1,173 entries for Abuse Events

• There was no culture of facilitating disclosure. Children felt afraid of telling the nuns what had happened, ‘When nobody else is saying anything you don’t say anything’.

He found working with victims of institutional abuse of great benefit to him: It has, yes, because I suppose, in one way, [the organisation] makes me feel a bit – or maybe it’s the first time in my life I was doing something from here and helping others. I can see some people coming in and I can see myself within these people where I was stuck three to four years ago.

This complainant, who alleged that he was sexually abused in St Patrick’s, continued to feel isolated. He said there was no-one he could look up to in the School: It takes many years in your life to sort of pick up the courage to reach out and ask for help. The only help I ever received was when I entered the psychiatric hospital and that’s where, I suppose – most of my life I never trusted people in authority, I never trusted Gardaí, teachers, judges, anybody in authority, I would never have trusted them. I suppose when you trust somebody, this would have been because of the sexual abuse, when you trust somebody what do they need in return? That would have been a big part of my pain. Now, I have reached a stage where I am not afraid to reach out and ask for help if I need help, it’s okay. It’s a long journey and I am still on it ... There was no-one there – I suppose, I don’t know, I can only speak on behalf of myself, you can never trust anybody. I just couldn’t trust people. Anybody who was kind to you needed something in return and my experience within the industrial School it was sexual favours.

Another complainant, who was in the School in the 1960s, was asked if he developed an emotional bond with the woman who was in charge of his group: No, you were treated – you were all treated very much the same. You got into bed and got out of bed. You were told the various routines that were there. You were never given any instructions as regards privileges or anything like that. You were never told when you actually went there that you had privileges, if you were disobedient that these privileges would be taken away ... We never knew what the privileges were. We never got them to have them taken away.

This witness had been born to an unmarried mother, and he said that, although he never wrote to her whilst he was in Kilkenny, she did visit once a year to see how he was doing. He was asked whether he was shown any tenderness, affection or encouragement in St Patrick’s, and he said he had not been. He was asked whether he would describe his childhood in St Patrick’s as happy, and he said: It would be hard to describe what one would call happiness when one hadn’t had happiness, according to the previous situation I was in. I probably would have found it a little bit more comfortable. It’s very hard to describe what a happy childhood is when you come through the system up to that stage, one didn’t understand what a happy childhood is.

He tried to sum up the feeling of powerlessness: I suppose if one was to look back and describe the impact on the childhood within Kilkenny, it felt very much like – I am describing it from a different aspect, you were like the mouse in the corner of the room and the cat standing back a couple of feet away from you, and this cat is very powerful and tall, the mouse felt small, very weak and very vulnerable, you had no control over anything that was being applied. It would be the same with the cat, the mouse had no control when the cat was going to strike with the claw and kill it. That would be the basis of the regime.

Another ex-resident, who used to receive occasional visits from his older sister, recounted a story that had left a lasting impression: My sister ... came to visit me there once and we were going through the School and passed by the kitchen and the kitchen door was open. There was an old nun at the sink and I remember [my sister] asking me if I wanted a drink of water. I said I would love one. She asked the nun, I couldn’t believe she had the nerve to ask the nun for a drink. The nun came over and asked if I would rather have a glass of milk instead of water. I couldn’t believe that she would ask me if I wanted a glass of milk. I thought that was the greatest thing ever. It’s the only time I ever remember getting a glass of milk.

This complainant said that the children were afraid to ask for a glass of water in the summertime. He said that they would get water out of the toilet cistern rather than ask for it: The cistern is the part up top that stores the water and you pull the chain, it had a chain on it. There was four or five cubicles with a partition between each. I can’t remember exactly how many cubicles there were or how many toilets there were. The cubicles did not reach the wall and we used to – two of us, one would stand on the toilet and the other would give us a lift up and we would sit on that partition wall and lean across and scoop the water into our mouth from the cistern. I would get down then and give him a hand to get up to get the water out.

One complainant who was in the Institution during the 1940s, which was the period criticised by Dr McCabe, shared her views on the food there: Oh, it was terrible food ... You would get kind of watery soup. There might be bits of celery in it. It used to make me almost heave. Just, maybe, bits of meat and potatoes in it. The food, it wasn’t very good. It wasn’t something you looked forward to. You had to take it because there was nothing else. So the food was very bad there, I thought ... there was regular meals. You got breakfast, a bit of porridge in the morning. I was like a gruel, watery porridge. Then you got the dinner. Dinner was very poor. Then you got a bit of supper, a bit of bread and jam. That’s all I can remember ... Very little meat. I can’t remember ever getting eggs or bacon or anything like that. I’d never known food like that.

A witness who was there in the 1950s was critical of the food. He recalled: It was kind of a green mash, it was cabbage stalks and potatoes ... I remember getting that almost every day I was there: Green mash, bread and dripping, watery Cocoa. Egg flip, that was a kind of boiled milk with boiled eggs chopped up and put into it, you were given a ladle of it. There was other stuff they gave, castor oil with molasses in it in a big ceramic jug. The food wasn’t that good.

A witness who attended the School in the 1960s was quite clear that he had fared better in St Patrick’s than he would have at home: I know myself that you got food on a regular basis there; you got your breakfast, your dinner, your tea and you got cocoa going to bed. Food was not a problem there, I never felt hungry there. I might have felt frightened but I never felt hungry.

A different account appeared in a statement prepared by the Sister in question, Sr Stella, which was taken after Dr McCabe’s investigations. She said that she observed a child in tears after coming from the School where Mr Jacobs had given her sweets. According to this account, the Sister asked the child whether anything had happened in the School, and the child said no, that she had only gone in to Mr Jacobs for sweets.

Sharon9 was one of five children. She lived with her parents in Dublin. The home situation was not good: her father and mother had problems, there was domestic violence and alcohol abuse, and the family faced eviction. In these circumstances, the children were taken into care. She and two of her sisters were admitted into St Joseph’s, Kilkenny. She saw very little of her two sisters in the School. Her parents did not visit, her mother only came once. Her first memories were of being very frightened and trying to keep herself small. She hid under beds or behind her older sister. She remembers being very lonely and isolated. She had no one to turn to except her sister.

On the day of the transfer, she was pleased because she thought they were only going out for the day, as they were told they were going to the zoo. She was shocked to discover this was a lie: it was the first time a nun had lied to her. Her transfer papers to Kilmacud described her as ‘not of previous good character’. She only saw these papers recently, when revealed by the Commission, and was deeply upset at this description, as she was only 10 years old at the time.

This witness remembered very little about her schooling or the teachers, other than a climate of fear in the classroom. She attended school within the Institution. Sr Liv was the schoolteacher, and she was very strict and used a stick to slap children.