1,173 entries for Abuse Events
BackThe worst part was the fear of the punishment, and the waiting to be punished. She described one nun as ‘very rough ... for an old nun’ and added: She would give you six of the best and you would be lined up for half an hour before you got the six of the best, so the trauma of waiting to be punished and then being punished. They could be punished for little or nothing, for talking after lights out at bedtime: It didn’t have to be anything in particular ... Because ... we were always told we were bold anyway so it didn’t matter.
The witness recalled this lay staff member as being very rough with the children: But she would often get a child and she would pull her by the hair and swing her, only the wall would stop the person. They would go sliding down. She broke every brush we ever had in the house. We didn’t have many ... She would be murdering them, using them as rulers. She just flogged people. When she left the place, and she was only there for a year, there wasn’t a brush in the place when she left.
On the other hand, although physical punishment from the nuns was not as severe, she found what she called the psychological abuse more damaging: I wish sometimes they would have beaten the living daylights out of me, it would have been easier, but the psychological abuse, it stays forever and ever and ever.
The Sisters of Mercy, in preparing for the St Joseph’s hearings, obtained information ‘from people who had contact with St Joseph’s in the period under review, including former staff, residents, professionals, Sisters of St Malachy’s Community, former Superiors of the convent, volunteers and neighbours’. The Opening Statement summarised the information obtained from these sources: Former staff acknowledge that moderate corporal punishment was used in St Joseph’s for misdemeanours, disobedience, insolence, unruliness, bullying, and deny that it was ever deliberately excessive. The hand, a ruler, stick or cane was used. Normally the Resident Manager administered the punishment, and this was done in her office, or in a room called St Brigid’s parlour. Both of the Resident Managers disapproved of any member of staff using any form of corporal punishment on the children, and clearly made this known, not only in the industrial school but also in the local primary school. Regrettably this was not always adhered to, and one member of staff remembers being reprimanded for slapping a girl who had spat at one of the Sisters. It is also recalled that a member of staff found mistreating a child was not retained in the school. Former residents differ in their memory of the use of corporal punishment during their time in St Joseph’s. Some have painful memories of it and say they experienced it as excessive, others say that it was not. While it is denied that excessive punishment was used in St Joseph’s given the number of years covered by the period under review, together with the number of children in residence, it is unlikely that corporal punishment was not sometimes administered unfairly or harshly.
In her evidence during Phase III, Sr McQuaid described an instance that occurred in the 1950s, when a member of staff beat the children with a hairbrush. She was reported by one of the senior girls to the Resident Manager who subsequently dismissed her. The evidence of Elaine was that one abusive lay worker who beat the children with a hairbrush remained for the duration of her placement and would not have been due to be retained in any event.
Offences warranting punishment included the following: being insubordinate and disrespectful to teacher. taking fruit from the pantry. showing disregard to directions. going out to visit relations without permission. Giving unnecessary trouble and showing insubordination. taking money from past pupil without leave. wasting time during literary work and showing insubordination to teacher. leaving school and going up town without permission. taking pocket money from another child and spending it without permission. showing disregard for directions and taking correction badly. tampering with keys. disobeying school rules and defying teacher. being insolent on different occasions – disregarding orders given by the sisters and being disrespectful to teachers. refusing to go to recreation.
Emmett,4 who was in St Joseph’s as a boy from the early 1970s, described a frightening ordeal to which he was subjected in a very cruel punishment, when he was put into a small cupboard known as ‘the black hole’: The black hole is an area which is situated in the basement of the convent, right beside the kitchen area. It is about three, maybe four by four square, and in height also. It is totally black. One was thrown into there kicking and screaming, not wanting to go there, terrified and wanting to get out because it is not a nice thing to go into and just being left there all night. Myself and my brother were put in there. Why I can’t recall. I was terrified being put in there, kicking and screaming, wanting to be let out ... whatever I have done wrong sorry, just let me out, let me out. My brother also tried to calm me down but I almost turned my anger out onto him ... all I knew was that this is totally wrong and bad to be done and there is nothing one could do about it. One kicked at the door to be let out and only to be told that if you keep kicking on the door you are going to stay in there much longer. It could be five minutes and at the time it was all night. An incident which happened in which I was in there all night on my own, Sr Sienna5 put me in there ... In the early hours, it must have been six around o’clock ... I heard a noise outside and I thought it was Sr Sienna and I said, “please let me out. I will be good, I am sorry for whatever I have done”, only for one of the kitchen staff to open the door and say to me, “what are you doing in there?” Naturally I would be so scared to say it to her, because I wouldn’t want to get her into trouble because God knows what the nuns would do to her. She says, “well okay I’ll let you out but don’t tell the nuns that I have let you out.” I would have clambered out of it and creeped and went straight upstairs to my bed. That would be one of the worst times that it happened. Another time ... I did kick and push the door to get out but Sr Sienna opened the door and gave me a slap, and of course gave (my brother) a slap just as bad ...
