2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

He described what went on in the hall when films were being shown: It looked like it was random but it wasn’t ... You would see a group of boys coming into a room ... you would think that everybody was sitting down randomly but there was a set pattern because boys would sit next to boys who they wanted to be with and things went on when the lights went out ... There was a boy sat next to me ... I don’t know whether he put his hand on me or whether he took my hand ... masturbation occurred.

He said that this occurred ‘all the time’. Some of the boys, according to this complainant, had a well-rehearsed routine during the showing of films. They calculated where to sit, and whom to target, and, once the lights were out, sexual contact was initiated. He described how he was raped by the leader of an established gang within Daingean who picked on him: There was a wall and a railing which divided the playground, I can’t remember what we used to call it. When I was in the small sections this guy ... He was an aggressive guy with a horrible sort of personality. He had a group of guys and he was the sort of leader of these group of guys ... On a weekly basis whenever the opportunity would – I would be dragged off into a pig shed, hay shed, wherever, and buggered ... he was leader of a group of guys, they could make your life hell ... You are living with these people, you can’t get away from them, you are there.

A complainant who was in Daingean 20 years earlier, in the 1940s, described a similar experience. It happened only once, but three boys buggered him in a sudden attack: I would be coming up to the 16 ... You are all down in this big yard and it’s divided by a wall but you could go through. At that time if you wanted to go to the toilet you went up to the man in the top, “Permission to go to the toilet” ... It was between 6:30 and maybe 8:30 ... In the evening ... there was a toilet that you went to out off this square. I asked to go there. Maybe the man in charge, whoever it was, there used to be about four of them in charge at different times, he might have forgotten that I had gone up there and when the other three big fellows went up, they was just allowed up ... They followed me ... They pulled me to the ground and stripped me. The strange part about it, axle grease was used.

He said that he was raped by these three boys. He said that he was in pain and that he ‘felt helpless’. He added: If you went and told anybody anything like that you would be in trouble from several different quarters. You would be in trouble and you would be punished and you would be in trouble on account of getting other fellows punished as well ... I never went up to that toilet ever again after that.

In the late 1960s, another complainant described being in an animal shed with two other boys, one of whom was ‘the biggest bully down there’. The incident began when this boy held a pitchfork up to the complainant’s neck: He said to me, “I want to ride you” ... The other fella was with him was his sidekick ... He was pulling at my trousers and he said, “I want a gobble”. I didn’t even know what it meant ... I said, “Leave me”. The bullying was heavy and I was afraid of that pitchfork ... Eventually they let me alone for a few minutes and I burst through them ... I got over the gateway and I ran off.

When he was brought back to the School, he told Br Enrico why he had run away, and Br Enrico comforted him and believed him. This witness described seeing this boy abusing a younger boy: ‘He pulled him out of the small section in the middle of the day and brought him down to the toilets ... That’s what they were known for, sexually abusing anybody they could’.

The predatory behaviour of the bigger boys towards the smaller boys was a constant theme. A complainant from the 1940s said: In the evenings, especially in the dusty evenings – the way the yard was built, there was one entrance into it, the bigger fellows went up to one end and we remained at the entrance, the end that we went into. There was a wall ... The big fellows were on the far side. There used to be things happening that were new and strange to me. You see, there would be bigger fellows saying to you that they wanted to be all one with you. That was the expression.

The kinds of sexually abusive behaviour described to the Committee by complainant witnesses also emerged from the documentation. During a Garda investigation into the riots of 2nd May 1956, which has been dealt with earlier in this chapter, a resident of Daingean made a complaint to the Gardaí about two boys who had subjected him to sexually abusive acts. In the presence of the Prefect of the School, Br Jaime, he made the following statement: I remember one day in the month of March last. [two boys] asked me to put my hand on [one of the boy’s] private part and feel it. I refused them, and ran away, but they followed me and caught me, and brought me back to the wall in the yard. [One of them] forced my hand on to [the other’s] private part, and told me to feel it. I did it because I was afraid of them. [He] was helping [the other] to force my hand onto [his] private part. I felt [his] private part, and I kept it there for a few seconds. I took my hand out then. [the other boy] hit me on the arm because I refused to put my hand on his ... private part. I saw the front of [his] trousers opened, and when I had my hand on his private part. I saw he got a thrill from it. I saw fluid coming from [his] private part. I often saw [another boy] and [these two boys] feel each others private part in turn.

One complainant from the 1950s experienced the nature of the relationship, but denied that there was a sexual element: most of the older boys had a hag ... It was more or less a status thing. When you were there twelve months you knew all the ropes and it was kind of like a girlfriend more or less but there was nothing sexual about it. It was like you were kind of protected. You see it was in the small sections and when all the fellows in the small sections knew that he was your hag they wouldn’t go near him.

Another complainant also from the 1950s, who was frank about the sexual nature of such relationships, used the same term: ‘... the bigger fellows would come back on the smaller fellows what they used to call hags. Call them their girlfriend or whatever you like’. A lot of it was going on, but, he explained, ‘it would have to be done as quiet as possible but at the same time like it wasn’t something that any one of the Brothers had a blind eye for. They could see it happening’. He went on to describe what happened at the pictures on a Saturday night: All the smaller fellows would sit at one end and behind them the bigger fellows, the bigger fellows would be passing down the sweets and cigarettes and whatever else to give the smaller fellows down the other side’.

He added that, later on, in the exercise yard: you would have the smaller fellows one side and the bigger fellows the other side but you would only have one Brother supervising so there was no problem for a smaller fellow to mingle his way into the bigger crowd and there was no problem for the bigger crowd just to cover whatever act was going on ... I could give you three or four or five or six out of the smaller section that would have been mixing with the fellows from the bigger section.

Another complainant from the same era, the 1950s, used a different term to describe the same behaviours and relationships: it’s like having a girlfriend or something like that, we called them wan dolls, it’s like a pal ... I am not saying you wouldn’t have sexual abuse with them or something like that, I am sure you would ... you would masturbate them and they would masturbate you ...

When asked what proportion of boys were involved in this relationship culture, he answered: I think most of them was in it because it’s well known. We could ask, “Who is your wan doll”, that was the phrase ... All my mates in the big section, they all had wan dolls.

The opportunities were there, as one witness explained: The reason that a lot of the sexual stuff went on was because there would be – if you could imagine in the yard there was a square like this (indicating) and this was the small section and this was the big section and a Brother would stand in this corner (indicating) so he was strategically placed to be able to see in both directions. You had the toilet block over there and over here you had an entrance into some inside toilets which is where most of the sexual abuse went on ... So all it needed was some individual to distract one Brother and all sorts would go on.

While on one level, within a subculture in Daingean, this sexualised behaviour was taken for granted, at another level it could lead to bullying and ostracism. Boys who were known to offer oral sex were excluded, especially at meal times. As one witness explained: there was some boys that no-one went near. The fellows that were sexually abused down there. The other boys wouldn’t have anything to do with them really. They had to mark their teacups with a knife. There wasn’t delft down there ... The saucers, the cups, the plates were Bakelite, that was kind of plastic, I remember. If a young fellow was sexually abused ... after gobbling somebody, they had to mark their cup (indicating) with a knife and they could only drink out of that cup ... No one else could drink out of them.