2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

In their General Statement, the Oblates quoted from Patrick Clancy’s article, ‘Education Policy’, on this matter.38 He wrote: Perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Irish education system is the level of church involvement and control. Church control of education is rooted in the ownership and management of schools. After independence in 1922, the new state institutionalized the denominational school system which it inherited. Successive ministers of education adopted the view that the role of the state in education was a subsidiary one of aiding agencies such as the churches in the provision of educational facilities. The classic expression of this position is outlined in Minister of Education, Richard Mulcahy’s speech to Dáil Éireann in 1956: ‘Deputy Moylan has asked me to philosophise, to give my views on educational technique or educational practice. I do not regard that as my function in the Department of Education in the circumstances of the educational set-up in this country. You have your teachers, your managers and your Churches and I regard the position as Minister in the Department of Education as a kind of dungaree man, the plumber who will make the satisfactory communications and streamline the forces and potentialities of educational workers and educational management in this country. He will take the knock out of the pipes and will link up everything’. (Dáil Debates, 159: 1494).

The Oblates also asserted: Given the nature of the work, the fact of State ownership of the property, the fact that the school depended on State funding, and the many appeals for help from the school administration, responsibility for the state of the living conditions in the school and its lack of facilities as described must lie primarily with the State.

He felt that the De La Salle Order would be suitable, as they ‘had much experience in such matters’. The Archbishop inquired if the Minister would ‘have any objection to a scheme like St. Anne’s in Kilmacud where the Order itself bought the house and the land and where the Department made arrangements about grants’. The Department official assured the Archbishop that the Minister would be more than satisfied with such an arrangement. The meeting ended and, as the officials took their leave, the Archbishop said: ... the Detention Centre was the root of all good and bad in the Dublin boys who get into trouble and that nothing was more urgent than that the Centre be well conducted.

It is not known whether this conference ever took place, and the Department of Justice in their Statement said: ‘The departmental files do not reveal if such a conference did take place’. In any event, the suggestion of Judge MacCarthy that District Judges undertake inspections of Marlborough House was not implemented and the lack of inspections continued until its closure.

Each of the witnesses that gave evidence to the Investigation Committee made allegations of physical abuse, particularly against this attendant [Mr Lombard]. One witness recounted being hit randomly with his walking stick for no reason. He said Mr Lombard would take him out of bed in the early hours of the morning and would ‘wallop you, strip you, hit you with the stick’. This happened on two or three occasions where he was taken out of bed ‘and just walloped for no reason whatsoever’. He recalled a particular occasion when Mr Lombard took a boy out of the bed next to him and ‘hit him so hard and where he missed him there was holes in the walls from the top of his walking stick were he actually missed him with a few blows’. The atmosphere he felt was one of fear: It was degrading there, there was tension there all the time, a terrible atmosphere. If you were hit you actually felt better because you were not going to be hit for a day or two. You never knew when it was going to happen to you.

He added: ‘You weren’t treated as a human being at all in there, you had no control over anything there, none’.

Another witness referred to the early-morning beatings by this same attendant, which he first received on arrival: ... it was perhaps about 3:00 or 4:00 in the morning, I can’t remember exactly what time it was, when the bedclothes were taken back off me. This man, whom I now knew to be Lombard, held me down with his left hand on the back of my neck here, he had the blankets back and he beat me half a dozen times with the walking stick, across the back, the buttocks and the back of my legs. Full force. This was the first night I was there.

This happened on four occasions within the first month that he was there, where Mr Lombard would beat him with his walking stick: ‘He would always give you half a dozen whacks of it’. He also said that Mr Lombard beat the boys for no reason, and he pointed out that there ‘was always a smell of alcohol from his breath’.

A third witness complained of being beaten by this attendant who ‘would hit you whatever way he wanted to’. He would punch with his hands, ‘Around your body, you could be in your bed and he would come in and punch you’. He referred to the atmosphere created by this man: ‘when he was in your presence you would have fear. He’d have that about him, he brought fear’.

In January 1971, Rosita Sweetman, a journalist with the Irish Press, wrote a series of articles on the ill-treatment of boys and the poor conditions in Marlborough House. Her information came from an existing member of staff, Mr Jacob,8 who also provided her with unofficial access to the building and documents. It was reported that: ... one of the wardens boasted ... how he’d “beaten the lard out of that itinerant kid.” The itinerant kid was 13. ‘Jacob’ protested and was told “These young lads aren’t juvenile delinquents – they’re criminals. They are here to be corrected and we’ll correct them.”

One witness, who was in Marlborough House in the early 1970s, alleged that two members of staff (Mr Lombard and Mr Hugot)11 used a walking stick to beat him. The beatings were random and for no particular reason. He also complained of being fondled and, when asked to describe this, he said: What they would actually do, they would strip you and I remember, I can see him now ... he would come in and shove the stick between your buttocks or whatever else and stand in the doorway and watch him push you and feel you or whatever.

Each of the witnesses said they spent each day of their detention in this large room with nothing to do. One witness, who spent time there in 1970, described this room as ‘painted smoky kind of grey’ with a large stove at one end where ‘We would sit around the fire basically all day’. This room, as described by the witness, was divided into two sections by a partition: one section consisted of two tables for eating, and the other section was ‘where we would sit down at the fire all day’. They had nothing to do except sit by the fire in this room, which he described as similar to the room in the film, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, with ‘strong wire on every window’. He recalled only being allowed out into the outside yard for one hour during the whole month of his detention.

At that time, he said there were approximately 25 to 30 boys in the House. His daily routine consisted of getting up in the morning, going to the bathroom to ‘put some water on your face’ and going downstairs for breakfast and then sitting by the fire for the day. His description of breakfast was not particularly edifying. The boys would sit each side of the table, and one of the attendants would stand at the top of the table: Mr Lombard would stand at the top of the table, we would all have a mug of tea, it would be ready for you, and he would stand at the top of the table and we would all be sitting down. And he would say, “hey, you boy, catch”, and he would throw you the bread and you had to catch it before the other guy got it. Jam and bread. Then the next boy. “Hey, boy”, and he threw it to you and you had to catch it.

Another witness described the same routine in the same room as ‘... just one big room, when you got up in the morning you stayed there for the day until you went to bed at night’. The day was spent playing with the other children. He did recall board games: I know we played draughts, there would be cards, there mightn’t even be a full deck of cards, there would be a few cards missing here and there. They were basically the two. I think if I remember right, even the draught board it used to be beer tops that we used play on.

One witness who was in Marlborough House in 1970 described it as ‘... like walking into Dracula’s castle, it was real Victorian, real dirt...’. He recounted the filthy conditions they were subjected to: ‘there was fleas walking in the towels you were given to dry yourself with. It was absolutely filthy there’. The boys had to share everything even the towels: I remember the Dublin fellow saying to me one day, “Use the corner of the towels because nobody else does”. I can see now in my mind’s eye, the very corner the fleas walking up and down, they were small white towels, well, they were supposed to be white ...