2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

Br Rainger, who was there around the same time, said that he found teaching in the school quite frustrating as he was unable to apply the methods he had been taught in training college because of the low standard of education possessed by the boys: Probably one of my frustrations in Letterfrack was frustration in the classroom, that I couldn’t apply the teaching methods that would have been applied, if you don’t mind me using the phrase, to normal children, because a lot of these people would have been educationally deprived, lack of reading ability and so on and so forth, and I found teaching in Letterfrack challenging, to say the least.

He said that many of the boys made little progress: I would personally describe it as minimal. It was a real slog and a real challenge just to get across even the basic concepts. Now having said that, that is across the board. There could have been exceptions.

Br Dondre described the disturbed nature of the boys: The boys in Letterfrack were disturbed. How will I say this? If they weren’t disturbed before they got to Letterfrack, they were disturbed when they got there. The fact of taking a boy from his home and sending him to an industrial school in some cases, and dragging him through criminal proceedings, through court, and being sentenced by a Justice to four/five/six, in some cases seven years, away from their home, was enough to disturb anybody. Some of them were disturbed, they came from disturbed backgrounds and they were there because they were disturbed. They were there because they were in trouble. Some of them were no trouble at all. The very fact of sending them there, they did become disturbed, they became sort of unhappy and quiet – not quiet – into themselves, introverted. Generally unhappy.

The Congregation accepted that the level of industrial training provided was not sufficient: It would be fair to say that the training in the various trades was not really satisfactory for a number of reasons. Because of the remoteness of the institution, it was almost impossible to attract trade teachers to work there ... Then many of the trades were not accessible to boys who had not come through the normal apprenticeship. In addition, vacancies for the various trades were not readily available in the local area, and Dublin probably had its own supply of tradesmen. Moreover many of the techniques for the trades were outdated and consequently did not prepare the young people adequately to enter into a trade ... and finally, in response to the criticism that the workshops and the farm did not give adequate instruction in the trade as well as giving practical experience, it should be stated that the normal practice in the training of any trade was to have the young people do the most simple of tasks initially and then to learn by “doing the job”.

The farm was an essential part of life in Letterfrack. The Congregation stated: The land under the care of the Brothers comprised 837 acres, but most of this was poor land consisting of bog and mountain. Nevertheless on the available 70 acres of arable ground the Brothers, farm workers and boys worked the land to provide for the needs of the institution.

One complainant described how a field of hay was raked by hand by up to 50 boys who worked in a line the length of the field. He also described crushing the silage in the winter: they would fill it up and it went right up to the top, but it had to keep getting crushed ... any day it was raining, they would put us all in there walking around like that, (indicating) dancing, jumping on it and all that, and then go around and around and they would get it down a certain amount of inches every day until eventually they couldn’t get anymore into it’.

1,356 boys were admitted and discharged between 1940 and 1974: 869 were discharged to relatives, 3 to hospital and 38 absconded; 131 were transferred to other institutions; and the balance of 318 to employment. Almost one-third of those went as farm workers.

The Congregation accepted that, for much of its existence, the School failed to cater for the emotional development of the child: They (the staff) were doing their best, thinking that this is the best, and in fact it says often there, they did the best they could under the circumstances but didn’t realise all the emotional needs that were there at the time and that they couldn’t fulfill them given the structure.

Letterfrack was seen as a tough posting, according to Br Anatole: ... it would be a tough job, a tough station, something you would not particularly choose, on account of what I have said, that it is isolated.

Br Iven said he felt isolated from the friends he had made in his training of the previous five years, and another said he found it a lonely, isolating place: Then in many ways I suppose that just went with the job, in the sense I was isolated in a room at the end of the dormitory, away from the Community.

In his interview with the Christian Brothers that was dealt with above, Br Ruffe described his reaction on being told that he was being sent to Letterfrack: Well now, when I went to Letterfrack and don’t mind admitting it and when I was told I was going to Letterfrack I shed bitter tears because I had paid a passing visit there when I was on holidays some years previously and when we went into the school that day, the fact that it was so far away from every place it affected me more I’d say than it would affect a boy and the fact that when I go in there at all was an upset in itself but I soon got used to that, after all it was my vocation.

It was well illustrated by a number of the former residents. One resident present in the late 1950s and early 1960s said: From the time you went into that you lived in fear, you were just constantly terrified. You lived in fear all the time in that school, you didn’t know when you were going to get it, what Brother was going to give it to you, you just lived in fear in that school.

Another former resident described the sense of fear: What happened was when I went down there first I was a nervous wreck, as any child would be. You are going down here and I have never experienced a regime like it that was going on in the place. It was awful, it was very very cold, it was very very lonely, but the worst thing about it all, it was so scary.

This sense of fear was often heightened by the manner in which punishment could be deferred by the Brothers. One resident present in the late 1960s described it as follows: I think one of the worst things in a sense, in one way it would be as well if they were to give you a beating and get it over there and then, but you had the thing of various times, “I’ll see you after” ... Sometimes they would leave this for days and you think they were after forgetting and then they would pounce on you.

Another complainant present in the late 1950s remembered one particular Brother who often deferred punishment: Br Noreis was his own judge, jury and executioner. His favourite thing would be “I will see you later”. Sometimes you were lucky and he meant shortly later and it was over and done with, sometimes you were unlucky and it could be a week later and during that week you walked around terrified you never knew when that – well, for want of a better word, when the hand was going to come down and grab you, then you were brought into the library ... we were in a home where the children there were put in for various reasons, criminal or because they had no one to look after then. We got sent there to be educated and looked after, fed nourished, I won’t say loved, but looked after; we got none of that.