The Cussen Report 1936;- into Industrial and Reformatory Schools.
https://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Statistics/Statistical-Report-1935-1936.pdf
http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/2461/
Abstract
The research study was carried out, using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis, (FDA) and involved the analysis of three statutory reports into institutional child abuse in Ireland: The Cussen Report (1936), The Kennedy Report (1970) and the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (2009). In addition to this, an analysis was carried out on interviews with civilians with regard to their responses to institutional child abuse. My study highlights the difficulty in demarcating institutional from institutionalised abuse and demonstrates how visual technology constructs the response to institutional child abuse. The research has brought to light significant discourses, such as a behaviourist discourse in which the subjectivity of the industrial school child was found to be constructed through the body. The key finding in this study relates to the manner in which the response to institutional abuse in Ireland appears to be bound up with processes of splitting of self and object. Subjectivity was identified as split and constructed as blind/seeing, able/disabled, male/female and so on and I have called this a fractured subjectivity. Moreover, the construction of splits in selves was shown to extend to splits between various out groups and in groups, resulting in agency and responsibility being delegated to others. Subjectivity was identified as thoroughly gendered and it was concluded that separation of gender from sex may allow for ways of rethinking essentialist accounts of personhood. The industrial school was identified as a disciplining and subjugating structure of those inside the institution and those outside the institution.
The objective of this study is to inquire into how response to institutional child abuse in Ireland is constructed through discourse, thus shedding light on how the response is constrained or liberated by specific discourses and on how individuals are positioned by these discourses. The method I have chosen to meet this objective is discourse analysis inspired by the work of Michel Foucault, and is sometimes referred to as Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA). The rationale for adopting this method is discussed in the following chapter. Before introducing the socio-historical context of my research and its relation to previous research, the next section will begin with a clarification of the object of my study.
Artane
The concerns expressed by Cussen were well founded. In particular, the excessive numbers of boys in the School continued to have a detrimental effect on the capacity of the Institution to provide a caring environment and on the lives of those who lived and worked in it, and contributed greatly to the problems that emerged over the years. The Congregation has conceded that, because of the numbers and because of the need for constant vigilance, Artane was run on a highly organised basis, even to the point of regimentation.
The recommendation to divide the Industrial School was not implemented, although, in the last years of Artane’s existence when the numbers had dropped to a fraction of previous decades, the boys were segregated into two groups according to their ages. The documentary records of the Christian Brothers and the Department of Education did not disclose the reason for rejecting the proposal to divide the School. There was no record of discussion or debate or of any explicit decision in that regard. Although the Congregation in its submissions has blamed the Department of Education for failure to implement this recommendation, it must also bear responsibility. If the Brothers had proposed such a change, it is difficult to see how the Department could have reasonably opposed it. When the division was made in 1967, admittedly a much smaller alteration in view of the reduced population, it was an internal decision of the Congregation.
The hierarchical nature of the religious leadership in Artane had consequences for the management of the School. Evidence before the Committee pointed to a rigid and simplistic management structure, whereby all the power and all the decision-making function lay with the Resident Manager. Individual Brothers spoke to the Committee about their own feelings of helplessness and frustration at their inability to effect change. Older Brothers had authority over younger colleagues, and this allowed a system to develop whereby all the heavy workload of the Institution fell on a small number of young, inexperienced Brothers who were obliged by their vows of obedience to carry out instructions without question.
https://www.education.ie/en/Publications/Statistics/Statistical-Report-1935-1936.pdf
http://openaccess.city.ac.uk/2461/
Abstract
The research study was carried out, using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis, (FDA) and involved the analysis of three statutory reports into institutional child abuse in Ireland: The Cussen Report (1936), The Kennedy Report (1970) and the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (2009). In addition to this, an analysis was carried out on interviews with civilians with regard to their responses to institutional child abuse. My study highlights the difficulty in demarcating institutional from institutionalised abuse and demonstrates how visual technology constructs the response to institutional child abuse. The research has brought to light significant discourses, such as a behaviourist discourse in which the subjectivity of the industrial school child was found to be constructed through the body. The key finding in this study relates to the manner in which the response to institutional abuse in Ireland appears to be bound up with processes of splitting of self and object. Subjectivity was identified as split and constructed as blind/seeing, able/disabled, male/female and so on and I have called this a fractured subjectivity. Moreover, the construction of splits in selves was shown to extend to splits between various out groups and in groups, resulting in agency and responsibility being delegated to others. Subjectivity was identified as thoroughly gendered and it was concluded that separation of gender from sex may allow for ways of rethinking essentialist accounts of personhood. The industrial school was identified as a disciplining and subjugating structure of those inside the institution and those outside the institution.
The objective of this study is to inquire into how response to institutional child abuse in Ireland is constructed through discourse, thus shedding light on how the response is constrained or liberated by specific discourses and on how individuals are positioned by these discourses. The method I have chosen to meet this objective is discourse analysis inspired by the work of Michel Foucault, and is sometimes referred to as Foucauldian Discourse Analysis (FDA). The rationale for adopting this method is discussed in the following chapter. Before introducing the socio-historical context of my research and its relation to previous research, the next section will begin with a clarification of the object of my study.
Artane
The concerns expressed by Cussen were well founded. In particular, the excessive numbers of boys in the School continued to have a detrimental effect on the capacity of the Institution to provide a caring environment and on the lives of those who lived and worked in it, and contributed greatly to the problems that emerged over the years. The Congregation has conceded that, because of the numbers and because of the need for constant vigilance, Artane was run on a highly organised basis, even to the point of regimentation.
The recommendation to divide the Industrial School was not implemented, although, in the last years of Artane’s existence when the numbers had dropped to a fraction of previous decades, the boys were segregated into two groups according to their ages. The documentary records of the Christian Brothers and the Department of Education did not disclose the reason for rejecting the proposal to divide the School. There was no record of discussion or debate or of any explicit decision in that regard. Although the Congregation in its submissions has blamed the Department of Education for failure to implement this recommendation, it must also bear responsibility. If the Brothers had proposed such a change, it is difficult to see how the Department could have reasonably opposed it. When the division was made in 1967, admittedly a much smaller alteration in view of the reduced population, it was an internal decision of the Congregation.
The hierarchical nature of the religious leadership in Artane had consequences for the management of the School. Evidence before the Committee pointed to a rigid and simplistic management structure, whereby all the power and all the decision-making function lay with the Resident Manager. Individual Brothers spoke to the Committee about their own feelings of helplessness and frustration at their inability to effect change. Older Brothers had authority over younger colleagues, and this allowed a system to develop whereby all the heavy workload of the Institution fell on a small number of young, inexperienced Brothers who were obliged by their vows of obedience to carry out instructions without question.
Timeline
The Reformatory Schools Act certified existing voluntary institutions and religious organisations to care for juvenile offenders with public funding and inspection
1868 - The Industrial Schools Act. Industrial schools were established to care for “neglected, orphaned and abandoned children.” They were run by religious orders and funded by the public.
1900 - Peak of industrial schools with 8,000 children in 71 schools.
1908 - The Children Act defined reformatories as responsible for feeding, clothing, housing and teaching young offenders and instigated annual visits by an Inspector of Reformatory and Industrial Schools.
1919 - The revolutionary Dáil established by Sinn Fein declares “It shall be the first duty of the Republic to make provision for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the children,” but doesn’t suggest an alternative to the British industrial schools.
1920 - Six counties partitioned under the Northern Ireland Act.
1922 - New Dáil and Seanad established under the Irish Free State Constitution.
1924 - The new State’s Department of Education noted that there were more children in industrial schools in the Irish Free State than in all of the United Kingdom.
