2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

The Sisters of Mercy conceded that: With hindsight it seems likely that many of the children attending the school had particular educational difficulties given their disadvantaged backgrounds and, in some cases, disrupted schooling. Many were undoubtedly in need of what would now be termed remedial education. Until late in the 1960s the fact that some of the children had special educational needs was not recognised. In due course in 1977 the school itself was given “special school” status. In the 1940s and 1950s however, there were no special facilities, teachers or resources to take account of those special needs and it is undoubtedly the case that the method of education provided was inadequate for the needs of many of the children.

The Congregation stated: The use of corporal punishment in the classroom setting was inevitably non-productive, and has caused indelible memories of being slapped or beaten for no reason. Poor educational achievement and inability to find employment other than in domestic or low grade service was the consequence for many children.

The Congregation added that there was little doubt that practices such as correcting left-handedness and wearing dunce’s hats may also have been used. It posed the following question: the question must be asked as to whether this type and level of education was so significantly different to that available to the average Irish child of the time, as to constitute abuse?

Sr Alida was adamant that she did the best she could to give the children a proper education: I did as good as I could to give the opportunities to children and given the best I could give for them in clothes, food and everything else and education. In between there must be many children who said to me today, "I didn’t get a chance." There is one who does say it, "I didn’t get an education”. ... Many of them got into assistant nursing and into children’s nursing. Our standard of education couldn’t be that bad. I am not saying it was first class or high, because the children coming in to us had experience of school before they came. Many came from non-school attendance. Our level –- we never had trouble with inspectors about the level of education in our schools.

Ms Kearney, who worked as a lay teacher, confirmed that, after finishing her own schooling, she completed a course in domestic economy before commencing her first teaching position in the mid-1930s in Goldenbridge. She shared a classroom with a senior teacher, Ms Dempsey. Neither was formally qualified to teach at that time. Ms Kearney stated that she was very glad to get the job in Goldenbridge: I was always afraid of doing or saying anything wrong, that I would be sacked, that was my one fear.

When asked if there were things that she would have spoken about if she didn’t have the fear of being sacked, she said: Sure ... well for one I would have loved to have seen the children with more space. I would have liked to have seen them with warmer clothes on them, because at the time that I went in there first they were very basic. More freedom. ... There were lots of children I would have loved to have hugged and cuddled. They were so lovely, but the bold girls would take it out on them, call them names, teacher’s pet, you know and shout at them and that.

One complainant, who was in Goldenbridge in the early 1950s, made an interesting comparison between the education she received in Goldenbridge and that which she received at an English school, which she attended immediately after leaving Goldenbridge. She said that in Goldenbridge, although she loved learning, she had not learnt anything in the School. When she was removed by her father from the Institution, aged 11, and brought to England, she attended school and got on very well there, despite her abusive family circumstances. Her description of that period was as follows: It was like a blossoming period. When I went to the school in England I craved education. That was my way of trying to conquer what life had done to me. I went to this little school and when we used to be asked to read and write,reading, I used to think to myself “please don’t come to us” because I used to stammer and stutter and I had a thick accent apparently. I am there on this particular one day there was reading going on and I was stammering to myself, “please don’t ask me, please don’t ask me”, the teacher did ask me to read and I got up and the urine was running down my legs again, I always smelt of urine, I stunk of it. I was sitting there and I was waiting for the teacher to clatter me or batter me, but I never saw it. I was only there for a few weeks and I had come on in leaps and bounds ... When I went there I crammed – once I knew that I wasn’t going to get beaten, it was wonderful. Anything I could get to read, I loved it, it was a wonderful period of time ... I managed to scrape through that 11+ ... I have always loved reading and writing and spelling and that and general knowledge and all that. It was a wonderful period.

One complainant who attended Goldenbridge in the 1950s stated that she left Goldenbridge without being able to write at the age of 14. She recalled: In Sr Alida’s class I know I was very stupid. I didn’t seem to be able to learn. All I know is that I was getting smacked, for being stupid I was getting smacked ... She would put me down in the corner ... but then I was so happy to be in the corner, because when you are in the corner you don’t have to learn.

This complainant asserted that she learnt nothing in the classroom because she was in a constant state of fear of being punished, and she recalled regularly feeling nauseous. She described how she learned to tell the time from a toy watch belonging to one of the other children while she was cleaning the dormitories in the morning: I learned the clock under the bed, I learned a watch, how to tell the time. It was wonderful to learn the time because I was so stupid.

A complainant, who was in Goldenbridge for nine years from the late 1950s, recalled being taught by Ms Dempsey, who had a habit of pulling the children’s cheeks and twisting their ears if they did not know their lessons. She recalled being made to wear a dunce’s hat on occasion. She said that: We had to stand on the chairs as well, hands on our heads, fingers on lips. Sometimes we had to kneel on those wooden chairs as well.

One complainant stated that she attended secondary school because her father paid for her upkeep in Goldenbridge and requested that she do so. She said that only a few of the girls were given the opportunity of advancing their education: There was only a few of us that were allowed to go to secondary school. For example, the girl I mentioned earlier, she was very bright but a punishment for her was that she couldn’t go to secondary. It was very selective.

This complainant did proceed to secondary school, and expressed her gratitude at having been given the opportunity. However, the manner in which the children were chosen was somewhat arbitrary. She recalled that, one day, Sr Venetia came into the classroom, wrote a sum on the blackboard, and told the children to put their hands up when they had completed it. The complainant was the first to complete the sum and, on that basis, she was selected with two others to go to secondary school. She said that this occurred after Christmas and, therefore, she had missed the first term: We went to the secondary school the next day. I hadn’t a breeze ... In no time I realised I knew nothing. I felt quite competent in the national school, in fairness I felt quite competent, but I hadn’t a breeze, not a breeze ... I tried to survive as best I could, I tried to do whatever I could. But unfortunately, as I felt at the time, it was completely in vain because I failed my Inter Cert. Destroyed me. I had worked so hard and it was all for nothing.

Sr Alida spoke about the difficulty in choosing children to send to the external secondary school to progress their education: When secondary education became available in the local school I promoted one child once, four in the next set and then – looking back on it now it was difficult because there are people complaining that they weren’t chosen. It was very hard to know who you could pick, who was most entitled to, who would benefit most from it, and you had to try and give the advantage where possible. I did that to the best of my ability and people benefited from it in the ways that others did not.

In their Opening Statement, the Sisters of Mercy described the daily routine: After breakfast every child old enough performed household chores suitable for their age for about half an hour before school, such as cleaning up the dining room, dusting corridors, helping with getting the babies or toddlers dressed and so on.

The Congregation was adamant that children as young as seven or eight were not taken out of school to perform chores, but that children over 13 years of age participated in an industrial training program in the afternoons. This programme adopted a three-pronged approach to industrial training: cookery, laundry, and housekeeping duties. This would have entailed a certain amount of domestic work around the Institution. The Congregation stated: At this remove in time, it is probably impossible to say that children over the age of twelve were not, on occasion taken in the afternoon to carry out domestic chores, be it laundry, minding younger children or helping in the kitchen. This may have been more likely with girls who showed little interest or ability at school.