General, voluntarily seeking a dispensation from his vows on the basis that he was unable to prevent himself from interfering with boys. In this letter he wrote: I received a Canonical Warning for interfering with boys. I cannot overcome it. I have tried it for three years and it is worse I am getting. I just find it impossible to stand in front of a class as a Christian Brother.

Br Fremont taught in Artane in the early 1950s, and was later found to have sexually abused boys in a Christian Brothers’ school in the Midlands. In the late 1950s, the mother of a boy in the School made a complaint about Br Fremont to the Superior of the School. From a report written by the Superior to the Provincial Council, it appears that Br Fremont got boys to expose their private parts and he also exposed himself to them. The Superior questioned him about these incidents, and he admitted that they were true.