Daily Archives: March 14, 2012

Au-revoir Uncle Willie ssc R.I.P.. Dalgan Park.

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I’ve just learned from a very private source that my uncle Willie has died. He passed away after suffering a heart-attack on the 9th of January. He was 76 years old. I’m feeling very distraught and thought that it might help me to talk to myself about it in my journal.

His room was the last one to the right of the blue flag on the top floor.

I had just tweeted a while before hearing the terrible news that my life was an open book.

The reason I said that was because most of my life was kept a secret. I quite simply refuse any longer to be stifled by a hostile world that was so ashamed of me. I suffered because my uncle was a priest. I bore the brunt of it as a child in Goldenbridge, because of the nuns who kept hush-hush about my background.

It was so shameful in the past for a woman to have had a close relative in the priesthood and to be pregnant out of wedlock. So much so that the children of such women were invariably sent into industrial *schools* if they were not fortunate enough to be adopted.

Relatives oftentimes colluded in the hiding away of the illegitimate children, as the consequences of anyone knowing about them brought huge dishonour to the families. concerned. There is an example of a child being kept by the family in Brian Friel’s excellent play ‘Dancing at Lughnasa, but that would haver been a rarity in the Ireland of the fifties and sixties and later.

Some children in Goldenbridge who even had nuns in the same religious order as the nun in charge, refused to tell the children in question for over fifty years who their aunties were. It turned out that they were friends of the nun in charge of Goldenbridge.

Sister X deprived the children of their proper identities. It wasn’t until Bernadette Fahy, a Goldenbridge counterpart and counsellor challenged Sister X that she was forced to reveal the information. I should add that not only did the nun deprive the inmates of their aunties, she also deprived them of the most important figure in their lives, their mother. One set of twins were reunited with their mother after fifty years. The twins eventually visited their mother every single day when she arrived in a nursing home in their area. It is a poignant story. I was glad to see their mother in the home where she was lovingly cared for by the staff as well.

The same scenario occurred with me. I was told by the religious that I once had a mother, but, that she was dead. They told me nothing about myself. However, Sr. Y did whisper something to the effect of a priest being connected to me; it was to a Dublin family, whom I went to stay with for a while. It meant absolutely nothing to me at the time, as I was not cognisant of what a family was – never mind priests’.

It would have been kind of my cousins to have made some kind of contact with me to tell me the news. Alas – I was to hear about it after the funeral had taken place in Dalgan Park on Tuesday.

It’s rather ironic that I was putting up photos of other religious houses in a different context, just prior to hearing the devastating news.

Dalgan Park, however, is a very peaceful place. I’ve driven around the massive grounds on many occasions. My uncle too took me around. It was on one of those occasions that I was to learn of the tragic Knock, Co Mayo farm-homestead fire, that took the lives of three of my uncles first cousins.

Gosh – it’s too painful to talk anymore for the night. I’d best be off to the leaba. It’s at times like this, that those who have warm loving families and warm loving friends, benefit the most. They don’t have to suffer alone.

My private source said:

“It is a lovely quiet place and you could hear all the birds singing as he was laid to rest.”

Thanks E. R. for passing on that all the information. The graves are not too far away from the shrubbery in the photo. I can just visualise it in my minds eye where he’s buried. He did tell me some years ago, in a kind of way, that he would be buried there. He brought me to the open cemetery reserved for the missionary priests and showed me. I knew he was trying to tell me something. It was unspoken.

I do realise there could be no contact made with me in order to go to the funeral, as I hadn’t given anyone my new address at all. I guess too that it must be difficult to communicate with me online. Families are like that – one mustn’t divulge the family secrets.

Well, I was a secret for far too long and always worried about what others thought. Not anymore. I’m sure I’m not the only survivor of an industrial *school* who had a relation in Dalgan Park. And, if so – so what!

Au-revoir Uncle Willie. Thank you for all your past kindness to me. I know that you cared for me very much and treated me the same as the rest of the cousins. I’m sorry that I could not live up to your expectations. I know that I was upset when the two lads from Canada were invited to Kumamoto, Japan, and I got infuriated because I was not invited. I wanted to have it to say that I got the opportunity to stay with my favourite uncle in a far off distant land. I know that you worried about me all the time and I too worried about you. You were so like your one and only sister in temperament and stature.

I will remember you for the times you took me to all the best hotels in Co Wexford, Dublin, and elsewhere. You spoiled me so much, just like mama did and I was never to be satisfied. The damage of the past was always lurking somewhere around the corner to pounce on me and show its ugly face. (Perhaps I should find another analogy other than ugly face. It’s presently popular in the atheospherel)

I know it wasn’t easy for you growing up in a huge boarding school, but I always managed to pile on the differentiation between your privileged life and mine.

I loved being with you. I will miss you. I had phoned you up only two weeks ago, and was planning on going to see you in Dalgan Park with E.R.