1929 - The Children Act allowed destitute children to be sent to industrial schools, even if they hadn’t committed a crime.
1933 - Rules governing industrial schools were updated and funding increased.
1933 - The Commission of Inquiry Into Widows’ and Orphans’ Pensions found only 350 of the children in industrial schools were orphans (5.3 % of the total)
1933 - Industrial schools were abolished in the UK, but not in Ireland.
1934 - The Cussen Report, which investigated industrial schools, had reservations about the large number of children in care, the inadequate nature of their education, lack of local support and the stigma attached to the schools, but concluded that “schools should remain under the management of the religious orders”.
1937 - Under a new Constitution the State guaranteed to protect “the inalienable and imprescriptible rights” of the family.
1941 - The Children Act increased State funding for industrial schools.
1943 - St. Josephs Industrial School in Cavan, run by the Order of Poor Clares, burnt to the ground, killing 35 girls and one elderly woman. The nuns were exonerated in the subsequent inquiry.
1944 - P. Ó Muircheartaigh, the Inspector of Industrial and Reformatory Schools reported that “the children are not properly fed,” which was “a serious indictment of the system of industrial schools run by nuns-a state of affairs that shouldn’t be tolerated in a Christian community” where there was “semi-starvation and lack of proper care and attention.” The Resident Managers of Lenaboy and Cappoquin industrial schools, both Sisters of Mercy, were dismissed for negligence and misappropriating funds, despite Church resistance. However, there were no other changes to industrial schools.
1945 - The Department of Education agreed to pay industrial school teachers directly at the same rate as National School teachers.
1945 - Secretary to the Department of Education wrote to the Secretary of the Dept. of Finance to denounce the “grave situation which has arisen regarding the feeding and clothing of children in industrial schools” due to “parsimony and criminal negligence”.
1945 - Funding to industrial schools tripled.
1946 - Rules governing industrial schools were updated and funding increased.
1946 - Community pressure in Limerick, led by Councillor Martin McGuire, on the Dept. of Ed forces the release of Gerard Fogarty, 14, from Glin Industrial School after he was flogged naked with a cat of nine tails and immersed in salt water for trying to escape to his mother. A call for public inquiry into industrial schools was rejected by Minister of Education. Thomas Derrig because “it would serve no useful purpose”.
1946 - Fr. Flanagan, famous founder of Boystown schools for orphans and delinquents in the US, visits Irish industrial schools. He describes them as “a national disgrace,” leading to a public debate in the Daíl and media. State and Church pressure forces him to leave Ireland.
1947 - Three-year-old Michael McQualter scalded to death in a hot bath in Kyran’s Industrial School. Inquiry found school to be “criminally negligent,” but the case was not pursued by the Dept. of Education.
1948 - Fr. Flanagan died of a heart attack and with him, the debate on industrial schools.
1949 - Ireland declared itself the Irish Republic.
1949 - Minister of Education General Mulcahey received complaints from Cork City Council about Greenmount IS. A visit is arranged (with advanced warning) and the case is dismissed.
1951 - State Inspector denounced conditions of industrial schools and care of children.
1951 - The Catholic Hierarchy condemned the ‘Mother and Child’ scheme (4 April), which provided direct funding to expectant mothers for their children; Dr Noel Browne, Minister for Health, resigns; the scheme was abandoned on 6 April.
1951 - Standoff between Church and State when Church refused to provide financial records of how it has used funding in industrial schools in exchange for increased state funding.
1952 - State funding to industrial schools increased.
1954 - Daíl debate on Michael Flanagan, whose arm was broken while in care in Artane Industrial School. The case was dismissed as “an isolated incident”.
1955 - Secretary of the Department of Education visited Daingean Industrial School, Offaly, and found that “the cows are better fed than the boys.” Nothing was done for another 16 years.
1957 - Marlborough House building was condemned by the Dept. of Works as “a grave risk of loss of life.” No alterations were made, and it continued unchanged for 15 years.
1959 - Minister of Education Jack Lynch received complaints about Upton School from Senator Gus Healy, the mayor of Cork. A visit was arranged (with advance warning) and the case was dismissed.
1960 - Gardaí informed Archbishop McQuaid that Fr. Paul McGennis had developed pornographic films in England of children in his care in Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children. McQuaid arranged for McGennis to “have treatment which was considered successful at the time” Fr. McGennis was convicted in 1997 of molesting girls in his care in Crumlin Hospital in the 1960’s.
1962 - Fr. Moore, Chaplain at Artane Industrial School, complained about the abuse received by the boys in the school. The State dismissed his allegations as an exaggeration.
1963 - The Bundoran Incident. Eight girls trying to escape from St. Martha’s Industrial Schooll had their heads shaved. It became a scandal when it was front-page news in a British tabloid with photos and headline, “Orphanage Horror”. A Department. of Education official visited the Mother Superior of the school to tell her “The Department was unlikely to do anything of a disciplinary nature”.
The Glin Affair. Department of Education investigated a boy who was hospitalised upon receiving facial injuries in Glin Industrial School from a Christian Brother. No action was taken.
1967 - Department of Health visit Ferryhouse Industrial School, Clonmel to investigate the death of a child from meningitis. They described conditions as “a social malaise” and recommended the closure of the school.
1969 - Under 2,000 children were in 29 schools. Artane Industrial School was closed.
1970 - The Kennedy Report recommended closure of industrial schools, as Justice Kennedy was “appalled” by the “Dickensian and deplorable state” of industrial schools.
1971 - Catholic Church in Ireland held a seminar on child care. Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy defended the role of the Church in industrial schools.
1972 - Marlborough House, Dublin closed down.
1974 - Letterfrack Industrial School closed down.
1974 - Daingean Industrial School, Offaly closed down.
1976 - RTE broadcasted a tribute to Bro. Joseph O’Connor, founder of the Artane Boys Band. He was subsequently proved to be a multiple rapist of boys in Artane Industrial School.
1978 - A child care worker at Madonna House kidnapped a boy in his care, took him to Edinburgh and drowned him in a bath in a hotel. The Minister for Health, Charles Haughey, rejected a call for a public enquiry into the matter, stating that it “would serve no useful purpose.”
1980 - A Task Force on child care services emphasised the need for child care staff training, care for children after leaving institutions and family support.
1984 - Payment-per-head funding for children in care in Ireland was abolished.
1984 - Department of Health introduced fostering for children in care.
1985 - Children of the Poor Clares by Mavis Arnold and Heather Laskey published.
1989 - The Children Act gave health boards powers to care for children.
1989 - The God Squad by Paddy Doyle published.
1991 - The Child Care Act gave powers to health boards to care for children who were ill-treated, neglected or sexually abused.
1991 - Fear of the Collar by Patrick Touher published
1996 - A conviction for sexual abuse by a worker in Trudder House, Co. Wicklow, where he worked with Traveller children throughout the 80’s.
1996 - The Madonna House Report detailed continuing physical and sexual abuse of children in State and Church care. The report was suppressed by the government.
1996 - Willie Delaney’s body was exhumed to investigate whether beating was the cause of the 13-year-old’ s death in 1970 while in care at Letterfrack Industrial School. The results were inconclusive.
1997 - Dear Daughter was broadcast on RTE. Christine Buckley’s description of her abuse while under care in Goldenbridge sparks public debate on industrial schools.
1998 - The Christian Brothers in Ireland make a public apology to those who were physically or sexually abused in their care.
