2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

He singled out the conditions of the refectory for special criticism: I remember the tiles in the refectory were slippery and if the steam rose up you would slip and break your leg or anything on the floor there ... Let’s be honest about it, there was a chef there that used to stir the pot of stew with the handle of a brush. These things happened and I can’t deny them.

At one point, he made clear the abhorrence and disgust he felt, in retrospect, about how the boys had to eat. He said: For obvious reasons looking back now ... it was horrific. The question I would have to ask myself is, would I have eaten the food out of the bowls the boys were eating out, no, I wouldn’t and I didn’t.

He had grown up as a child in Clonmel, so he knew of the School before he went to work there as a member of the Order. He recalled: My understanding of Ferryhouse at that time was as a child growing up in Clonmel. We used to see them going through the town in lorries with black stockings and red tops in lorries going through and the threat of my age group, and indeed everybody else at that time, was that you would be sent to the monastery if you misbehave. Ferryhouse at that time was known as the monastery. I would have visited and played football against the Ferryhouse boys at that time.

In his evidence to the Investigation Committee, Fr Antonio, a former Resident Manager, spoke about an experience he had dealing with boys who were sent to Ferryhouse from Artane: One of the – I suppose one of the things that made me angry ever since was that I was sent up on a bus to Dublin to collect the Artane boys and the instruction I was given at the time, go up – the Artane boys were told, I don’t know where they were told they were going but they weren’t told they were coming to Clonmel. My instructions were go up on the bus and don’t stop the bus or let them out because they will run away. I stand very guilty of that that I hadn’t enough courage at that time to say this is not right. I remember well, coming down on that bus and they were arriving in Ferryhouse. From what we heard at that time, I couldn’t swear by this, at least there were nuns cooking in Artane, their standard of food was a lot of better. Certainly their standard of clothes were a lot of better. Because I remember them coming down and they were all given three khaki pants and three T-shirts and whatever and they were light years to what our lads were doing. That would have made me quite angry at the time that I was going up to bring all these lads.

A witness who was in Ferryhouse in the 1940s came from a family where illness, poverty and death led to social upheaval. He was the eighth in a family of 13 children. His mother died of pneumonia. Her youngest child at the time was just one month old, and the complainant was seven years of age. The entire family was placed into various institutions. The four brothers were initially sent to Ferryhouse, but then were split up and the younger two were sent elsewhere. He was unaware that one of his brothers was later returned to Ferryhouse. The witness explained: After he became a certain age, five years of age or that, he was sent to Ferryhouse. But the point about it was he was two and a half years in Ferryhouse before anybody told us he was our brother. So he was in the school for two and a half years and nobody knew he was – well, at least we didn’t know – we knew he was [names the boy] but that was it. We never knew he was our brother.

He was physically abused in his primary school, so stopped attending the school. After a number of appearances before the District Court, he was sent to Ferryhouse. His mother was ill with epilepsy and this also contributed to his school non-attendance as he would remain at home to help his mother. He recalled the judge telling him that his parents did not care for him, as they were not even in court. He felt this was a huge injustice. He explained: My mother was after taking an epileptic fit as she was getting off the bus at Christchurch and it took some time to revive her. When my father got to the Court that time he pleaded with [the judge] who, could do nothing at that stage.

His mother in fact was terminally ill, and she died while he was in Ferryhouse. He was called to the office. He then told the Investigation Committee: I went into Fr Antonio’s room and Fr Antonio started crying. And he said to me, "I have something to tell you." And I said "What? is it my mother, my father, my family, something’s wrong." He said to me, "Your mother has died", he said. He started crying and I looked at him to say “what are you crying for?”, because it was all coming down now, what my father was crying for [in the Court].

He was driven to Dublin by a Brother. Instead of taking him directly to his family home, the Brother took him to a pub near his home. The witness remained in the car for hours and it was almost 8.15 pm when he arrived at his family home. The Brother walked in through the door of the house and gave his condolences to the witness’s sister and then left, saying that he would see her at the grave. He then described the funeral: She was buried on the following day, as far as I know, after Mass in [the cemetery]. I was at the grave in [the cemetery], just inside the gate, and [the Brother] said – he was at the grave as well and just as the ceremony was over and people were starting to walk away, he said his condolences again to my father and to my sisters. I don’t think he said anything to my brothers and took me by the hand and just brought me over and put me in the car. I was brought back then ... On my first night back to Ferryhouse, it was actually the early hours of the morning I woke to find another chap, a boy in the school, and he was at my bed as well and he said he was only trying to climb into my bed to comfort me over my mother’s death. That’s what I remember about my mother’s funeral.