I know that it must have been painful for you when I spoke out about the church….I’m stuck for words…

Thanks for teaching me to drive. I really tested your patience.

I’m so glad I got to know you. It was a real privilege.

Update:

I never got a wink of sleep last night thinking about the demise of my uncle. I’m just wondering if the years of not seeing him has shielded me more from the anguish I would have otherwise felt. I felt closest to him next to my mother, despite my not having had contact with him for such a long time.

I found it very difficult to communicate with him since I went public about institutional child abuse at Goldenbridge. It must have caused him a lot of pain, but the truth had to come out at last. I was full to overflowing and couldn’t bear it any longer the fact that other people were constantly making jibes at me about having a priest in the family via a survivors’ website and resultantly taunted me so much about it that I left the blogosphere for nigh on one year. It was SO unbearable to cope with Indeed. It was a person who proclaimed to help the religious who gave me hell on the Internet, the very same person also claimed that s/he was there to help ‘genuine’ survivors. As if I wasn’t one at all. There were also survivors who grew up with me who wanted to blow the whistle. It was coming from all quarters.

One of the most painful stories that nearly cost me my good health pertained to my mother. A Co Wexford woman who was so venomous made it succinctly clear that my mother abandoned me and that I was nothing but a BASTARD. There was no irony of the word intended. It was meant to be full-blown. There was no beating around the bush with this callous woman. She cut to the chase. It was despicable. She had nothing to write home about herself. I was so devastated upon hearing this woman talk in such a cruel manner. It haunted me for a very long time. I used to wake up with nightmares. I was so afraid of this person that I fled the area for months on end. I knew there were a few people who knew the circumstances of my background. I’d kept myself at a distance from most people in a rural town for fear of anyone pointing the finger.

The nasty woman even went as far as telling me who my father was indeed. She had it all worked out that an employee who’d worked at the farm in days of yore and whose sisters’ house I was always in — was the father. She was so wrong. it was all hearsay. She hailed from the next county and possibly listened to Chinese whispers. Gossip is always rife in small rural towns it keeps them going.

Whenever my uncle said mass in the local parish when he came home from Japan, I made sure to keep clear of the church. The priests were very understanding of him and me. It did unnerve him so much that people would talk about his illegitimate niece in whispers, which is wont to happen in the valley of the squinting windows. He did remind me so often that I was his niece and that he loved me as much as he did the rest of his nieces and nephews. He was very close to his only sister and he would go to the end of the earth to make me feel included. That thought gave me the impetus to stand up and be counted.

I then swore that nobody was going to make me suffer any longer. I’d had enough of all the pretence. I wanted rid of the big weight off my shoulders. So when the small-talk seeped over into the blogosphere some years later, when the institutional child abuse controversy came to the fore, and I had fled for a year out of shame and horror over it, I decided when I returned that my life was going to be an open book from there on in.

Too much had happened to me in the Regina Ceoli hostel and Goldenbridge for me to remain silent any longer – the pandora box had just suddenly swung open and all was let loose. I was also very incensed that the religious at the commission to inquire into institutional child abuse were denying that abuse ever occurred in industrial *schools*, or rather, were watering it down or else, were passing the buck on to other sections of society.

If family members don’t like it then they are not prepared to accept that the pain of being kept hidden for a whole childhood was so utterly tortuous and that, if, family honour is more important than a suffering human being – well then they definitely need to get their priorities right.

Survivors of institutional child/clerical abuse have changed the mindset of the small country of Ireland. So the bigger picture has to be seen. Survivors have suffered tremendously for pointing out the wrong-doing of the religious, the state and society. Prophets are never accepted in their own country.

A young girl called Jessica Ahlquist, who’s now the same age as survivors when they left their respective institutions, has pointed out to American society some serious wrong-doings ,which I won’t ponder on here. She challenged the system and won out, but she too like us, was demonised and vilified by parts of society who are in favour of the church. We can fully identify with her cause. Jessica is lucky though to have had the advantage of being educated and presumably having a loving family to stand by her.

I thank ER for telling me about the passing of Uncle Willie. I’ll go quietly up to Dalgan Park to pay my respects at the grave and will also take in the grave of Mama in Co Cavan.

Update:

I’ve just spent the last couple of hours crying non-stop over the loss of my uncle. I had bonded with him so much. There will be nobody to replace him ever in my life. He’s gone and that’s it, forever. It’s final. I’m so devastated. Grief is an awful thing, almost, everyone has to go though it at some stage in their lives.

I looked at the website for Dalgan Park, but there is still no mention of his departure. I expect it’ll be in the Meath Chronicle this week.

I got a shock two years ago regarding a first cousin of my uncle – who was also in the same order, when I saw his obituary in the Meath newspaper.  At least this time around I was informed via a personal source. I was represented without my knowledge at the funeral and that is a  bit of consolation.