1999 - States of Fear by Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan was broadcast on RTE in April and May, renewing debate on industrial schools
1999 —Suffer the Little Children by Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan published
1999- Freedom of Angels by Bernadette Fahy published
May 1999 - On the 11th May 1999, the Irish Government apologised to victims of child abuse;
“On behalf of the State and of all citizens of the State, the Government wishes to make a
sincere and long overdue apology to the victims of childhood abuse for our collective failure to intervene, to detect their pain, to come to their rescue.” An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern apologised on behalf of the government to the victims of child abuse in industrial schools, acknowledging the responsibility of the Irish State in providing services for children. A Commission to Inquire Into Childhood Abuse was established under Justice Laffoy, which became official under the Child Abuse Act, 2000 The Commissions report (Ryan Report) recommended that to alleviate or otherwise address the effects of the abuse on those who suffered, a memorial should be erected and that the Government apology should be inscribed on it as a permanent public acknowledgment of their experiences.(see July 2011 and November 2013)
2000- The Child Abuse Act established a commission to investigate child abuse in institutions in the State, and to enable persons to give evidence to committees of the Commission.
2000- Focus Ireland publication, Left Out On Their Own, reported serious deficiencies in residential care. They found 75% of those leaving Health Board Care experience homelessness within the first two years of leaving.
2001- Catholic Church agreed to pay over £100 million into a special State fund for victims of abuse. In return, the State arranged that people seeking compensation from the Residential Institutions Redress Board are barred from suing the Church directly. Only victims of sexual, not physical, abuse are eligible for compensation.
5 days later, Justice Kelly described the juvenile justice system as “a shambles and chaotic” after being forced to send a disturbed and neglected child into a psychiatric hospital, due to lack of alternative accommodation.
2002 – An independent inquiry condemned conditions in Finglas Children’s Home, and recommended either change or closure. Arson attack on school.
2002 - The Redress Board was set up under the Act in 2002 to make fair and reasonable awards to persons who, as children, were abused while residents in industrial schools, reformatories and other institutions subject to state regulation or inspection.
October 2002 - A television documentary ‘Cardinal Secrets’ made by journalist Mary Raftery was broadcast as part of RTÉ’s PrimeTime series which contained accounts of children abused by Catholic priests serving in the Archdiocese of Dublin.
2004 - The Commission of Investigation Act. This act mandated the establishment of a ‘Commission of Investigation, Dublin Archdiocese’ to examine the manner in which allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests over the period 1975 to 2004 were dealt with by Church and State authorities.
2006 - Commission of Investigation into Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin (The Murphy Report) An investigation into the handling of child sexual abuse cases in the Dublin diocese between 1975 and 2004 began.
20th May 2009 - The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Report, (also known as the Ryan Report) released a 2,000-page report recording claims from hundreds of Irish residents that they were physically, sexually, or emotionally abused as children between the 1930s and the 1990s in a network of state-administered and church-run residential schools meant to care for the poor, the vulnerable and the unwanted. The alleged abuse was by sisters, priests and non-clerical staff and helpers. The allegations of abuse cover many Catholic (Magdalene), Protestant (Bethany Home) and State-run Irish Industrial schools.
The commission received evidence from more than 1,500 witnesses who attended or were residents as children in schools and care facilities in the state, particularly industrial and reformatory schools
November 2009 - Report by the Commission of Investigation into Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin (The Murphy Report) The commission was initially to take 18 months but due to the volume of evidence it was extended. The report stated:‘The authorities in the Archdiocese of Dublin and the religious orders who were dealing with complaints of child sexual abuse were all very well educated people. Many had qualifications in canon law and quite a few also had qualifications in civil law. This makes their claims of ignorance very difficult to accept.’‘
The Commission is satisfied that Church law demanded serious penalties for clerics who abused children. In Dublin from the 1970s onwards this was ignored; the highest priority was the protection of the reputation of the institution and the reputation of priests. The moving around of offending clerics with little or no disclosure of their past is illustrative of this.’
2012 - Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Act. This Act was brought in to provide for the establishment of a body to support the needs of former residents to be known as RISFB and to define it’s functions and to provide for the making of contributions of certain persons. It was also to amend the Residential Redress Act 2002, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse 2005 and related matters.
July 2011 - Expression of Interest for design of a Memorial to victims of institutional abuse, sought by the Office of Public Works (OPW)
2011 - McAleese report into the Magdalene laundries. Having lobbied the government of Ireland for two years for investigation of the history of the Magdalene laundries, advocacy group 'Justice for Magdalenes' presented its case to the United Nations Committee Against Torture alleging that the conditions within the Magdalene laundries and the exploitation of their labourers amounted to human-rights violations. On 6 June 2011, the panel urged Ireland to "investigate allegations that for decades women and girls sent to work in Catholic laundries were tortured." In response the Irish government set up a committee chaired by Senator Martin McAleese, to establish the facts of the Irish state's involvement with the Magdalene laundries.
November 2013 - Plans to build a E500,000 memorial to victims of institutional abuse in the Garden of Remembrance on Dublin’s Parnell Square have been refused by An Bord pleanala.
'The Journey of Light' designed by Dublin-based Studio Negri with Hennessy & Associates was chosen in July 2012 as the memorial for abuse victims by a committee set up by the Department of Education following a year-long design competition. The application by the Office of Public Works to build the monument was approved by Dublin City Council last May despite several objections including one from an abuse survivors’ support group. The application was appealed to An Bord Pleanala, who have overturned the decision.
2013 - Publication of inquiry report. Following the 18-month inquiry, the committee published its report on 5 February 2013, finding "significant" state collusion in the admission of thousands of women into the institutions. The report found over 11,000 women had entered laundries since 1922. Significant levels of verbal abuse to women inside was reported but there were no suggestions of regular physical or sexual abuse.
2016 - The Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation to be published. In 2012, a Galway historian Catherine Corless published an article documenting the deaths of 796 babies and toddlers at the Bon Secours Mother and baby, St Marys in Tuam Co Galway, during its decades of operation, primarily from infectious diseases and marasmus-related malnutrition. Her research led her to conclude that almost all had been buried in an unmarked and unregistered mass grave at the Home, some of them in a septic tank. Some sources questioned whether a chamber filled with children's skeletons by two local boys 1975 were from the Bon Secours Home or from one of the previous institutions which had occupied the same building, as well as whether or not the structure Corless speculated was a mass grave was a disused septic tank or a 19th-century burial vault.
In 2012 the Health service Executive raised concerns that up to 1,000 children had been sent from the Home for (then illegal) adoptions in the United States.
Following these concerns and Catherine Corless' research, a commission was set up to investigate 14 Mother and Baby Homes around the country, including the one in Tuam, which was open from 1925 to 1961.
Sources: www.paddydoyle.com Suffer the Little Children(by Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan); This Great Little Nation (Gene Kerrigan and Pat Brennan); Ireland Politics and Society, 1912-1985 (Joseph Lee); Ireland Since the Famine (FS Lyons) Victim and Critic: Child Mistreatment in Ireland ( Mary Killion) Galway Independent, Corless, Catherine. "The Home". Journal of the Old Tuam Society (2012)
http://www.dippam.ac.uk/eppi/documents/14968/download
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2009-06-11/7/
The Reformatory Schools Act certified existing voluntary institutions and religious organisations to care for juvenile offenders with public funding and inspection
1868 - The Industrial Schools Act. Industrial schools were established to care for “neglected, orphaned and abandoned children.” They were run by religious orders and funded by the public.
1900 - Peak of industrial schools with 8,000 children in 71 schools.
1908 - The Children Act defined reformatories as responsible for feeding, clothing, housing and teaching young offenders and instigated annual visits by an Inspector of Reformatory and Industrial Schools.
