2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

Violence was a feature of life and was reflected in bullying. This ranged from schoolyard bullying to bullying at meal times and, at the extreme end of the spectrum, peer sexual abuse. One resident from the late 1960s described the bullying: ... you had to fight for survival because there was a lot of bullying and a lot of stuff going on. You had to be on your guard all the time because there was bigger kids and stronger kids, different kids and different types. Rough kids and bad kids; there was all different types. Yes, it was dog eat dog. It was survival, you had to do everything to survive, you know. You had to fight, scratch, you had to do everything for survival. There was no love or affection or caring from anyone, you know. And there was no one to talk to, you just had to form your own way of survival.

Another resident from the early 1960s told the Investigation Committee: when I got down to Letterfrack, needless to say, I was very very scared. Now I am not going to ... I am no angel, never have been, I was a scamp, if you like on the streets at the time, so my father always called it to me anyway, black sheep of the family, but I know in my heart and soul this is not about what I had done. It was the way I was treated in there and I was treated awful, I was starved, I was in rags. I felt I was bullied from the moment I went down until a couple of months, or a couple of weeks before I went out.

There was a lot of bullying over food. For many years the system of food allocation was that a number of boys would be seated at each table. Food would be delivered to the table, and the boys themselves would divide it up. This had the unfortunate consequence that younger, smaller or more inexperienced boys received less than other boys. One former resident from the early 1960s described his experiences in this regard as follows: Well, you will always get a bully like, even to this day and age you will always have a bully in school. You will always have one boy that would be that bit more dominant over certain young fellows. You’d get a certain thing on your plate, a hard boiled egg might be on your plate or vice versa, that was a luxury to get a hard boiled egg and he would just take it off you, something like that.

As already stated, a number of Brothers were unhappy and isolated in Letterfrack. The burden of work fell on the shoulders of a few, and this had its own implications for how they treated the children. Some former residents described how some members of staff were kind to them at times but the mood could change in an instant. One former resident described this as follows: When they took the humour, they would show you, what do you call it, an act of kindness and you got kind of swallowed by this in some ways and you thought – you could get the off day like Telfour or Curtis would show you some act of kindness and next of all they just turn. There was a lot of Jeckyl and Hyde with them.

This Brother was not alone in using these tactics. One complainant who had been abused by Br Jean said that this Brother took advantage of his need for love and attention in order to buy his silence: He was kind to me in that way, but it was sweets and a toy at the time I thought was kind to me but he must have been just softening me up for his own benefits. As I get older, I was innocent and I didn’t know if everybody had toys or not. Some of the boys I suppose had more toys.

Another former resident told a similar story. He described how Br Curtis was nice to him and how he welcomed the attention. However, Br Curtis went on to sexually abuse him: But Br Curtis, on many occasions, I didn’t know at the beginning – and I welcomed a little bit of attention, because as I sort of outlined, you know, I had been taken away from home, and Br Curtis, I didn’t realise that it was wrong, what he was doing.

During the course of the Phase I hearing, when asked whether he had any comment to make on the fact that this Brother was removed for immoderate corporal punishment and was then sent to another school, Br Seamus Nolan said: Well, he went to another school with a warning to behave himself and to control that failure so there was a chance. He didn’t lapse again apparently.

One complainant, appearing before the Investigation Committee, said of this man: Yeah, he would hit you, he would hit you in a temper. He wasn’t a cold, sadistic sort of man. He would hit you in a temper. He would lash out at you in a temper. But if you met him the next day he would talk to you quite okay like. What you done with Br Eriq is the best thing, try and keep out of his way in case he was in a bad mood ... He was just a hot tempered man from what I could see of him.

Br Marceau was acknowledged by the Christian Brothers as having been ‘in serious difficulty’ regarding excessive corporal punishment before being assigned to Tralee in the early 1960s. He had had a long history of inflicting excessive corporal punishment and had even received a Canonical Warning because of it before arriving in Tralee. Although he was not a trained teacher, he taught in several schools, both day and industrial, between the late 1940s and the late 1960s. His extraordinary progress from one Christian Brothers’ school to another, despite his severe problems, was an illuminating one, and can be accurately followed because of the rare amount of explicit detail and criticism found in the correspondence about him.

Br Seamus Nolan confirmed at the Phase I hearing that an inspector had been sent by the Department of Education to investigate this matter. He also said: The upshot I think for peace sake he was removed and I think the Department eased off, they didn’t really press the matter once they felt that he was no longer in that particular school.

Br Seamus Nolan, at the Phase I hearing, commented on this situation: It was perfectly obvious that there was to be no more of this. He would have told the local person, the Provincial Superior, that [Br Marceau] would have to be removed from teaching. In the meantime I think the Provincial Superior already had that power and it wasn’t exercised unfortunately.

In their Final Submissions to the Committee, the Christian Brothers accepted that: there had been a failing in how the Congregation dealt with this Brother; his removal from teaching should have taken place earlier; and the response of the Congregation to the problem had been ‘inadequate’, possibly partially due to the view of Brothers that it was not appropriate for them to interfere with the work of another Brother.

The Christian Brothers at one point sent questionnaires to various Brothers for response. These dealt with the running of the industrial schools. A questionnaire was sent to Br Marceau, and in it he said of his disciplinary methods: You were expected to handle your own discipline problems. I was humane in my treatment but I also used the lamh laidir.7 I also used competition among the pupils, and rewards.

Another witness, who made allegations of being beaten several times by Br Marceau, alleged that Br Marceau used to lock the classroom door during classes. He was very strict in class: One minute he was talking to you and the next minute he could turn around and hit you with something, whatever it was. The nearest thing to his hand, he would hit you with ... It could be anything. It could be a bunch of keys he had in his pocket. He would take out the biggest key, which was the key to the classroom door, and he would hit you in the head with that. Or he would take the duster which had a wooden back, he would throw it at you. He would bang your head off the wall. Sometimes he would give you the edge of the ruler down the back of your hand. He would lift the top of the desk, he would put your fingers in the desk and slam the desk down on top of your fingers ... If you dropped a pencil while he was doing something he would call you up to the front of the classroom and he would given you a beating for it because you disturbed him. He was just a violent tempered man.

Given the seriousness of Br Marceau’s history with the Congregation, it was a matter of considerable concern that significant correspondence was not discovered to the Investigation Committee until 12th January 2006, two days after the public hearing in respect of this Institution. The solicitors for the Christian Brothers explained that this, and other material furnished at the same time, came to light as a result of further searches of archival material in the possession of the Congregation and ‘new collections’ being acquired by the archive since the main discovery had been made. The majority of the letters quoted above and in the Glin chapter regarding the ‘cracked jaw’ incident were not furnished to the Investigation Committee with the original discovered documents in relation to Tralee or Glin by the Christian Brothers. Although additional material was uncovered by the Congregation’s archivist and forwarded to their solicitors in December 2005, the Christian Brothers said: Unfortunately due to the ongoing hearing of the end of the Artane modules these were not looked at and their true significance noted by the writer until the 12/01/06. The delay furnishing these documents is very much regretted.