Update:

It’s now almost a quarter to eleven in the evening and I’m still in floods of tears over my uncle. To think that there will never be another conversation between us is just breaking my heart. The isolation I felt when mama died is all coming back to me and the isolation that goes with it is heartrending. I’ve got  such a splitting headache with all the crying I’ve done. It keeps going around my head if I’d have felt any better having seeing before he died. Or was it just better to live with the memories of when we last saw each other some years back. He has been on my mind all day and I just wonder when the tears are going to stop.

To think that I’ve not been too far from him all these years and I never made the effort to go to visit him, because of all that had happened regarding the Ryan report. I did worry too that the knock-on effect of my visit would upset him and cause him ill-health.

He was a good man. I know that he would have been looked after very well in Dalgan Park. It’s a blessing to think that he had all his faculties in tact. E.R, said that she spoke to him over the Xmas period and there was an arrangement made for a visitation.

Update:

Dalgan Park has published the obituary. I got terribly sad again when I saw his photo. He’s all full of smiles and I’m all full of tears. I remember him once getting a black and white photo for a temporary Irish driving licence, as he was staying for a longer than usual period in the country. He was giving out yards about the fact that someone might think he was an ex-convict. I laughed heartily and reminded him that it might just get more than a second glance if the gardai were to stop him for driving too slowly. He was such a careful driver. I didn’t think men bothered about how they appeared in photo’s. Well, he did – that’s for sure.

I shouldn’t really be saying this – but he had a suit that was worth over a thousand old punts. The Japanese used to throw money at him left, right and centre. His family too spoiled him rotten.

It cost over a quarter of a million yen/dollars annually to belong to a golf club in Japan in times when it was a very wealthy country. He was invariably frequently a guest of honour at these clubs. The Japanese would even fly off to America and Ireland specifically for golf sessions and tournaments. Willie was a golf fanatic. There were many golf courses I meandered about with him in Wexford and Kilkenny. I lapped up the high life, which he introduced me to in buckets. (He was making it up to me for my miserable past.) Mount Juliet being a most notable one. I just loved dining in the swanky hotel afterwards. He was also fond of the golf-course in Rosslare. He usually went out golfing with his priest friends. Golfing was second nature to them and he was really so much at home when he stepped on the luscious green lawns. I suppose it was a kind of escape from the claustrophobic built-up living that he had to endure in Japan. He needed to charge his batteries. He would tell me about the workers who had to wear white gloves to pack people onto the underground trains. Ireland in comparison was like a paradise with its vast open green spaces. He surely knew how to live well and get plenty of healthy exercise.

Another passion of my uncle was horse-racing. That would be understandable considering that he hailed from a very horsey county. He hung around with the horsey set. His relatives were big-time into the hunt and one of them owned a race-horse. (I know hunting is really not an acceptable sport).  Others in his set were part of a syndicate who owned a very up and coming race-horse. His niece was into horse-riding and dressage competitions in England since she was knee-high.

Every year saw him either at Cheltenham or Galway, that was when he was at home holidaying in Ireland. A local pub-owner-farmer and his wife would take him on week-ends to the Galway races. It was their annual holiday activity, everything else came second to horse-racing.

Lest We Forget

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LEST WE FORGET 1 …. ARTANE: > Artane has 314 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 815 children incarcerated in ARTANE and in the 1950’s there were on average 628 children incarcerated in ARTANE. There are 171 individuals named and there are 1,038 allegations against these individuals. ARTANE was “managed” by The Christian Brothers. Artane…Ireland’s ‘proud history’ of Catholic child abuse

Anywhere there is hardship and misery you will find the symbol of the cross and, if the ‘whole job’ is called after a saint, the hardship factor multiplies.

Thousands of children were physically, sexually and emotionally abused in this hellhole called St Joseph’s Industrial School, Artane by the Catholic Church and, ultimately, the Pope on his fine throne in Rome. And, if that’s not bad enough, it was all aided and abetted by successive Irish governments and now, even people like me, who don’t suffer from religion, have to pay the bill. Ratzo wins again! ‘Gullibility’ has found the perfect home in Ireland.
Just something to remember the next time you stick your chest out for the National Anthem. Read the full horror at: www.childabusecommission.ie/

 LEST WE FORGET 2 …. DAINGEAN: > Daingean has 152 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 216 children incarcerated in DAINGEAN and in the 1950’s there were on average 159 children incarcerated in DAINGEAN. There are 59 individuals named and there are 361 allegations against these individuals. DAINGEAN  was “managed” by The Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

H/t The Knitter

Daingean: St Conleth’s Reformatory School, Daingean, Co Offaly Opened: 1940 Status: Closed 1973 Management: Oblates of Mary Immaculate.

You’d hear the younger ones screaming during the night, the twelve and thirteen year olds. There was a night watchman who used to patrol the dormitories with an ash plant on his shoulder. You’d see him constantly bringing down that stick onto a boy in a bed with his full force, about five or six times. There were an awful lot of priests and brothers there in my time. The priests were unimpeachable, they beat the boys with complete impunity. No one ever interfered.