1919 - The revolutionary Dáil established by Sinn Fein declares “It shall be the first duty of the Republic to make provision for the physical, mental and spiritual well-being of the children,” but doesn’t suggest an alternative to the British industrial schools.
1920 - Six counties partitioned under the Northern Ireland Act.
1922 - New Dáil and Seanad established under the Irish Free State Constitution.
1924 - The new State’s Department of Education noted that there were more children in industrial schools in the Irish Free State than in all of the United Kingdom.
1929 - The Children Act allowed destitute children to be sent to industrial schools, even if they hadn’t committed a crime.
1933 - Rules governing industrial schools were updated and funding increased.
1933 - The Commission of Inquiry Into Widows’ and Orphans’ Pensions found only 350 of the children in industrial schools were orphans (5.3 % of the total)
1933 - Industrial schools were abolished in the UK, but not in Ireland.
1934 - The Cussen Report, which investigated industrial schools, had reservations about the large number of children in care, the inadequate nature of their education, lack of local support and the stigma attached to the schools, but concluded that “schools should remain under the management of the religious orders”.
1937 - Under a new Constitution the State guaranteed to protect “the inalienable and imprescriptible rights” of the family.
1941 - The Children Act increased State funding for industrial schools.
1943 - St. Josephs Industrial School in Cavan, run by the Order of Poor Clares, burnt to the ground, killing 35 girls and one elderly woman. The nuns were exonerated in the subsequent inquiry.
1944 - P. Ó Muircheartaigh, the Inspector of Industrial and Reformatory Schools reported that “the children are not properly fed,” which was “a serious indictment of the system of industrial schools run by nuns-a state of affairs that shouldn’t be tolerated in a Christian community” where there was “semi-starvation and lack of proper care and attention.” The Resident Managers of Lenaboy and Cappoquin industrial schools, both Sisters of Mercy, were dismissed for negligence and misappropriating funds, despite Church resistance. However, there were no other changes to industrial schools.
1945 - The Department of Education agreed to pay industrial school teachers directly at the same rate as National School teachers.
1945 - Secretary to the Department of Education wrote to the Secretary of the Dept. of Finance to denounce the “grave situation which has arisen regarding the feeding and clothing of children in industrial schools” due to “parsimony and criminal negligence”.
1945 - Funding to industrial schools tripled.
1946 - Rules governing industrial schools were updated and funding increased.
1946 - Community pressure in Limerick, led by Councillor Martin McGuire, on the Dept. of Ed forces the release of Gerard Fogarty, 14, from Glin Industrial School after he was flogged naked with a cat of nine tails and immersed in salt water for trying to escape to his mother. A call for public inquiry into industrial schools was rejected by Minister of Education. Thomas Derrig because “it would serve no useful purpose”.
1946 - Fr. Flanagan, famous founder of Boystown schools for orphans and delinquents in the US, visits Irish industrial schools. He describes them as “a national disgrace,” leading to a public debate in the Daíl and media. State and Church pressure forces him to leave Ireland.
1947 - Three-year-old Michael McQualter scalded to death in a hot bath in Kyran’s Industrial School. Inquiry found school to be “criminally negligent,” but the case was not pursued by the Dept. of Education.
1948 - Fr. Flanagan died of a heart attack and with him, the debate on industrial schools.
1949 - Ireland declared itself the Irish Republic.
1949 - Minister of Education General Mulcahey received complaints from Cork City Council about Greenmount IS. A visit is arranged (with advanced warning) and the case is dismissed.
1951 - State Inspector denounced conditions of industrial schools and care of children.
1951 - The Catholic Hierarchy condemned the ‘Mother and Child’ scheme (4 April), which provided direct funding to expectant mothers for their children; Dr Noel Browne, Minister for Health, resigns; the scheme was abandoned on 6 April.
1951 - Standoff between Church and State when Church refused to provide financial records of how it has used funding in industrial schools in exchange for increased state funding.
1952 - State funding to industrial schools increased.
1954 - Daíl debate on Michael Flanagan, whose arm was broken while in care in Artane Industrial School. The case was dismissed as “an isolated incident”.
1955 - Secretary of the Department of Education visited Daingean Industrial School, Offaly, and found that “the cows are better fed than the boys.” Nothing was done for another 16 years.
1957 - Marlborough House building was condemned by the Dept. of Works as “a grave risk of loss of life.” No alterations were made, and it continued unchanged for 15 years.
1959 - Minister of Education Jack Lynch received complaints about Upton School from Senator Gus Healy, the mayor of Cork. A visit was arranged (with advance warning) and the case was dismissed.
1960 - Gardaí informed Archbishop McQuaid that Fr. Paul McGennis had developed pornographic films in England of children in his care in Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children. McQuaid arranged for McGennis to “have treatment which was considered successful at the time” Fr. McGennis was convicted in 1997 of molesting girls in his care in Crumlin Hospital in the 1960’s.
1962 - Fr. Moore, Chaplain at Artane Industrial School, complained about the abuse received by the boys in the school. The State dismissed his allegations as an exaggeration.
1963 - The Bundoran Incident. Eight girls trying to escape from St. Martha’s Industrial Schooll had their heads shaved. It became a scandal when it was front-page news in a British tabloid with photos and headline, “Orphanage Horror”. A Department. of Education official visited the Mother Superior of the school to tell her “The Department was unlikely to do anything of a disciplinary nature”.
The Glin Affair. Department of Education investigated a boy who was hospitalised upon receiving facial injuries in Glin Industrial School from a Christian Brother. No action was taken.
1967 - Department of Health visit Ferryhouse Industrial School, Clonmel to investigate the death of a child from meningitis. They described conditions as “a social malaise” and recommended the closure of the school.
1969 - Under 2,000 children were in 29 schools. Artane Industrial School was closed.
1970 - The Kennedy Report recommended closure of industrial schools, as Justice Kennedy was “appalled” by the “Dickensian and deplorable state” of industrial schools.
1971 - Catholic Church in Ireland held a seminar on child care. Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy defended the role of the Church in industrial schools.
1972 - Marlborough House, Dublin closed down.
1974 - Letterfrack Industrial School closed down.
1974 - Daingean Industrial School, Offaly closed down.
1976 - RTE broadcasted a tribute to Bro. Joseph O’Connor, founder of the Artane Boys Band. He was subsequently proved to be a multiple rapist of boys in Artane Industrial School.
1978 - A child care worker at Madonna House kidnapped a boy in his care, took him to Edinburgh and drowned him in a bath in a hotel. The Minister for Health, Charles Haughey, rejected a call for a public enquiry into the matter, stating that it “would serve no useful purpose.”
1980 - A Task Force on child care services emphasised the need for child care staff training, care for children after leaving institutions and family support.
1984 - Payment-per-head funding for children in care in Ireland was abolished.
1984 - Department of Health introduced fostering for children in care.
1985 - Children of the Poor Clares by Mavis Arnold and Heather Laskey published.
1989 - The Children Act gave health boards powers to care for children.
1989 - The God Squad by Paddy Doyle published.
1991 - The Child Care Act gave powers to health boards to care for children who were ill-treated, neglected or sexually abused.
1991 - Fear of the Collar by Patrick Touher published
1996 - A conviction for sexual abuse by a worker in Trudder House, Co. Wicklow, where he worked with Traveller children throughout the 80’s.
1996 - The Madonna House Report detailed continuing physical and sexual abuse of children in State and Church care. The report was suppressed by the government.
1996 - Willie Delaney’s body was exhumed to investigate whether beating was the cause of the 13-year-old’ s death in 1970 while in care at Letterfrack Industrial School. The results were inconclusive.
