2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

It was regarded as an impossible task, unless the supervision of the children also involved a degree of control over them through fear of punishment. One former Prefect told the Investigation Committee: I certainly would have hit chaps with the palm of my hand as well if the frustration got too much ... I wouldn’t have been unique, I don’t think, no ... we always tried to leave that side of it to one of the others if they would do it. Somebody has to take on the responsibility of the disciplinarian, one of us could step back and let ... whoever was there do it ... That kind of shoved you into a role at the time as well.

The Prefects, he explained: allowed somebody to take the flak, we all do it in groups unfortunately at times, somebody else takes on this role of being the disciplinarian and everybody else can sit back and say I’ll send you to [the Prefect].

A Prefect from the 1960s, Br Alfonso,5 described the role of Prefect in the following terms: the Prefect of Discipline was public enemy numero uno. That he was the first public enemy because he was the only one who is to dish out discipline. He was to physically punish the children if that were necessary.

Once ‘shoved into’ the role of Prefect, he went on: You just have to go in and pretend that you are the big boy, which I did at the time ... I roared and shouted and put a fella away and said that will stop that messing now. I don’t remember hitting anybody that particular night, many a time I did. You would kind of take on the acting role ... Then, looking back now, while I was acting I’m sure the children didn’t think I was acting at all, so that would have frightened them as well ... You would think I was going to kill them. It was using fear really to get control.

Fr Antonio told the Committee that he had requested that he be removed from the Prefect’s position. He said: I was glad to get away from the prefecting ... it was too boring and walking around just like that all day, nothing to do. I would prefer to be working, doing something.

The Investigation Committee heard evidence from 29 individuals who spent time in Ferryhouse as children. Nearly all of them described being physically punished. Many expressed an acceptance of corporal punishment if it was proportionate and deserved. For example, one witness, in Ferryhouse in the late 1960s and early 1970s, told the Committee: You just have to be, kind of, street wise down there, you know ... I was never really punished much ... if there was a group of you you would always get one or two on the hands and that was it. You would just take it and leave it, you know ... sometimes they were deserved, yes.

He went on to describe the kinds of offences that incurred different levels of physical punishment: Sometimes would be two, sometimes it would be four. Six if it was something bad, you know what I mean, smoking, say, for instance ... or cursing, you know, if you called somebody something you would probably only get two or three ... but really really trouble you would get six.

A predictable tariff for offences would have allowed boys to work out what was fair or deserved punishment, and also taught the ‘street wise’ boy what to do to avoid being beaten. If applied properly, it would have made the punishment regime predictable. This particular witness accepted being physically punished if he had done wrong and if he got what he deserved. He reserved his criticism for unfair punishment, or excessive violence. He told the Investigation Committee: It was strict ... like, when you look back over it, it is for stupid things; wet the beds or you soiled your pants or something like that.

For all these reasons, absconders were dealt with severely. When they were returned, they were usually punished with the strap, often in view of other boys, and in the earlier years their heads were shaved. At one stage, Fr Antonio informed the Committee: They used to put them in pyjamas and coats over the top to stop them running away ... Again it was Dickensian ... And there were other occasions where they were put in short pants as well.

A witness who was resident in Ferryhouse in the late 1940s, when he was aged approximately 14 years, told the Investigation Committee of a particularly severe beating he received for absconding. He ran away four or five days after his arrival and was found by the Gardaí and brought back. He was not punished on this occasion. A week later, he ran away again, and was picked up a few days later, early in the morning, by the Gardaí at his home. He was put in a police cell, ‘a dirty stinking hole of a dungeon’ and was forgotten about until there was a change of shift. He received no food at all, and was collected late that evening by a Brother, and driven back to Ferryhouse. He described what ensued: Went to bed because it was very late at night. Within about 15 minutes, I was hauled out of bed by Br Gian.7 In those days we had no nightclothes, we slept in our shirt, he grabbed hold of my shirt and pulled it up over my head and my arms were held up like that and I was flogged unmercifully for a long period of time ... across the back, small of the back, the buttocks, the backs of my thighs and he left marks nearly an inch wide and they were there for months. When my mother come to see me they wouldn’t let her see me because she could clearly see the back of my legs, they were all bruised.