H/t Clerical Whispers

DAINGEAN WAS, according to the commission, different from all the other institutions into which it inquired. Unlike the children in industrial schools, most of the residents had been convicted of criminal offences that would, in the case of adults, have been punishable by imprisonment. The boys were aged between 12 and 17.

A report of some 83 pages outlines serious physical abuse such as flogging, which was administered “in a cruel, sadistic and excessive manner designed to maximise the terror of all the boys. Black eyes, split lips, and bruising were reported by complainants. There was no control of staff in the infliction of punishment”.

The Department of Education displayed an “ambivalence to the use of violence in Daingean, even as late as 1969”. A “Br Enrico” administered “severe ad-hoc punishments” as well as “the more ritualistic floggings”.

He was described as as “brutal and unpredictable”. There was sexual abuse of the boys by Brothers and lay staff, and sexual abuse of boys by other boys.

The commission concludes that the Department of Education “knew that its rules were being breached in a fundamental way” but Daingean operated the system of punishment “in the knowledge that the department would not interfere”.

The Oblate Congregation in its submissions to the commission “have not admitted that sexual abuse took place or even considered the possibility

LEST WE FORGET 3 ….FERRYHOUSE: > Ferryhouse has 132 complaints against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 170 children incarcerated in FERRYHOUSE and in the 1950’s there were on average 189 children incarcerated in FERRYHOUSE. There are 73 individuals named and there are 336 allegations against these individuals. FERRYHOUSE was “managed” by The Rosminians.

LEST WE FORGET 4 ….LETTERFRACK: > Letterfrack has 126 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 158 children incarcerated in LETTERFRACK and in the 1950’s there were on average 124 children incarcerated in LETTERFRACK. There are 68 individuals named and there are 393 allegations against these individuals. LETTERFRACK was “managed” by the Christian Brothers. >>>>

Introduction

Establishment of Letterfrack

8.01 Letterfrack is a village situated in Connemara, Co Galway, more than 84 kilometres from Galway city. A wealthy Quaker couple moved to Letterfrack from England in 1849 and bought a large tract of land that they developed. Amongst the various improvements they made were the construction of a large residence and a school for the children from the locality. In 1884 the property was sold to the Archbishop of Tuam, Dr John McEvilly, who applied the proceeds of a legacy bequeathed for charitable purposes.

8.02 The Archbishop wrote to the Lord Lieutenant of Ireland, Earl Spencer, shortly after the purchase, suggesting that the property was ‘admirably suited for a boys’ industrial school so sadly needed in that district’.

8.03 The Lord Lieutenant sought advice from his officials on the matter and the feedback was universally against the proposal. The general view can be summed up in the following extract from a memorandum from one of his officials:

In a wild remote district like Letterfrack it is very improbable that there would be any genuine cases for committal, the children there do not beg. There is no one to beg from. They all have settled places of abode – they live with their parents; are not found wandering, and though no doubt very poor, are not destitute: they do not frequent the company of thieves – there are no thieves in districts like Letterfrack in Ireland – the people are very poor but very honest.

8.04 Furthermore, the Lord Lieutenant was advised that the number of national schools in the area amply provided for the educational needs of the children.

8.05 Despite support from the Inspector of Industrial Schools, Sir John Lentaigne, the Archbishop’s application for the establishment of an industrial school in Letterfrack was refused by the Lord Lieutenant.

8.06 However, the Archbishop was not to be dissuaded and he continued to lobby the Lord Lieutenant. His efforts eventually bore fruit, and a letter from the Vice Regal Lodge dated 11th August 1885 stated:

There are no doubt technical objections to the establishment of an Industrial School at Letterfrack: but after reading the papers through carefully I am satisfied that the general and moral reasons far outweigh the objections.

8.07On 14th November 1885 the Chief Secretary’s Office confirmed its sanction for the establishment of an industrial school in Letterfrack certified for the reception of 75 boys to open ‘so soon after the 1st April next as the promoters of the school are in a position to satisfy the Inspector that the buildings intended for the purpose are fit for the reception of children within the meaning of the Industrial School Act’. With Sir John Lentaigne already on board, this latter stipulation did not prove to be a stumbling block.

LEST WE FORGET 5 ….UPTON: > Upton has 93 COMPLAINTS  against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 177 children incarcerated in UPTON and in the 1950’s there were on average 135 children incarcerated in in UPTON. There are 64 individuals  named and there are 228 allegations against these individuals. UPTON was “managed” by The Rosminians.

LEST WE FORGET 6 ….GOLDENBRIDGE: > Goldenbridge has 77 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 148 children incarcerated in GOLDENBRIDGE and in the 1950’s there were on average 153 children incarcerated in GOLDENBRIDGE. There are 13 individuals named and there are 78 allegations against these individuals. GOLDENBRIDGE was “managed” by the Sisters of Mercy.

