1,173 entries for Abuse Events

This witness attended school at a local De la Salle National School. He said that three Brothers took the view that the boys from the convent needed toughening up: They always had the tendency, there was myself and another chap there, you were from the convent, you were maybe soft as in too well looked after and plenty of good beatings with the cane wouldn’t go astray on you. It would harden you up and toughen you up for the outside world when you went away from the nuns.

Another ex-resident, who was in St Patrick’s in the 1950s, recalled a particular beating of a boy, during which four other boys were required to hold him down: It wasn’t me that was held down. It was one of the boys that was asked to accompany the boy that had supposedly done something wrong to hold him down. One had to hold each hand and the others had to hold a leg each and the nun spanked the boy on that table like that.

He did not know what had merited the beating: No, we were playing. And the nun just picked at random, picked four boys to come in with this particular other boy.

When asked whether the nun had struck him with her hand, he replied: There was an instrument used, yes ... I can’t remember. I believe it could have been a stick, there always seemed to be one item used.

In the classroom the stick was used: Yes, we used to get slapped on the hand ... Three or four maybe, I can’t be sure.

This complainant also recalled another incident of punishment: That happened before lights out in the dormitory. A cat or a kitten came in and was running around the dormitory, started climbing up on the curtains and that, three or four of us just hopped out of bed to chase the cat and we were caught doing that by the nun. I believe it was three or four of us, I can’t remember for sure. But we were ordered down into a room with a tiled floor on it and we were asked to strip off and lie on the floor. She said she would come back later on and not to move, don’t dare move. When she did come back later, I could not tell you how long it was, she gave us each a few slaps on the backside as we were lying on the floor, told us to get dressed. On the way up to the dormitory, we met the head nun and she asked the other nun what were we doing. I remember the nun clearly stating that we were knitting mats. I couldn’t believe that a nun would tell a lie to another nun. He explained that the boys often knitted mats in the School.

She was asked about corporal punishment in the School: Well, slapping was obviously a form of punishment that was used to discipline the children. As far as we can gather it was normally done with the palm of the hand and a cane or ruler was sometimes used.

Bed-wetting was a problem: Indeed, yes, it was a problem. We are quite clear I think as to what happened. We were told that in the earlier days that any older child who wet his bed had to bring down the wet sheets to the laundry in the morning. He might be left standing beside his bed for five to ten minutes when it was discovered that the bed was wet ... Then in the play hall when they lined up to go to school they would have been called out and they would have been slapped for wetting the bed.

One resident, who was in St Patrick’s from the mid-1940s to the early 1950s, made allegations of sexual assault against a farmhand. He told the Committee: His name was Bruce4 and he used to look after us at playtime, you know. He always carried a stick with him. There was one occasion where I had 25 on each hand, well several of us had that, we don’t know the reason for it. He use to take me down to the hay barn and strip me off and he would strip himself off and, you know, I had to do things to him and he tried to do things to me of a sexual nature ... it happened – six, seven and eight years old, during the summer months mostly ... I knew what he was doing. I didn’t feel right, if you know what I mean, but I didn’t know what it was all about. I knew I was doing something wrong.

When asked if the perpetrator was a teenager or an adult, he replied: A teenager I would say ... Small type of fellow, with ginger hair ... [It happened] at playtime. He would take me down to the hay barn. He would just “come along, come with me” and you knew something was going to happen and there was nothing you could do about it; you couldn’t go to anybody ... I wanted it to stop, but I didn’t know how to go around about it ... he was violent ... He worked on the farm and I think he used to look after the boiler house as well, He was an odd job man if you like ... He would take me up to the hay loft, make me take my clothes off and he take his off. He’d lie me on the hay and he’d started interfering to me and I had to do the same to him. He would lie on me and press up against me and all that type of thing.

In his statement, he said he had a clear impression the nuns had known what was going on. He explained: they brought a statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary and we had to go into the classroom. I can’t remember the nun’s name but she asked me about it, did he do anything to me, did he interfere with me. I had to look at the statue and I said no because I was frightened. All I know is that there was some of us standing outside and then we was called in. We went through one classroom and it was in the other classroom you had to go in ... I never seen him after that day.

Another witness, who was in St Patrick’s from the late 1940s to the early 1950s, and who was under 10 years of age, also alleged he was abused while there. He told the Committee: there was a lay worker as they call ’em ... As far as I could see he was a handyman, he was working on all parts of the School. ... He was a kind of under handyman to a man called Mr. Fitzgerald5 and he used to give him his orders ... I only know his first name, Charles,6 I never knew his second name ... Well, he was always abusing boys, always. It was well known amongst the boys themselves. Mr Fitzgerald and him lived in an apartment, they both had a room each, he used to take us in there when there was nobody about and then let us out, you know, tell us to say nothing and let you out when no-one was looking. It was so frequent or so often that the boys, we used to be waiting for it to happen to see who was going to be picked next., that type of thing. You just happened to be nearest to the door or whatever, you know. Whatever opportunity he got you know it was going to happen, ’til one day Mr Fitzgerald caught him letting me out of the door, out of the bedroom. He came back to his bedroom for something and he actually took him out in the yard and he hit him two or three times in the face over it, and he had a black eye for weeks ... I heard Mr Fitzgerald saying, “don’t ever let me catch again, I told you about that” ... he caught him with my trousers down and telling me to pull them up, and pushing me towards the door ... Mr Fitzgerald knew exactly what he was doing and he gave him a good three or four smacks in the face ... It was the talk of the school for a week about what happened.

He did not report the abuse: there was no-one to tell because the people above you were too, you were frightened of them, you know. I mean you couldn’t treat them as a mother or a father, you just couldn’t run to them and say “someone done this to me” because you were all in the same boat. When nobody else is saying anything you don’t say anything.

The third witness to complain of being sexually abused was in St Patrick’s a decade later, between the years of the late 1950s and mid-1960s. He also described sexual abuse by a layman employed by the School. He recalled: The refectory was to the left as you walked down this corridor, to the right hand side there was this door out on to the yard. When you went around the corner there was a boiler house or something and there was a bedroom in there where [he] stayed. He brought me there on many occasions and he sexually abused me. This small one bedroom, just basic, there was a boiler house, very warm building.

When he was asked if he ever mentioned this to anybody in the School, he replied: No, because I was terrified. He threatened me that he would throw me in the furnace if I said anything. I think his reward to me he used to give me sweets. There was a three wheeled tricycle, a big one. I could have a spin on this, this was something I never had before so this was my reward ... I knew it was wrong but I was terrified.