1997 - Dear Daughter was broadcast on RTE. Christine Buckley’s description of her abuse while under care in Goldenbridge sparks public debate on industrial schools.
1998 - The Christian Brothers in Ireland make a public apology to those who were physically or sexually abused in their care.
1999 - States of Fear by Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan was broadcast on RTE in April and May, renewing debate on industrial schools
1999 —Suffer the Little Children by Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan published
1999- Freedom of Angels by Bernadette Fahy published
May 1999 - On the 11th May 1999, the Irish Government apologised to victims of child abuse;
“On behalf of the State and of all citizens of the State, the Government wishes to make a
sincere and long overdue apology to the victims of childhood abuse for our collective failure to intervene, to detect their pain, to come to their rescue.” An Taoiseach Bertie Ahern apologised on behalf of the government to the victims of child abuse in industrial schools, acknowledging the responsibility of the Irish State in providing services for children. A Commission to Inquire Into Childhood Abuse was established under Justice Laffoy, which became official under the Child Abuse Act, 2000 The Commissions report (Ryan Report) recommended that to alleviate or otherwise address the effects of the abuse on those who suffered, a memorial should be erected and that the Government apology should be inscribed on it as a permanent public acknowledgment of their experiences.(see July 2011 and November 2013)
2000- The Child Abuse Act established a commission to investigate child abuse in institutions in the State, and to enable persons to give evidence to committees of the Commission.
2000- Focus Ireland publication, Left Out On Their Own, reported serious deficiencies in residential care. They found 75% of those leaving Health Board Care experience homelessness within the first two years of leaving.
2001- Catholic Church agreed to pay over £100 million into a special State fund for victims of abuse. In return, the State arranged that people seeking compensation from the Residential Institutions Redress Board are barred from suing the Church directly. Only victims of sexual, not physical, abuse are eligible for compensation.
5 days later, Justice Kelly described the juvenile justice system as “a shambles and chaotic” after being forced to send a disturbed and neglected child into a psychiatric hospital, due to lack of alternative accommodation.
2002 – An independent inquiry condemned conditions in Finglas Children’s Home, and recommended either change or closure. Arson attack on school.
2002 - The Redress Board was set up under the Act in 2002 to make fair and reasonable awards to persons who, as children, were abused while residents in industrial schools, reformatories and other institutions subject to state regulation or inspection.
October 2002 - A television documentary ‘Cardinal Secrets’ made by journalist Mary Raftery was broadcast as part of RTÉ’s PrimeTime series which contained accounts of children abused by Catholic priests serving in the Archdiocese of Dublin.
2004 - The Commission of Investigation Act. This act mandated the establishment of a ‘Commission of Investigation, Dublin Archdiocese’ to examine the manner in which allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests over the period 1975 to 2004 were dealt with by Church and State authorities.
2006 - Commission of Investigation into Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin (The Murphy Report) An investigation into the handling of child sexual abuse cases in the Dublin diocese between 1975 and 2004 began.
20th May 2009 - The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Report, (also known as the Ryan Report) released a 2,000-page report recording claims from hundreds of Irish residents that they were physically, sexually, or emotionally abused as children between the 1930s and the 1990s in a network of state-administered and church-run residential schools meant to care for the poor, the vulnerable and the unwanted. The alleged abuse was by sisters, priests and non-clerical staff and helpers. The allegations of abuse cover many Catholic (Magdalene), Protestant (Bethany Home) and State-run Irish Industrial schools.
The commission received evidence from more than 1,500 witnesses who attended or were residents as children in schools and care facilities in the state, particularly industrial and reformatory schools
November 2009 - Report by the Commission of Investigation into Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin (The Murphy Report) The commission was initially to take 18 months but due to the volume of evidence it was extended. The report stated:‘The authorities in the Archdiocese of Dublin and the religious orders who were dealing with complaints of child sexual abuse were all very well educated people. Many had qualifications in canon law and quite a few also had qualifications in civil law. This makes their claims of ignorance very difficult to accept.’‘
The Commission is satisfied that Church law demanded serious penalties for clerics who abused children. In Dublin from the 1970s onwards this was ignored; the highest priority was the protection of the reputation of the institution and the reputation of priests. The moving around of offending clerics with little or no disclosure of their past is illustrative of this.’
2012 - Residential Institutions Statutory Fund Act. This Act was brought in to provide for the establishment of a body to support the needs of former residents to be known as RISFB and to define it’s functions and to provide for the making of contributions of certain persons. It was also to amend the Residential Redress Act 2002, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse 2005 and related matters.
July 2011 - Expression of Interest for design of a Memorial to victims of institutional abuse, sought by the Office of Public Works (OPW)
2011 - McAleese report into the Magdalene laundries. Having lobbied the government of Ireland for two years for investigation of the history of the Magdalene laundries, advocacy group 'Justice for Magdalenes' presented its case to the United Nations Committee Against Torture alleging that the conditions within the Magdalene laundries and the exploitation of their labourers amounted to human-rights violations. On 6 June 2011, the panel urged Ireland to "investigate allegations that for decades women and girls sent to work in Catholic laundries were tortured." In response the Irish government set up a committee chaired by Senator Martin McAleese, to establish the facts of the Irish state's involvement with the Magdalene laundries.
November 2013 - Plans to build a E500,000 memorial to victims of institutional abuse in the Garden of Remembrance on Dublin’s Parnell Square have been refused by An Bord pleanala.
'The Journey of Light' designed by Dublin-based Studio Negri with Hennessy & Associates was chosen in July 2012 as the memorial for abuse victims by a committee set up by the Department of Education following a year-long design competition. The application by the Office of Public Works to build the monument was approved by Dublin City Council last May despite several objections including one from an abuse survivors’ support group. The application was appealed to An Bord Pleanala, who have overturned the decision.
2013 - Publication of inquiry report. Following the 18-month inquiry, the committee published its report on 5 February 2013, finding "significant" state collusion in the admission of thousands of women into the institutions. The report found over 11,000 women had entered laundries since 1922. Significant levels of verbal abuse to women inside was reported but there were no suggestions of regular physical or sexual abuse.
2016 - The Mother and Baby Homes Commission of Investigation to be published. In 2012, a Galway historian Catherine Corless published an article documenting the deaths of 796 babies and toddlers at the Bon Secours Mother and baby, St Marys in Tuam Co Galway, during its decades of operation, primarily from infectious diseases and marasmus-related malnutrition. Her research led her to conclude that almost all had been buried in an unmarked and unregistered mass grave at the Home, some of them in a septic tank. Some sources questioned whether a chamber filled with children's skeletons by two local boys 1975 were from the Bon Secours Home or from one of the previous institutions which had occupied the same building, as well as whether or not the structure Corless speculated was a mass grave was a disused septic tank or a 19th-century burial vault.
In 2012 the Health service Executive raised concerns that up to 1,000 children had been sent from the Home for (then illegal) adoptions in the United States.
Following these concerns and Catherine Corless' research, a commission was set up to investigate 14 Mother and Baby Homes around the country, including the one in Tuam, which was open from 1925 to 1961.
Sources: www.paddydoyle.com Suffer the Little Children(by Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan); This Great Little Nation (Gene Kerrigan and Pat Brennan); Ireland Politics and Society, 1912-1985 (Joseph Lee); Ireland Since the Famine (FS Lyons) Victim and Critic: Child Mistreatment in Ireland ( Mary Killion) Galway Independent, Corless, Catherine. "The Home". Journal of the Old Tuam Society (2012)
http://www.dippam.ac.uk/eppi/documents/14968/download
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2009-06-11/7/
https://www.tuamherald.ie/plus/roundup/articles/2014/03/28/4024507-the-hidden-ireland-innocence-destroyed-robbed-of-childhood--lives-damaged-beyond-repair
The Hidden Ireland: Innocence destroyed, robbed of childhood;-lives damaged beyond repair
Wednesday, 3rd August, 2011 11:50am
By JIM CARNEY
"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."