LEST WE FORGET 7 ….TRALEE: > Tralee has 52 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 141 children incarcerated in TRALEE and in the 1950’s there were on average 102 children incarcerated in TRALEE. There are 45 individuals named and there are 159 allegations against these individuals. TRALEE was “managed” by The Christian Brothers.

LEST WE FORGET 8 ….ST.KYRANS: > St.Kyrans has 44 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 76 children incarcerated in ST.KYRANS and in the 1950’s there were on average 99 children incarcerated in ST.KYRANS. There are 13 individuals named and there are 42 allegations against these individuals. ST.KYRAN’S was “managed” by The Sisters of Mercy.

LEST WE FORGET 9….GLIN: > Glin has 37 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 200 children incarcerated in GLIN and in the 1950’s there were on average 165 children incarcerated in GLIN. There are 36 individuals named and there are 122 allegations against these individuals. GLIN was “managed” by The Christian Brothers.

LEST WE FORGET 10 ….GREENMOUNT: > Greenmount has 33 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 223 children incarcerated in GREENMOUNT and in the 1950’s there were on average 146 children incarcerated in GREENMOUNT. There are 29 individuals named and there are 70 allegations against these individuals. GREENMOUNT was “managed” by The Presentation Brothers.

LEST WE FORGET 11 ….CLIFDEN: > Clifden has 33 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 120 children incarcerated CLIFDEN in and in the 1950’s there were on average 118 children incarcerated in CLIFDEN. There are 29 individuals  named and there are 72 allegations against these individuals. CLIFDEN was “managed” by The Sisters of Mercy.

LEST WE FORGET 12 ….SALTHILL: > Salthill has 31 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 199 children incarcerated in SALTHILL and in the 1950’s there were on average 166 children incarcerated in SALTHILL. There are 31 individuals named and there are 72 allegations against these individuals. SALTHILL was “managed” by The Christian Brothers.

LEST WE FORGET 13…. ST. JOSEPH’S KILKENNY: > St.Joseph’s has 30 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 125 children incarcerated in ST. JOSEPH’S and in the 1950’s there were on average 115 children incarcerated in ST.JOSEPH’S There are 17 individuals named and there are 30 allegations against these individuals. ST.JOSEPH’S was “managed” by The Sisters of Charity.

Chapter 14: St Joseph’s Industrial School, Kilkenny, 1873–1999

Brief history of the School

14.01 The Sisters of Charity were approached by the Bishop of Ossory, Dr Moran, in 1872 and asked ‘to care for the little homeless girls of the poor’. They had been a presence in Kilkenny since 1861, caring for the sick in fever and work house hospitals and prisons.

14.02 A site was purchased on the Waterford Road, and the Sisters moved into a large cottage on the grounds. In September 1873, a new building comprising a convent, school and chapel was opened. The School was certified on 22nd March 1873 for the reception of 126 girls, of whom 100 were chargeable. This was increased to 130 in 1950.

14.03 The School was transferred to the South Eastern Health Board on 6th April 1999. At that time, there were 10 children in care in two houses, Avondale and Crannog. Avondale was purchased by the Sisters of Charity in 1976, and leased to the South Eastern Health Board in 1999, and later transferred to them under the Redress Scheme. The other home, Crannog, was built by the Sisters of Charity with funds raised locally and through an exchange of land between the Sisters and the County Manager. In 1995, an adjoining house was purchased by the South Eastern Health Board, and the two houses then formed one unit. The original house was transferred, free of charge, to the South Eastern Health Board in 1999.

14.04 The Sisters of Charity provided a detailed description of all improvements, changes and adaptations made to the buildings and grounds between 1876 and 1984, which appears at Appendix 1.

14.05 The photograph of the convent and part of the Industrial School:

LEST WE FORGET 14 ….

PASSAGE WEST:> Passage West has 26 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 76 children incarcerated in PASSAGE WEST and in the 1950’s there were on average 72 children incarcerated in PASSAGE WEST. There are 20 individuals named and there are 39 allegations against these individuals. PASSAGE WEST was “managed” by The Sisters of Mercy.LEST WE FORGET 15 ….

CAPPOQUIN: > Cappoquin has 26 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 77 children incarcerated in CAPPOQUIN and in the 1950’s there were on average 59 children incarcerated in CAPPOQUIN. There are 10 individuals named and there are 14 allegations against these individuals. CAPPOQUIN was “managed” by The Sisters of Mercy.LEST WE FORGET 16 ….

CARRIGLEA: > Carriglea has 22 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 253 children incarcerated in CARRIGLEA and in the 1950’s there were on average 199 children incarcerated in CARRIGLEA. There are 11 individuals named and there are 26 allegations against these individuals. CARRIGLEA was “managed” by The Christian Brothers.LEST WE FORGET 17 ….

