10,992 entries for State Inspections

The Congregation provided their own responses to all the complainant statements. Most were signed by former members of staff and they generally took the form of a blanket denial of the allegations.

There were several problems with these response statements: Some of the statements were signed by Brothers who were not in the School at the time. The fact that they had signed the document gave the impression that they were in a position to affirm the facts asserted in statements, but in reality they were in no position to do so. Brothers who signed the statements gave evidence to the Committee that contradicted the facts asserted in the response statements. Some statements simply omitted relevant facts, while at the same time making assertions that were known to be incorrect or misleading.

The Christian Brothers began making their response statements using a policy of denying that a Brother was ever in the institution when a complainant had got a name even slightly wrong, or had used a Christian name or a nickname rather than the Brother’s surname.

Counsel explained the reason for this approach as follows: I understand that in the early statements instructions were given that the Brothers were known only by their surnames. We now know after only a few days it was a mixed bag.

In circumstances where the individual respondent either admitted abusing the complainant, or elected to ask no questions, the Congregation was still entitled to cross-examine the witness, and in most cases it availed itself of this opportunity.

The records provided by the Congregation, whilst limited and incomplete in some respects, were more extensive and detailed than the materials in the archives of other Congregations, and contributed significantly to the overall picture of these institutions. The structure of the chapters on the institutions, proceeding from documented cases of abuse to the uncorroborated evidence, reflects this approach. The documented cases were examined for behaviour described and for the way the cases were managed. This illuminated attitudes the Congregation had at the time to Brothers who broke the rules.

The documents originally discovered to the Committee were added to on several occasions. A public hearing on discovery issues, arising out of the investigation of Carriglea Industrial School, took place in November 2006 after prolonged correspondence failed to produce requested material. The Congregation supplied this additional material subsequent to that hearing, which included recordings and notes of interviews with Brothers about their experiences in industrial schools. A further substantial body of documentary evidence was furnished in March 2007, when the Congregation’s solicitors notified the Committee that it had decided to waive its claim to withhold documents from discovery on the grounds of privilege.

The contemporary records of the Congregation, and in particular their Visitation Reports, allowed an in-depth investigation of the industrial schools under their control, and this was helpful to the work of the Committee.

St Joseph’s Industrial School, Artane was established under the Industrial Schools Act (Ireland), 1868 by the Christian Brothers at the request of the then Archbishop of Dublin, Cardinal Cullen. It opened on 28th July 1870 with the aim of caring for neglected, orphaned and abandoned Roman Catholic boys, and it operated as an industrial school until its closure in 1969.

The Industrial School was located in a north-eastern suburb of Dublin some five kilometres from the city centre in an area which was, at that time, open countryside amenable to intensive farming. The application for a certificate in June 1870, to the Chief Secretary for Ireland, stated that Artane Castle plus 56 acres of land had been purchased for the purpose of setting up an industrial school. The request was approved and the School was licensed to accommodate 825 boys on 9th July 1870. From an original intake of three pupils, it quickly grew in scale, housing 700 boys by 1877, and reaching its certified size of 825 boys before the end of the nineteenth century. During its existence, approximately 15,500 boys were cared for and educated in Artane.

In 1870, the buildings consisted of a large dwelling house with out-offices, gardens and 56 acres of arable land. The property had been purchased for £7,000, and it was proposed that dormitories, classrooms etc. would be erected for a further £1,600. Three boys were admitted in the beginning and then tarred sheds were put up to accommodate 40 boys. The Congregation’s Opening Statement described how the ambitious scheme developed thereafter: Public personages of all shades of opinion gave the school generous support. To raise funds for the provision of permanent buildings a petition signed by a large number of people was presented to the Lord Mayor. A public meeting was called by the Lord Mayor in response to this petition and substantial voluntary funds were soon received. From this response and from newspaper articles of the time it is clear that there was strong public support for the work of the school. The design, atmosphere and work ethos of the school received much acclaim from numerous eminent persons in public life and many visitors were impressed with what they witnessed.

Although the initial proposal was that £1,600 would be spent building dormitories and classrooms, an Annual published by the Brothers in 1905 recorded that buildings costing over £60,000 had been erected at Artane by that time. The land associated with the School increased from 56 acres to more than 350 acres by the early 1940s.1 In 1934, some 147 acres were under meadow and tillage, with the remainder being used for grazing, apart from land occupied by buildings and playgrounds. The main building still stands today.

Artane was conceived on a grand scale. Dormitories accommodated up to 150 boys, sleeping in ordered rows of beds with no personal space. The dining area or refectory accommodated all 825 boys at one sitting. A submission in 1934 to the Cussen Commission into industrial schools boasted that a ‘magnificent corridor 365 feet long runs the whole length of the building’.

The undertaking comprised the School, the trade shops and the farm, in addition to the Community house. The trade shops and the farm constituted a substantial business enterprise, of which the farm brought in a large yearly income.

The Investigation Committee engaged a Consultant Engineer, Ciaran Fahy, to examine and report on the buildings and accommodation in Artane, and his report is annexed at Appendix 1 to this chapter.