THAT FAMOUS literary quote, from the opening sentence of L. P. Hartley's great novel The Go-Between, is considered to evoke feelings of nostalgia and innocence as an elderly man, Leo Colston, looks back on his childhood. But, as the patient reader learns, the story had at its bedrock regret, longing, class distinction, heartbreak, trauma and tragedy.The past is so often a dangerous place, too. A place of secrets and lies, cruelty, injustice, human exploitation and terrible, almost indescribable suffering.We know from history "man's inhumanity to man" — from the Gulag Archipelago to Letterfrack Industrial School. Letterfrack (Leitir Fraoch rough hillside, of heather) in North-West Connemara is a beautiful, vibrant place, of scenic splendour. Founded by the Quakers in the mid-19th century, it has a magnetic attraction for visitors from all over the world; it boasts thriving community life, the magnificent Connemara National Park, a furniture College and Campus for Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology; Connemara's community radio service, and in history it has a central place in the great story of Marconi's trans-Atlantic wireless receiver stations.Its dark, appalling, shameful secret for nearly a century, St Joseph's Industrial School, is no longer a secret.Nor is the rest of "The Hidden Ireland" closed up and locked, with the keys thrown away. The light of revelation has also shone down on the shame of Artane Industrial School, Dublin, Carriglea Park, Dun Laoghaire; Daingean Reformatory, Co. Offaly; Clonmel, Co. Tipperary; Cappoquin, Co. Waterford, owned and managed by the Sisters of Mercy; Clifden Industrial School, Newtownforbes, Co. Longford and Dundalk (all three: Sisters of Mercy); two Industrial Schools in Kilkenny (Sisters of Charity); Glanmire, Passage West and Upton, all three in Co. Cork; Glin, Co. Limerick; Tralee; St Joseph's School for the Deaf, Cabra; another Co. Galway industrial school, in Salthill; Goldenbridge Industrial School for girls, Inchicore, Dublin; St Martha's Industrial School for girls in Bundoran, Co. Donegal, and several others, for boys and girls.From the huge public awareness and raw, psychologically acute concern which followed RTE film-maker Mary Raftery's documentary States of Fear, in 1999, and her equally acclaimed follow-up book Suffer the Little Children, the Government set up, in 2000, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. What eventually became known as the Ryan Report after Justice Seán Ryan had taken over as Commission chairperson from Justice Mary Laffoy and with the publication of that report on May 20 2009 much, much more of the Hidden Ireland was uncovered.The Ryan Report was considered "a work of incalculable value to this country" and praised for "its meticulous gathering of evidence," although "Justice has not been done as many of the abusers will never face the rigours of the law."The report, which shocked the nation, painted a horrific picture of rampant abuse of children from one decade to the next, one county to the next.
Physical and sexual abuse of boys. From the Letterfrack Industrial School era, evidence of sexual abuse by Christian Brothers and extreme physical punishments, going back to the 1930s. It's estimated that 147 children died there while in the care of the Christian Brothers, mainly from abuse and neglect. The school was closed in 1974. In a deal between the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr John McEvilly, and the Christian Brothers, in 1884-85, Letterfrack Industrial School was set up for 75 boys and in November 1912 the accommodation limit was increased to 190, despite the physical isolation of Letterfrack and the distances from the boys' families, some of whom lived as far away as Dublin. The boys were stated to be "those who were homeless, without proper guardianship; destitute, in breach of the School Attendance Act, or guilty of criminal offences juvenile delinquents. The Ryan Report concluded that corporal punishment in Letterfrack was "severe, excessive and pervasive, and created a climate of fear", that it was "the primary method of control ... frequently capricious, unfair and inconsistent.
No punishment book was kept and the Dept. of Education was found to be at fault for not ensuring one was maintained." Sexual abuse by Christian Brothers "was a chronic problem in Letterfrack" and members of the order who served there "included those who had previously been guilty of sexual abuse of boys; those whose abuse was discovered while they worked in that institution, and some who were subsequently revealed to have abused boys." The Christian Brothers "did not properly investigate allegations of sexual abuse of boys by Brothers" and "knew that Brothers who sexually abused boys were a continuing danger". Also, sending known abusers to any industrial school was "an act of reckless disregard ... especially one as remote and isolated as Letterfrack."
The handling of members of the order who committed abuse suggested "a policy of protecting the Brothers, the Community and the Congregation at the expense of the victims. Boys at Letterfrack, like boys and girls in the other institutions focused on by the Ryan Commission, also suffered from abuse, bullying and intimidation by their own peers, a lack of proper education and training, bad physical conditions, poor clothing, food and accommodation. It was "a Victorian model of childcare that failed to adapt to 20th Century conditions and did not prioritise the needs of children. Children were committed by the Courts using procedures with the trappings of the criminal law.
The authorities were unwilling to address the failings in the system or consider alternatives. A report into St Joseph's Industrial School, Tralee cited the case of a Brother who was violent and dangerous over a number of years. He was moved from a day school because his violence towards children was causing severe problems with their parents. He was moved to Tralee Industrial School. "Such a move displayed a callous disregard for the safety of children in care. He went on to terrorise children in Tralee for over seven years. One ex-Brother, now a Professor, gave evidence about his experience of Tralee and described a "cold, hostile culture; the boys were treated with harshness. It was a secret enclosed world, run on fear."Carriglea Park Industrial School, Dun Laoghaire had "a harsh punitive regime, facilitated by the transfer to the school of Brothers with a known propensity for severe punishment.
In general, "girls' schools were not as physically harsh as boys' schools and there was no persistent problem of sexual abuse in girls' schools although there was, at best, naive and at worst indifference in the way girls were sent out to foster families. A number of girls did experience sexual abuse at the hands of godfathers' which they were either unable to report or were disbelieved when they did report it. For boys and girls, the Ryan Report confirmed emotional abuse, neglect, hunger, the absence of "kindness and humanity," while separating siblings and the restrictions on family contact "were profoundly damaging for family relationships. Some children lost their sense of identity and kinship, never to be recovered."
TO this day, it is beyond the understanding of "survivors" (male and female) of Letterfrack, Artane, Daingean and the other houses of horror run by religious institutions in the so-called Island of Saints and Scholars that various authorities, warned of what was really going on, did not act. They looked the other way.The Ryan Report named two former Taoisigh, both deceased: Jack Lynch and Charlie Haughey. 1959 Minister of Education Jack Lynch received complaints about Upton School from Senator Gus Healy, the Mayor of Cork. A visit was arranged, with advance warning, and the case was dismissed.
1978 A child care worker at Madonna House kidnapped a boy in his care, took him to Edinburgh and drowned him in a bath in a hotel. The Minister for Health, Charles Haughey, rejected a call for a public enquiry into the matter, stating it "would serve no useful purpose."
1944 P. A. Muircheartaigh, the Inspector of Industrial and Reformatory Schools, reported that "the children are not properly fed ... a serious indictment of the system of industrial schools run by nuns ... semi-starvation and lack of proper care and attention ... a state of affairs that shouldn't be tolerated in a Christian community."
1946 Fr. Flanagan, a native of Ballymoe and the famous founder of Boystown schools for orphans and delinquents in the USA, visits Irish industrial schools. He describes them as "a national disgrace," leading to a public debate in the Dail and media. State and Church pressure forces him to leave Ireland.