ST.PATRICK’S-KILKENNY:> St. Patricks has 22 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 186 children incarcerated in ST. PATRICK’Sand in the 1950’s there were on average 182 children incarcerated in ST. PATRICK’S. There are 5 individuals named and there are 5 allegations against these individuals. ST. PATRICK’S was “managed” by The Sisters of Charity.LEST WE FORGET 18 ….

ST.JOSEPH’S-DUNDALK: > ST.JOSEPH’S has 21 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 59 children incarcerated in ST.JOSEPH’S and in the 1950’s there were on average 40 children incarcerated in ST.JOSEPH’S. There are19 individuals named and there are 73 allegations against these individuals.ST.JOSEPH’S-DUNDALK was “managed” by The Sisters of Mercy.LEST WE FORGET 19 ….

PEMBROKE ALMS – NAZARETH HOUSE TRALEE:> NAZARETH HOUSE has 20 COMPLAINTS against it. In the 1940’s there were on average 74 children incarcerated in NAZARETH HOUSE and in the 1950’s there were on average 50 children incarcerated in NAZARETH HOUSE. There are 17 individuals named and there are 34 allegations against these individuals. NAZARETH HOUSE in Tralee was “managed” by The Sisters of Mercy.

SOURCE … The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.
There were no awards of any kind given to the complainants mentioned above for bringing atrocities of a gargantuan nature – that went on for generations in Ireland’s illegal institutions – to the fore. They are as forgotten now as ever they were when they were incarcerated in their respective institutions.
Cottage industries were created off the backs of the complainants.
Ireland was brought to its very knees because of the stories that were told to the commission to inquire into institutional child abuse. The church is rethinking and reshaping itself because of all the abuse that went on and because brave complainants shouted out loud enough on deaf ears till the church was forced to listen.

The Ryan Report

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The Ryan Report

May 23rd, 2009 | By 

Category: In Focus

In Dublin on May 20 2009 the Commission to Investigate Child Abuse released its report on abuse of children in industrial schools run by religious orders in Ireland. The period covered by the Investigation Committee Inquiry is from 1936 to the present, but “mostly from a period during which large scale institutionalisation was the norm, which was, in effect, the period between the Cussen Report (1936) and the Kennedy report (1970).”

As Patsy McGarry put it in the Irish Times, “The report, that runs to thousands of pages, outlined a harrowing account of the emotional, physical and sexual abuse inflicted on young people who attended schools and institutions from 1940 onwards.” Ireland and the rest of the world read the account with shock and horror.

A few passages from The Executive Summary give a hint of the flavour:

Artane

“Artane was founded in 1870 and was certified for 830 boys. This was almost four times the size of any other school in the State. The size of Artane and the regimentation and military-style discipline required to run it were persistent complaints by ex-pupils and ex-staff members alike. The numbers led to problems of supervision and control, and children were left feeling powerless and defenceless in the face of bullying and abuse by staff and fellow pupils. Although physical care was better than in some schools, it was still poorly provided and so imbued with the harshness of the underlying regime that children constantly felt under threat and fearful.

All of the witnesses who made allegations against Artane complained of physical abuse. This abuse is outlined in full both from the documents and the evidence of witnesses. Conclusions on physical abuse are contained at Paragraph 7.311 of Volume I and state that physical punishment of boys in Artane was excessive and pervasive and, because of its arbitrary nature, led to a climate of fear amongst the boys.”

Letterfrack

“The school in Letterfrack was founded in 1885 and was situated in a remote hillside location in Connemara, miles away from Galway or from public transport. The remoteness of Letterfrack was a common theme of complainants and of Brothers who had worked there. It was an inhospitable, bleak, isolated institution accessable only by car or bicycle and out of reach for family or friends of boys incarcerated there.

Physical punishment was severe, excessive and pervasive and by being administered in public or within earshot of other children it was used as a means of engendering fear and ensuring control.

Sexual abuse was a chronic problem. For two thirds of the relevant period there was at least one sexual abuser in the school, for almost one third of the period there were two abusers in the school and at times there were three abusers working in Letterfrack at the same time. Two abusers were present for periods of 14 years each and the Congregation could offer no explanation as to how these Brothers could have remained in the School for so long undetected and unreported.”

Goldenbridge

“A high level of physical abuse was perpetrated by Religious and lay staff in Goldenbridge. The method of inflicting punishments and the implements used were cruel and excessive and physical punishment was an immediate response to even minor infractions. Children were in constant fear of beatings and in many cases were beaten for no apparent reason. A feature of this school was a rosary bead industry that was operated from the school. This industry was conducted in a way that imposed impossible standards on children and caused great suffering to many of them. It was a school that was characterised by a regime of extreme drudgery, both in terms of the rosary bead making and the daily workload of the children.