A witness, who was in Ferryhouse in the late 1960s and early 1970s, described a family breakdown when his stepmother rejected both him and his brother. He knew his brother was placed in another institution and, when he got out of Ferryhouse, he went in search of him: I found out when I came out of Clonmel, I found out that is where he was and I went. I only found my brother five years ago, if you can understand that. That is how long we have known each other, other than the childhood ... Some family ... took him ... I knew he was in [another institution] and I knew where that was and I went up and I wanted to see me brother ... he was the only brother I had ... I was bigger so I had to protect him.

From then on, he had ‘No contact, no contact as such, no. I did write letters. The regime was a letter once a month, I think’. When he got out of Ferryhouse, he went in search of his sisters who had been placed in an industrial school in Leinster. Unfortunately for him, the girls had no memory of him and did not even remember having any other siblings: I found the school ... and I knocked on the door and looked for the two people by name ... The Sister in charge invited me in and after about 20 minutes or so she came up with these two other girls and they were my younger sister and her other sister. That was the first time really I had seen the baby since our mother died ... she would have been only nine or ten at that stage. [The other sister] would have been about 11 or 12 or something like that. They didn’t know anything, in fact it was completely blotted out of their minds, that they had any other members of family.

The break-up of the family unit meant that there was no real connection between any of them: It kind of, if you know what I mean, it ended with no closeness at all, it is just that we know each other. There is no connection as such. We just know we are brothers and sisters like.

He left a loving family, and went to an institution where he found no love. He said: No one cared, that’s what it seemed to me, devoid of any emotional context or devoid of anything. The only thing that was there was physical approach ... I thought, it seemed to be deliberate. It appeared to me that it was deliberate at that time to break the strings. I don’t know why, that’s the impression I got that, that the strings separate and cut the string so you have no one left, you are more or less on your own as an independent. It was probably easier to control as well I suppose in the school situation, that maybe after a couple of years you forget that you had any connection with anyone at that time ... I don’t know if anyone made friends there, if they just gathered together. One thing that struck me when I left the school there was no goodbyes or anything like that, it wasn’t “come back” or anything like that, there was boys, no farewells or anything like that, just under the arch and up to get the bus away from there. Basically it was cold ... A cold environment.

As quoted earlier, a senior member of the Rosminian Order told the Investigation Committee: That’s my belief, that every child that was ever in this situation was abused in some way, emotionally, physically or whatever the case may be, and you would say that we were part of that because we didn’t stand up at the time and probably say so.

During his tenure as Resident Manager, Fr Stefano carried out an extensive building and renovation programme in Ferryhouse. As Fr Francesco55, Provincial of the Order, stated in the early 1980s at the official opening of the new School in Ferryhouse: The planning of to-day’s reality was begun even before I entered the Order. I recall the late Fr Rafaele working on same. He was followed by Fr Lucio whom I am happy to see here today. With the appointment here of Fr Stefano a necessary intensity and a vital momentum was generated and the ideas became realities.

As Fr Stefano stated in evidence: I would like to compare that to the manager in Ferryhouse that comes on duty this morning. He has two full-time deputy directors. Now, neither he nor the deputies, unless there is severe crisis, would ever have to work a weekend, and they would work a nine to five day. Underneath the two deputy directors there are eight unit managers. Underneath the eight unit managers, there are eight assistant unit managers, and these sixteen people run the school really on a daily basis, 365 days of the year. Under the eight assistant unit managers, there are forty care staff, and most of these staff are highly professionally trained staff. To assist them, there are ten night supervisors and, as Fr O’Reilly said in the last day or two, you know, the average number of boys in the school now would be 30 boys, and very happy about that, you know. These are the objectives that we worked for over the years, but it puts in perspective what a person arriving at Ferryhouse in 1960, 70, 75, the responsibilities that that person was taking on.