A witness who was in Ferryhouse in the 1950s described seeing a boy who had absconded receive a severe beating in the dormitory on his return. He was visibly distressed as he told his story: He was 14, I think, 14 years of age, a big lad. A nice person. I used to refer to him as a gentle giant ... he was given an example beating in the dormitory ... He ran away with another two lads or something like that ... he was protesting, he had been in the school because he was 14 and the Committal Order was until he was 14 ... He should have been out. I think that was his general thing so he ran away. He was caught, brought back and up in the lower dormitory, at night time, when we were all up in the dormitory ... He was again brought out in the dormitory ... and he was approached by this Br Maximo8 ... Br Maximo would be the main physical man. [There were three other staff there] ... I don’t know. Did they want him to tip over so they could strap him on the backside? ... He wouldn’t anyway. He grabbed the bed and he wouldn’t let go of the bed so Br Maximo then proceeded to come down on his fists, on the boy’s fists on the bed ... then Br Maximo went to physically attack him anyway on the body ... He gave him a couple of whacks of the strap as well to see would that loosen the grip. It didn’t. We were all kind of getting closer and closer to what was happening ... In the end I think .... did, out of pure weakness, let go of the bed. Br Maximo started strapping him with the strap ... From fisting, and from clattering and from the strap ... it was quite a bad beating he got. Bear in mind he was only a young boy and you have a full physical adult using fists and what have you on him.

A witness who was there in the late 1960s absconded twice, the first time with his brother and another boy, and the second time with two other boys. He told the Investigation Committee, ‘I think the first time they let us go because we were only young and they realised we wanted just to go home’. The second time, however: We were brought back and we were made to shower again in our swimming trunks, and they would dip them in salt and they would slap us again and give us a much more severe beating this time, maybe 12 times.

Many former residents described severe beatings they called ‘flammings’, a term apparently peculiar to Ferryhouse. One resident, who was in Ferryhouse in the 1940s, defined a ‘flamming’ as follows: They were administered mostly in the dormitory in front of everyone. They consisted of you being called. Then you took off your shirt because you wore your shirt at night ... and you were put across the bed ... The strap that I was talking about was laid into your body and they didn’t care where they hit you ... You were completely naked ... Most of the time you were made put your hands across over the bed, sometimes they were held ... You see, you were in constant fear ... of being punished for the least thing, for the simplest of reasons or maybe for no reason at all.

He went on to draw a distinction between punishment and abuse: If you asked me before to ban corporal punishment, I would have said corporal punishment is a necessity ... The corporal punishment we got, if we got it properly, it was right, it is the corporal punishment that was not right that I did not agree with. The corporal punishment that became abuse is what I’m talking about. Putting out your two hands ... we all got it in school, but flammings you didn’t get in school ... in schools you got the hand, you may even have got the pulling of the hair or the ear when you done something wrong. I wouldn’t be here today complaining about that.

A former resident who was in Ferryhouse in the late 1960s and early 1970s described a beating that went from being a deserved punishment, given because he was seen doing a two-finger gesture behind a Brother saying Grace, to being a vicious assault. He told the Investigation Committee: I was called into the office ... I knew I was caught ... Fr Paolo9 had [the leather] in his hand. He said put out your hand, so I put out me hand and I took one ... and he asked me for the other one and I said my thumb was sore, I was after bending it back playing football and I didn’t want it on that hand because it would have been worse then, because if you take two or three on one hand you don’t feel them. If you are getting six you won’t feel the other three or four anyway and I wouldn’t and he insisted and I kept moving. I wanted him to catch me this side [indicating], rather than this side of me thumb ... He kept missing me because I kept moving it ... One time he skinned it, and the next time he went and I pulled it, and he missed completely ... I could see in his face he was going to batter me ... I seen it and he went for me and I just went down in a huddle ... As I was going down I seen him drawing back to hit me and he caught me with the width of the thing ... It wasn’t the flat part. He caught me with the thickness of it on the back there, on the back of the neck there ... I was down for a minute and he stood back. He didn’t go mad on me or anything. It was one blow ... When I looked he was back ... I stood up and he said, “Put out your hand” ... I put out this hand and I took the rest. I do not know if it was one or two more on me hand, and I walked out. I had genuinely got a sore thumb but everyone used to say it because if you took two you don’t feel the rest because your hand is numb. That was a ploy but they knew about it as well you know.