Goldenbridge was an emotionally abusive institution. Girls were humiliated and belittled on a regular basis and treated with contempt by some staff members. It was characterised by an absence of kindness or sympathy for the children.”

The report rebuked the Department of Education:

“The Department was lacking in ideas about policy. It made no attempt to impose changes that would have improved the lot of the detained children. Indeed, it never thought about changing the system.

The failures by the Department that are catalogued in the chapters on the schools can also be seen as tacit acknowledgment by the State of the ascendancy of the Congregations and their ownership of the system. The Departments’ Secretary General, at a public hearing, told the Investigation Committee that the Department had shown a ‘very significant deference’ towards the religious Congregations. This deference impeded change, and it took an independent intervention in the form of the Kennedy Report in 1970 to dismantle a long out-dated system.”

Extracts from letters on the Letters page here also give a flavour.

Kathleen O’Brien, May 17

[T]he rosary factory was there in 1950 as well as the children making and glueing brown paper bags for shop’s,in ireland.making and sewing underware for export knitting jumpers and socks for the nuns to sell to shops ,there was no Education except Religious education, Domestic work which we had to an exam for which was cleaning and basic cooking ,inspectors came and examined our work, THAT WAS OUR EXAM.The Redress Board was set up to terrorise and frighten vonourable survivors into silenceing them forever,you are right there were only 3 girls in goldenbridge during the late 1950′s who were sent to the Outside national school…Survivors were put through more suffering at the redress board by being Insulted with infamitory remarks about the survivors parents and told it was their fault and the fault of their parents that children were sentenced into reformatories to be Beaten ,Starved,that they were NOT effected by what happened to them in Industrial reformatories But rather it was because their parents were Genetically inadequate ,this of course is so cruel,insults were thrown at survivors,many could not face going through any more and just excepted i silence ,and went away even more traumatised,hurt and deeply upset.and knew they had no choice to try and go on to the high court,they had no chance…

May Cornish, May 28

I am a 76 year old lady and I was in goldenbridge from 1935 to 1950 . We not only made rosary beeds we also Knitted all kinds of hats. gloves. Jumpers socks.
If you had no family at 16 years you were sent to hospitals and others places for domestic work you were not even a change og clothes. If you were in from infancy it was like going to a forigen country and you still had no woe to ask for help . I only found out in 1998 that I had sisters and a brother my children were brought up with no aunts or uncles and no grandparents as all my mothers letters which were written in the 40s were withell.

Internal Resources

Marie-Therese O’Loughlin, The Goldenbridge Secret Rosary Bead Factory

Marie-Therese O’Loughlin, Goldenbridge II

EXTERNAL RESOURCES

ONE RESPONSE TO “THE RYAN REPORT”

A History of Neglect

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A History of Neglect, and Worse
Dec 28th, 2006 | By 

Category: Notes and Comment Blog

Paddy Doyle has this page on Irish Industrial Schools. It’s useful background for Marie-Therese’s account. It’s wrenching stuff, too.

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…1929- The Children Act allowed destitute children to be sent to industrial schools, even if they hadn’t committed a crime…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”.

I934. The Cussen Report had ‘reservations’ in 1934, and yet the horrible places went on for decades and decades.

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.”…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”.

For trying to escape to his mother. Well we can’t allow that. No, obviously not, he has to be kept locked up in the nice Industrial School and starved, not to mention flayed and soaked in salt water.

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.

Church pressure forces him to leave Ireland, so they could get on with scalding children to death and then doing nothing about it.

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…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.

That would be while Marie-Therese was at Goldenbridge. And on it goes, into the ’70s. Horrifying stuff.

51 RESPONSES TO “A HISTORY OF NEGLECT, AND WORSE”

  • #1

    Do you live in the UK, and would you like to sign a petition for the abolition of faith schools?

    http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/faithschools/

    You may want to forward the link to likeminded individuals.

    Thanks.

    Gill

  • #2

    I don’t live in the UK but would love to sign such a petition but am probably not eligible. I think I posted that petition in News awhile ago…though I’m not sure of it.

  • #3

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    >The Children Act allowed destitute children to be sent to industrial schools, even if they hadn’t committed a crime<

    This “destitution” lark was a ruse used by the judiciary/religious in order to obtain convictions.

    I was, for example, in a feeder institution, known as The Regina Ceoli, Mother/ Baby unit for over four and a half years. So how in Gods name could I have been even considered” destitute” by the judiciary!

    “Destitution”, this terminology, was in my estimation “illegally used” on my committal order to Goldenbridge

    Industrial School – where I was incarcerated until I was sixteen years old!

    There was no limit on my stay in the “hostel”.

    It is imperative for people out there to comprehend that “touting for business” explicitly from feeder institutions; such as the aforementioned hostel went on big time!

    As well as, I might append, “baby farming” which is an additional gigantic undeclared subject.