<br><table><colgroup><col></col><col></col><col></col><col></col><col></col></colgroup><thead><tr><th><strong>Date</strong></th>
 <th><strong>Offence</strong></th>
 <th><strong>By Whom Reported</strong></th>
 <th><strong>Punishment</strong></th>
 <th><strong>Remarks on the Case</strong></th>
 </tr></thead><tbody><tr><td><strong>August 1947</strong></td>
 <td>Disobedient, sulky and muttering when corrected. Troublesome to the Sisters in P. School.</td>
 <td>Principal Teacher and also Miss A.<sup><a>6</a></sup></td>
 <td>Kept from going to see Procession and celebration of St Patrick’s Centenary.</td>
 <td><strong>These 5 girls seem to be leagued together to give trouble.</strong></td>
 </tr><tr><td><strong>September 1947</strong></td>
 <td>Refused to do her charge. Impertinent to teacher.</td>
 <td>Miss B.<sup><a>7</a></sup></td>
 <td>Just insisted on its being done.</td>
 <td></td>
 </tr><tr><td><strong>September 1947</strong></td>
 <td>Attacked each other quarrelling over something</td>
 <td>In the presence of all the children in Dining Hall. </td>
 <td>[Pupil] slapped by Sister Sienna.</td>
 <td><strong>Not much improvement.</strong></td>
 </tr><tr><td><strong>October 1947</strong></td>
 <td>Separated from teacher when out walking, went a different road.</td>
 <td>Teacher who was in charge.</td>
 <td>Not allowed out following Sunday.</td>
 <td></td>
 </tr><tr><td><strong>October 1947</strong></td>
 <td> Left school without permission in early morning. Went out to the country.</td>
 <td>Missed by everyone. Had to be followed by teachers in a motor.</td>
 <td>No punishment given.</td>
 <td></td>
 </tr><tr><td><strong>October 1947</strong></td>
 <td><strong>Hid all day in the attic. Only missed when the children came to dinner.</strong></td>
 <td><strong>Missed from dining, then reported to Guards. </strong></td>
 <td><strong>No punishment given.</strong></td>
 <td></td>
 </tr></tbody></table>
She could forgive the poor food and conditions, but found it hard to forgive the emotional abuse and lack of love shown to the children: But the food was bad. Although I don’t blame the nuns on the food, I don’t blame them in that. In my own reading in history we did have the war and there was the rations, I don’t blame them for that. What I always get annoyed with and I find no forgiveness was the psychological abuse and the lack of love. That would have cost them nothing. A kind word. But there was that constant – we were psychologically abused, like, whatever it was about poor unmarried mothers. I am glad it doesn’t happen today.
Elaine was born in a home for unmarried mothers and transferred at the age of three years to St Joseph’s, where she remained until she reached 16. When her first child was born, she began to search for information about her own mother, a quest which continued on and off for 30 years, with the help of her children. At the end of her search, in the mid-1990s, an elderly nun in St Joseph’s produced from her papers a letter written by the witness’s mother 50 years earlier, and this letter was sent to her along with other papers released on threat of court proceedings. This letter was a source of comfort and reassurance, and eased the sense of abandonment experienced by the witness down through the years. She explained: Well, my belief is that I was transferred to St Joseph’s Orphanage in Dundalk and my mother was never told. The only reason I know she was never told was because later on in 1946 she writes to the convent and she is looking to know where her daughter is. She is wanting to know would they mind if [she] sent me a little something ... I just believe that she should have been told ... It is the only letter. But she is quite upset about it, she‘s heartbroken in that letter. There is one line in it that says “next thing I know the baby is gone”. That jumps out any time I read it.