1947 Three-year-old Michael McQualter scalded to death in a hot bath in St Kyran's Industrial School. An inquiry found the school to be "criminally negligent" but the case was not pursued by the Dept. of Education.
1948 Fr. Flanagan died of a heart attack, and with him the debate on Ireland's industrial schools.
1963 The Bundoran Incident. Eight girls trying to escape from St Martha's Industrial School had their heads shaved. It became a scandal when it was Page 1 news in a British tabloid with photos and the headline "Orphanage Horror". A Dept. of Education official visited the Mother Superior of the Co. Donegal school to tell her that the Department was "unlikely to do anything of a disciplinary nature".
1970 The Kennedy Report recommended closure of industrial schools, as Justice Kennedy was "appalled" by the "Dickensian and deplorable state" of industrial schools.
1974 Letterfrack and Daingean Industrial Schools closed down.1976 RTE tribute programme to honour Bro. Joseph O'Connor, founder of the famous Artane Boys Band. He was subsequently proved to be a multiple rapist of boys in Artane Industrial School.1998 The Christian Brothers in Ireland make a public apology to those who were physically or sexually abused in their care. Barnardos' family tracing service.
IRELAND has only one public "tracing" service catering for the needs of people who grew up in industrial schools. This is the Barnardos Origins Tracing Service, started in 2002 and funded by the Dept. of Education and Science. Its purpose is to assist former residents of industrial schools with family tracing (parents and siblings, and relatives), mediation and information. Barnardos Origins, with offices in Dublin, Cork and Galway, provide specialised help, advice and support through the expertise and dedication of experienced professional staff. The service is free of charge and completely confidential.What does it not deal with? The Origins Service does not offer family tracing for people who were adopted or for those people who were separated from their families but did not spend time in an industrial school.The service is available to people who live all over the world. Staff from the three offices (Dublin, Cork and Galway) can meet or have phone contact with the person who wishes to trace their family. The hope is that the person ends up with a link to their family of origin or some information about their family. Tracing may not always end with a reunion.
Of the thousands of children sent to industrial schools, the majority had no knowledge of their siblings. Some siblings could even have been in the same industrial school or in another industrial school, and they wouldn't know about each other.When discharged from the industrial school, they were on their own. What often followed was emigration to England, America or Australia. Abroad, there was further erosion of the links with their family, their country, and their religion.Those who choose to find their families should contact the Barnardos Origins Information and Tracing Service.Tel. numbers: Dublin 01 4530355; Cork 021 4310591; Galway 091 388292. Confidentiality is guaranteed.
The Hidden Ireland: Innocence destroyed, robbed of childhood;-lives damaged beyond repair
Wednesday, 3rd August, 2011 11:50am
By JIM CARNEY
"The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there."
THAT FAMOUS literary quote, from the opening sentence of L. P. Hartley's great novel The Go-Between, is considered to evoke feelings of nostalgia and innocence as an elderly man, Leo Colston, looks back on his childhood. But, as the patient reader learns, the story had at its bedrock regret, longing, class distinction, heartbreak, trauma and tragedy.The past is so often a dangerous place, too. A place of secrets and lies, cruelty, injustice, human exploitation and terrible, almost indescribable suffering.We know from history "man's inhumanity to man" — from the Gulag Archipelago to Letterfrack Industrial School. Letterfrack (Leitir Fraoch rough hillside, of heather) in North-West Connemara is a beautiful, vibrant place, of scenic splendour. Founded by the Quakers in the mid-19th century, it has a magnetic attraction for visitors from all over the world; it boasts thriving community life, the magnificent Connemara National Park, a furniture College and Campus for Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology; Connemara's community radio service, and in history it has a central place in the great story of Marconi's trans-Atlantic wireless receiver stations.Its dark, appalling, shameful secret for nearly a century, St Joseph's Industrial School, is no longer a secret.Nor is the rest of "The Hidden Ireland" closed up and locked, with the keys thrown away. The light of revelation has also shone down on the shame of Artane Industrial School, Dublin, Carriglea Park, Dun Laoghaire; Daingean Reformatory, Co. Offaly; Clonmel, Co. Tipperary; Cappoquin, Co. Waterford, owned and managed by the Sisters of Mercy; Clifden Industrial School, Newtownforbes, Co. Longford and Dundalk (all three: Sisters of Mercy); two Industrial Schools in Kilkenny (Sisters of Charity); Glanmire, Passage West and Upton, all three in Co. Cork; Glin, Co. Limerick; Tralee; St Joseph's School for the Deaf, Cabra; another Co. Galway industrial school, in Salthill; Goldenbridge Industrial School for girls, Inchicore, Dublin; St Martha's Industrial School for girls in Bundoran, Co. Donegal, and several others, for boys and girls.From the huge public awareness and raw, psychologically acute concern which followed RTE film-maker Mary Raftery's documentary States of Fear, in 1999, and her equally acclaimed follow-up book Suffer the Little Children, the Government set up, in 2000, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. What eventually became known as the Ryan Report after Justice Seán Ryan had taken over as Commission chairperson from Justice Mary Laffoy and with the publication of that report on May 20 2009 much, much more of the Hidden Ireland was uncovered.The Ryan Report was considered "a work of incalculable value to this country" and praised for "its meticulous gathering of evidence," although "Justice has not been done as many of the abusers will never face the rigours of the law."The report, which shocked the nation, painted a horrific picture of rampant abuse of children from one decade to the next, one county to the next.
Physical and sexual abuse of boys. From the Letterfrack Industrial School era, evidence of sexual abuse by Christian Brothers and extreme physical punishments, going back to the 1930s. It's estimated that 147 children died there while in the care of the Christian Brothers, mainly from abuse and neglect. The school was closed in 1974. In a deal between the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr John McEvilly, and the Christian Brothers, in 1884-85, Letterfrack Industrial School was set up for 75 boys and in November 1912 the accommodation limit was increased to 190, despite the physical isolation of Letterfrack and the distances from the boys' families, some of whom lived as far away as Dublin. The boys were stated to be "those who were homeless, without proper guardianship; destitute, in breach of the School Attendance Act, or guilty of criminal offences juvenile delinquents. The Ryan Report concluded that corporal punishment in Letterfrack was "severe, excessive and pervasive, and created a climate of fear", that it was "the primary method of control ... frequently capricious, unfair and inconsistent.
No punishment book was kept and the Dept. of Education was found to be at fault for not ensuring one was maintained." Sexual abuse by Christian Brothers "was a chronic problem in Letterfrack" and members of the order who served there "included those who had previously been guilty of sexual abuse of boys; those whose abuse was discovered while they worked in that institution, and some who were subsequently revealed to have abused boys." The Christian Brothers "did not properly investigate allegations of sexual abuse of boys by Brothers" and "knew that Brothers who sexually abused boys were a continuing danger". Also, sending known abusers to any industrial school was "an act of reckless disregard ... especially one as remote and isolated as Letterfrack."
The handling of members of the order who committed abuse suggested "a policy of protecting the Brothers, the Community and the Congregation at the expense of the victims. Boys at Letterfrack, like boys and girls in the other institutions focused on by the Ryan Commission, also suffered from abuse, bullying and intimidation by their own peers, a lack of proper education and training, bad physical conditions, poor clothing, food and accommodation. It was "a Victorian model of childcare that failed to adapt to 20th Century conditions and did not prioritise the needs of children. Children were committed by the Courts using procedures with the trappings of the criminal law.
