2,143 entries for Witness Testimony

Another ex-resident, who was in St Patrick’s in the 1950s, recalled a particular beating of a boy, during which four other boys were required to hold him down: It wasn’t me that was held down. It was one of the boys that was asked to accompany the boy that had supposedly done something wrong to hold him down. One had to hold each hand and the others had to hold a leg each and the nun spanked the boy on that table like that.

He did not know what had merited the beating: No, we were playing. And the nun just picked at random, picked four boys to come in with this particular other boy.

He only recalled this happening on this one occasion, but he was unhappy about it: I didn’t like the idea at all. But to say no was – that was not a possibility either, you couldn’t say no.

When asked whether the nun had struck him with her hand, he replied: There was an instrument used, yes ... I can’t remember. I believe it could have been a stick, there always seemed to be one item used.

In the classroom the stick was used: Yes, we used to get slapped on the hand ... Three or four maybe, I can’t be sure.

This complainant also recalled another incident of punishment: That happened before lights out in the dormitory. A cat or a kitten came in and was running around the dormitory, started climbing up on the curtains and that, three or four of us just hopped out of bed to chase the cat and we were caught doing that by the nun. I believe it was three or four of us, I can’t remember for sure. But we were ordered down into a room with a tiled floor on it and we were asked to strip off and lie on the floor. She said she would come back later on and not to move, don’t dare move. When she did come back later, I could not tell you how long it was, she gave us each a few slaps on the backside as we were lying on the floor, told us to get dressed. On the way up to the dormitory, we met the head nun and she asked the other nun what were we doing. I remember the nun clearly stating that we were knitting mats. I couldn’t believe that a nun would tell a lie to another nun. He explained that the boys often knitted mats in the School.

He remembered other children being taken out of the dormitory to be punished, but he did not know what punishment they received: ‘No, you very seldom spoke about things’.

She was asked about corporal punishment in the School: Well, slapping was obviously a form of punishment that was used to discipline the children. As far as we can gather it was normally done with the palm of the hand and a cane or ruler was sometimes used.

Bed-wetting was a problem: Indeed, yes, it was a problem. We are quite clear I think as to what happened. We were told that in the earlier days that any older child who wet his bed had to bring down the wet sheets to the laundry in the morning. He might be left standing beside his bed for five to ten minutes when it was discovered that the bed was wet ... Then in the play hall when they lined up to go to school they would have been called out and they would have been slapped for wetting the bed.

On the general regime she said: While we know the general organisation and routine of the school it is possible that events occurred of which the sisters and the staff were not aware, although there is no evidence of this in the documentation. I think I said earlier that no matter how much you tried to care for your child or your children even in a family you cannot preclude the possibility of bullying or exploitation or whatever, as we know, tragically. The children were closely supervised but this may not have precluded isolated incidents of rough play, bullying, etc. The harshness of punishment would probably have varied depending on the personality of the staff and the sisters. I’m sure that some of the punishment must have been experienced by the children as harsh and humiliating and unmerited. Undoubtedly each child and each Sister and each member of staff has their own interpretation of what life was like in St Patrick’s institution.

In their final submission after the Phase III hearings, the Sisters stated: The Committee heard evidence from nine former residents of St Patrick’s Industrial School. This school closed in 1966 and the Sisters of Charity were unable to respond to the evidence because, given the passage of time, there was no-one left who could evaluate or respond to these allegations by means of firsthand evidence or even by hearsay. It is undoubtedly the case that physical punishment took place in St Patrick’s but the Sisters of Charity are not in a position to comment on their own behalf as to what occurred. They are prejudiced in that regard due to the delay in these allegations coming to the fore.

There were no documented cases of children being sexually abused in St Patrick’s. The Community annals covering the period 1879 to 1966 contained no records of any incidents of that nature. Sister Úna O’Neill, in the Phase I public hearing, said the first time the issue of sexual abuse was mentioned was when: in the summer of 1999 a past resident called to St Patrick’s for a visit ... He was trying to trace a man whom he said had worked in the laundry in St Patrick’s while he himself was a resident. He alleged that the man had abused him sexually and the sister undertook to try and make inquiries which she did, but no-one in St Patrick’s remembers the man. That’s not to say he wasn’t there. Nobody remembered him.

Within a few months, the Sisters of Charity received a solicitor’s letter. She explained: We first became aware of allegations of abuse in St Patrick’s I suppose formally on 27th January 2000 when we received correspondence from a firm of solicitors regarding a past resident who had been in St Patrick’s and who was alleging abuse.

When the Sisters of Charity received these three complaints, they made a general review of the documents and files relating to St Patrick’s. Again, the results were the same: We found nothing in their files nor indeed in any of the documentation to substantiate the specific allegations that were made by the 11 men who are appearing before the Commission ... There is neither documentary evidence nor is there supplementary evidence from the sisters who would have lived there at the time.

One resident, who was in St Patrick’s from the mid-1940s to the early 1950s, made allegations of sexual assault against a farmhand. He told the Committee: His name was Bruce4 and he used to look after us at playtime, you know. He always carried a stick with him. There was one occasion where I had 25 on each hand, well several of us had that, we don’t know the reason for it. He use to take me down to the hay barn and strip me off and he would strip himself off and, you know, I had to do things to him and he tried to do things to me of a sexual nature ... it happened – six, seven and eight years old, during the summer months mostly ... I knew what he was doing. I didn’t feel right, if you know what I mean, but I didn’t know what it was all about. I knew I was doing something wrong.