Sr Sienna who had been Resident Manager had meticulously retained papers relating to the witness, including this letter. Elaine was grateful that the Sister had preserved them but was frustrated when she would not hand them over. Only the threat of court proceedings forced their production. There was no understanding that children needed and were entitled to information about their families. She said: Originally when my first baby was born, and that would have been in the mid 1960s, I had gone back to the orphanage because the orphanage was still open and I was literally told to get on with my life. I wasn’t told who I was or anything like that. I did want to know because I had a child then and motherly instincts must have told me I had a mother and she must have had some feelings too.
He was asked if he stood by those sentiments today and he replied: Yes, I would ... Fr Burke ... I wish he was my dad, because I loved him so much. He’s one in a million ... Sr Sienna as much as there is a lot of good fond memories, and I stand over the letter and those words I have said in it ... there is a lot of good but yet there is bad ... I thought she was so good and the next minute she turned bad, by locking me in the black hole and humiliating me and embarrassing me and hitting me in her office.
He was eloquent in describing his yearning for a family life he never had. He said: Father Burke was very affectionate and you would get a hug from him and so forth, but naturally children need ... more than that, more loving and to be wanted. As all children would, as anybody in general does. I felt I wasn’t getting that ... I felt that it was an uphill battle on my own against all the other environments ... just doing what father tells you to go to school at this time and you come back at this time, go to bed at this time. That’s fine, because one is institutionalised ... I find it easy to work in these environs, because I have been brought up in them. If I had joined the army I would have had no problems. But moving into ... the normal world, it is totally different. Naturally I would see the bond of family that [the family that befriended me] have with their daughter ... it is so beautiful that it is something that I wanted to express but I didn’t know where to express it. I just found that very, very difficult.
Even relationships with his fellow pupils from St Joseph’s proved transient. He explained: The funny part about it all, living so long in [another industrial school] and so long in St Joseph’s I am in contact with none of them ... all children were put into institutions but they weren’t made to feel together, to be integrated more so, so they can bond good relations. Now, when I try to bond relations with the children ... one would have been slowly doing it. Next minute ... you are cast right out of it. I have never seen any of the girls or the school since then, until the school closed down. The only contact that there would be with your peers, to the nuns ... The problem with this is that I am going through a third party.
General conclusions 1. The relatively small number of children in St Joseph’s was an important factor in making this a less abusive institution. 2. The buildings were extremely cold, unfriendly and forbidding, ‘a barracks’ before 1960, and attempts to improve them made little impact. 3. The children were poorly educated and trained, and their full potential was not realised. 4. Family contacts were not maintained and children were deprived of crucial information that would have helped them form family ties and establish identity. 5. For most of its existence, recreational facilities were almost non-existent. The children were kept occupied by doing daily chores. The need for children to play was not considered by management. This regime harmed their emotional development. 6. The children came from deprived backgrounds and the conditions did little to help them. 7. The punishment book, even though it is not a complete record, is evidence of an attempt to control corporal punishment. 8. Problems arose from time to time in this Institution because of the incapacity of a Resident Manager, by reason of old age and/or infirmity. The management system of the Congregation was slow to remedy the situation. The Department of Education was limited to exhortation and threat, but was unable to effect the necessary change because the Mother Superior appointed the Resident Managers. 9. There was neglect of children in 1944 and 1946, including gross indifference to hygiene, where the children were left with ‘verminous and nitty heads’. 10. Despite the forbidding environment and the fear induced by some punishments, the children did not live in constant fear. The Sisters, particularly in the latter years, were more approachable and involved. A small anecdote told by Sr Ann Marie McQuaid illustrates this point: when Inspection Reports said the School needed painting, the Sisters ran bazaars and collected door to door in Dundalk and Dublin to fund the cost; they could afford the paint but not a painter, so four of the Sisters, including the Reverend Mother and the Resident Manager, two Sisters from the School and the caretaker of the convent, painted the building from basement to top floor at nighttime; a former resident told her that they used to creep out of bed to see the nuns without their veils.