2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

However, at the eleventh hour, Sr Roberta withdrew her application to the Department, as the Archbishop of Tuam refused to support it. It is not clear why the Archbishop made this last-minute objection, but the following year Sr Roberta renewed her application, this time with the consent of the Archbishop. She explained: He has now given us the permission as our numbers have decreased very much since then.

In 1969, during the transitional period when Sr Sofia took over as Resident Manager, the Department reviewed the situation and the official concluded that: Clifden is too small a town to accommodate an industrial school that would be as large as St Josephs is at present. It appears to me that maybe 40 or 50 children consisting of boys and girls would be a sufficient enrolment for Clifden industrial school. In the final analysis, the range of necessary services, consisting of schools etc are too restrictive for an institute of this type in a small town.

The Investigation Committee heard evidence in three phases. The first phase involved a public hearing at which Sr Margaret Casey, Provincial Leader of the Western Province of the Congregation of Sisters of Mercy, gave evidence on behalf of the Congregation on 10th January 2006. She had no direct involvement with Clifden apart from spending a fortnight there before the School closed down. She drew from the following sources of information in preparing her evidence for the Commission’s inquiry: archival records held by the Congregation; material received from the Commission by way of discovery and complainants statements; documentation arising out of litigation proceedings; and conversations with Sisters who were part of the Community in Clifden.

In the course of an apology to former residents of Clifden, Sr Casey stated: I suppose we do recognise that the children that were committed to our care...were vulnerable and we do recognise that they were traumatised. The system that prevailed in the Industrial School mitigated against giving them the necessary affection and care that their vulnerability required ... It was necessary dealing with such large numbers to maintain order and strict discipline was required. This obviously had a negative effect on the children and unfortunately we deeply regret that this may have been excessive at times and for this we are truly sorry.

A common thread running through the testimony of the complainants was that punishment was meted out indiscriminately and that this created an environment of fear. One witness, who was a resident for eight years from the early 1950s, stated: it didn’t really matter what you were beaten for, it was just one of those things, if they saw you there and you weren’t doing something then you got beaten for it.

Another witness, a resident for 12 years from the late 1950s, stated that they were punished: For nothing, just because they felt like it. If they were angry then they just took it out on you, sometimes you were an innocent victim just sitting there, or just playing and then they attacked you, it all depends on what moods they were in.

A witness, who was committed for just over a year in the early 1960s when she was 12 years old, remarked: Anybody got it, it didn’t make a difference. If you were just in the wrong place at the wrong time or if you were too slow to get your work down or if you didn’t get down the stairs quick enough or if you ran...Anywhere they could get you they would hit you. Mainly on the head. That was the sorest. They would hit you with the keys, that was sore.

Another witness, who was committed to Clifden before she was a year old and spent her entire childhood there during the 1960s and the 1970s, commented: I lived in, I think – I watched – I was punished, other kids were punished, I think it was being in an environment controlled in fear. I think I was very afraid of the nuns, very afraid of getting things wrong. I think I was constantly in that state of fear of being punished.

Two respondent Sisters referred to staff and management issues in their evidence. One worked in the Industrial School from the late 1960s until it closed and stated that, when she was sent to Clifden, there were 86 children and three full-time members of staff: herself, the Resident Manager and a lay worker. Another Sister helped out on a part-time basis. It was a chaotic and stressful environment, involving long working hours and no holidays. She did not make any representations to her superiors at the time for assistance, and simply managed with what she had. She was very unhappy and did seek a transfer. She was told to ‘hold on for a while, you know, that we will get you out of it’. Matters did not improve until the early to mid-1970s, when a combination of a decrease in the number of residents and an increase in staff numbers succeeded in reducing the pressure. The Sister confirmed that she did not undergo any childcare training until the mid-1970s, when she attended an in-service training course in Goldenbridge.

Another respondent, Sr Carmella,11 who was both teacher and principal in the internal national school from the early 1960s stated that she did not bring any of her concerns to the attention of Sr Roberta who held the posts of Resident Manager and Reverend Mother: No, I did not discuss with the Reverend Mother. I just did what the Reverend Mother told me to do and my work was to teach in the School and that was it. That was what was allotted to me and I did what I could there. But it was – the Reverend Mother, she determined the lot of each individual.

In its Submissions, the Congregation concedes that: in view of the repetition of complaints about food, and the evidence of certain particular complainants such as [the complainant named] it seems likely that hunger was a real issue for the children in Clifden industrial, at least up to a certain period of time, perhaps the late 1960’s ... The food does not seem to have been adequate in quantity to satisfy the appetite of the children. It is accepted that children probably did, on occasion, steal loaves of fresh bread and extra portions of food whenever they could.

Sr Casey stated at the Phase I public hearing: Up to the ‘60’s the level of education was generally that of Primary Cert, but there was industrial training provided as well and the children would have been expected to engage in significant amounts of domestic work depending on their age, such as the laundry, kitchen and bakery and at any given time a child would have helped on the farm. These things all of them together would undoubtedly have made the children feel that in some sense their childhood was thwarted or stunted.

Two other witnesses complained that an over-emphasis on religious studies deprived them of other educational skills. One of these witnesses was five years old when she was sent to Clifden in the late 1950s. She stated: You were drilled with religion and if you didn’t know it that you got beaten and that you had to stand on the desk or kneel down and face the blackboard or face the wall, turn around against the wall ... we didn’t go on to the Leaving or Inter or anything. We were not even able to read or write when we left the Institution. It was just sheer luck that we did survive. We had the survival skills but we did not have the educational skills.

A complainant who spent her childhood in Clifden during the 1960s and 1970s gave evidence in relation to the Sister who taught her in 6th class: we were terrified of her because she was very cruel. I used to be dreading going into her class because she used to teach in 6th class and I spend years dreading going into her class because I feared that she would punish me.

Despite the apparent emphasis on educating the children, most of them were destined for a life in some sort of domestic service. Sr Carmella’s explanation was that such an outcome was never questioned: ‘I think the order of the day was that in the end of it they were going to end up as domestics’. Sr Roberta, who held the position as Resident Manager until 1969, decided who would go on to secondary school. She would have liked to have seen more children go on to further education.