The authorities were unwilling to address the failings in the system or consider alternatives. A report into St Joseph's Industrial School, Tralee cited the case of a Brother who was violent and dangerous over a number of years. He was moved from a day school because his violence towards children was causing severe problems with their parents. He was moved to Tralee Industrial School. "Such a move displayed a callous disregard for the safety of children in care. He went on to terrorise children in Tralee for over seven years. One ex-Brother, now a Professor, gave evidence about his experience of Tralee and described a "cold, hostile culture; the boys were treated with harshness. It was a secret enclosed world, run on fear."Carriglea Park Industrial School, Dun Laoghaire had "a harsh punitive regime, facilitated by the transfer to the school of Brothers with a known propensity for severe punishment.
In general, "girls' schools were not as physically harsh as boys' schools and there was no persistent problem of sexual abuse in girls' schools although there was, at best, naive and at worst indifference in the way girls were sent out to foster families. A number of girls did experience sexual abuse at the hands of godfathers' which they were either unable to report or were disbelieved when they did report it. For boys and girls, the Ryan Report confirmed emotional abuse, neglect, hunger, the absence of "kindness and humanity," while separating siblings and the restrictions on family contact "were profoundly damaging for family relationships. Some children lost their sense of identity and kinship, never to be recovered."
TO this day, it is beyond the understanding of "survivors" (male and female) of Letterfrack, Artane, Daingean and the other houses of horror run by religious institutions in the so-called Island of Saints and Scholars that various authorities, warned of what was really going on, did not act. They looked the other way.The Ryan Report named two former Taoisigh, both deceased: Jack Lynch and Charlie Haughey. 1959 Minister of Education Jack Lynch received complaints about Upton School from Senator Gus Healy, the Mayor of Cork. A visit was arranged, with advance warning, and the case was dismissed.
1978 A child care worker at Madonna House kidnapped a boy in his care, took him to Edinburgh and drowned him in a bath in a hotel. The Minister for Health, Charles Haughey, rejected a call for a public enquiry into the matter, stating it "would serve no useful purpose."
1944 P. A. Muircheartaigh, the Inspector of Industrial and Reformatory Schools, reported that "the children are not properly fed ... a serious indictment of the system of industrial schools run by nuns ... semi-starvation and lack of proper care and attention ... a state of affairs that shouldn't be tolerated in a Christian community."
1946 Fr. Flanagan, a native of Ballymoe and the famous founder of Boystown schools for orphans and delinquents in the USA, visits Irish industrial schools. He describes them as "a national disgrace," leading to a public debate in the Dail and media. State and Church pressure forces him to leave Ireland.
1947 Three-year-old Michael McQualter scalded to death in a hot bath in St Kyran's Industrial School. An inquiry found the school to be "criminally negligent" but the case was not pursued by the Dept. of Education.
1948 Fr. Flanagan died of a heart attack, and with him the debate on Ireland's industrial schools.
1963 The Bundoran Incident. Eight girls trying to escape from St Martha's Industrial School had their heads shaved. It became a scandal when it was Page 1 news in a British tabloid with photos and the headline "Orphanage Horror". A Dept. of Education official visited the Mother Superior of the Co. Donegal school to tell her that the Department was "unlikely to do anything of a disciplinary nature".
1970 The Kennedy Report recommended closure of industrial schools, as Justice Kennedy was "appalled" by the "Dickensian and deplorable state" of industrial schools.
1974 Letterfrack and Daingean Industrial Schools closed down.1976 RTE tribute programme to honour Bro. Joseph O'Connor, founder of the famous Artane Boys Band. He was subsequently proved to be a multiple rapist of boys in Artane Industrial School.1998 The Christian Brothers in Ireland make a public apology to those who were physically or sexually abused in their care. Barnardos' family tracing service.
IRELAND has only one public "tracing" service catering for the needs of people who grew up in industrial schools. This is the Barnardos Origins Tracing Service, started in 2002 and funded by the Dept. of Education and Science. Its purpose is to assist former residents of industrial schools with family tracing (parents and siblings, and relatives), mediation and information. Barnardos Origins, with offices in Dublin, Cork and Galway, provide specialised help, advice and support through the expertise and dedication of experienced professional staff. The service is free of charge and completely confidential.What does it not deal with? The Origins Service does not offer family tracing for people who were adopted or for those people who were separated from their families but did not spend time in an industrial school.The service is available to people who live all over the world. Staff from the three offices (Dublin, Cork and Galway) can meet or have phone contact with the person who wishes to trace their family. The hope is that the person ends up with a link to their family of origin or some information about their family. Tracing may not always end with a reunion.
Of the thousands of children sent to industrial schools, the majority had no knowledge of their siblings. Some siblings could even have been in the same industrial school or in another industrial school, and they wouldn't know about each other.When discharged from the industrial school, they were on their own. What often followed was emigration to England, America or Australia. Abroad, there was further erosion of the links with their family, their country, and their religion.Those who choose to find their families should contact the Barnardos Origins Information and Tracing Service.Tel. numbers: Dublin 01 4530355; Cork 021 4310591; Galway 091 388292. Confidentiality is guaranteed.
https://pure.qub.ac.uk/portal/files/122984446/Organizations_and_violence.pdf
Organisations and violence: The child as abject-boundary in Ireland’s industrial schools;-
Abstract
What role do organisations play in the enactment of large-scale violence against a specific group of people? In this paper, I depart from existing literature that focuses on violence within organisations, and instead emphasise the influence of external actors. Specifically, I examine the ways in which supporting organisations can first legitimate, and then actively maintain, violence against a group of vulnerable people. Drawing upon a unique, recently-published archive of data, these ideas are
developed through an analysis of a case study in which large
-scale violence was carried out on a vulnerable group: Ireland’s industrial school children. I draw on Kristeva’s notion of abjection to show how an excluded, distasteful ‘other’ is discursively co-constructed such that violence is seen as acceptable, and then actively maintained in the abject position as a boundary object that
encompasses shared meanings across different organisations. Contributions include a framework for understanding the role of organisations in the perpetration of large-scale violence, which
highlights how violence can be legitimated via the construction of subjects as abject boundary objects in extreme cases, and how t
his abject position can be maintained through inter-organisational
dynamics comprising excessive rules and regulation, the suppression of care, and active policing. Finally, scholarship on boundary objects is extended by this paper’s interrogation of the “dark side” of this inter-group phenomenon, an area that is rarely studied.
Organisations and violence: The child as abject-boundary in Ireland’s industrial schools;-
Abstract
What role do organisations play in the enactment of large-scale violence against a specific group of people? In this paper, I depart from existing literature that focuses on violence within organisations, and instead emphasise the influence of external actors. Specifically, I examine the ways in which supporting organisations can first legitimate, and then actively maintain, violence against a group of vulnerable people. Drawing upon a unique, recently-published archive of data, these ideas are
developed through an analysis of a case study in which large
-scale violence was carried out on a vulnerable group: Ireland’s industrial school children. I draw on Kristeva’s notion of abjection to show how an excluded, distasteful ‘other’ is discursively co-constructed such that violence is seen as acceptable, and then actively maintained in the abject position as a boundary object that
encompasses shared meanings across different organisations. Contributions include a framework for understanding the role of organisations in the perpetration of large-scale violence, which
highlights how violence can be legitimated via the construction of subjects as abject boundary objects in extreme cases, and how t
his abject position can be maintained through inter-organisational
dynamics comprising excessive rules and regulation, the suppression of care, and active policing. Finally, scholarship on boundary objects is extended by this paper’s interrogation of the “dark side” of this inter-group phenomenon, an area that is rarely studied.