    Like the Magdalen Laundries, the concluding it is also an extraordinarily brittle substance.

    The Irish powers-that-be are fearful to shine the torch down that very indistinguishable shadowy road.

    It is too eerie for their predilection to ever reflect.

    The religious colluded in this complete contemptible unauthentic committal lark in order to boost up their numbers in the mainstream industrial schools.

    They accurately shouted from the rooftops at the judiciary who were becoming unenthusiastic a propos in sending children to the gulags.

    They insisted on wanting to know why their wishes were not being adhered to as they {religious} were impressively bothered about the up-keep of their extremely mammoth Victorian “private” buildings.

    As with all, they unquestionably won out!

    Irish Church/State was/is synonymous with conjoined twins.

    At first, girls only, went into the industrial schools run by the Sisters of Mercy etc, but when numbers began to diminish, they asked for boys up to the age of ten, their wishes were unsurprisingly commanded.

    Consequently, survivors like Paddy Doyle landed up in one.

    On attainment of ten years the boys customarily, thereafter graduated to the industrial/reformatories schools such as Artane, Daingean, and Letterfrack.

    These boys only child labour camps were run by the Christian Brothers,

    Oblate Fathers and other orders of that ilk.

    A majority of older boys in these industrial schools were there for minor criminal activities, such as mitching {skiving} from school or stealing apples from orchards,.

    A smaller amount of “older boys” would have been there for more serious demeanours.

    These boys were naturally more streetwise.

    They had the wherewithal to be able to differentiate between the outside world and their newfound abodes.

    Boys who came from the female religious run congregations/ institutes, {to put name into proper perspective}on the other hand did not have a clue about outside life and were thus treated abominably by the system, which could/would not tolerate their social inadequacies.

    They were classed as orphans, yet they too, like myself, would have been taken from their parent/parents, and would have been hauled before the courts and would have been considered to have been “destitute” and would have been sentenced until they were sixteen years old.

    Boys who were criminally committed would have received sentences ranging from as little as six months to roughly six years.

  • #4

    This “destitution” lark was a ruse used by the judiciary/religious in order to obtain convictions…It is imperative for people out there to comprehend that “touting for business” explicitly from feeder institutions; such as the aforementioned hostel went on big time!

    Yes…that’s becoming ever clearer.

    I would guess that it’s especially imperative for Americans to comprehend it – it’s well known that we tend to have a rather romanticized view of Ireland.

    You mentioned the capitation payment in your article. That’s why the church wanted to boost the numbers, of course…

    How appalling.

    The same problem exists with foster care here (in the US), I think – people who are not particularly good at caring for children go into foster care as a way to make a living. But there are some controls on that, too. It’s not perfect, but it’s not as bad as the Industrial Schools (I think).

  • #5

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    On a related matter.

    Latest news on the Irish Residential Redress Board horizon.

    State will pay €1.1bn to abuse victims

    ABUSE victims have received more than €580m in compensation from the Residential Institutions Redress Board so far.

    The payments, at an average of €71,000 each, have been made to almost 6,900 people who suffered physical, sexual or mental abuse while attending State or church-run institutions.

    The Comptroller and Auditor General has estimated the final cost of the scheme at €1.1bn.

    This means that the State may pay more than 10 times the amount the Catholic Church handed over as part of a deal reached in 2002.

    Some 18 religious congregations which managed the orphanages and industrial schools paid €128m in return for an indemnity against future legal actions by former residents.

    In its latest newsletter, the Board said it had made 5,256 offers so far to victims following settlement talks and 1,567 awards.

    There were no awards in 345 cases, due mainly to the fact that the residential institution at the centre of the claim was not covered by the board. So far, just one person has been referred to gardai on suspicion of making a false claim – and no criminal prosecution is being pursued in this case.

    Around €488m has been paid out in direct compensation to victims, and legal costs are running at around 20pc of the awards.

    This brings the total figure to more than €585m.

    The Board is only half way through its work. It had a setback with the death of its chairman Judge Sean O’Leary last week.

    The Board said it had received thousands of extra applications before last year’s December deadline.

    Another 166 applications have been received since the deadline passed, but the Board has the discretion to accept them if there are exceptional circumstances.

    Slan go foill,

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin.

  • #6

    Ah, wasn’t isn’t the “Irish Free State” / Eire / The Irish Republic a wonderful thing, free of that nasty English influence, but cheerfully embracing the joys and benefits of the Catholic Church!

    Reminds me of how people in (Say) Uganda were so much better off with Idi Amin than under that nasty colonialism…

    Never mind the Sudan ……

  • #7

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin.

    1933- Industrial schools were abolished in the UK, but not in Ireland.

    We inherited the system from the British, but unfortunately like everything else we never “let go” and moved on.

    The Church to this day still sits around the government table discussing what is good for dear old mother Ireland.

    Dare anyone try to speak up/out against it.

    Liz o’ Donnell from the Progressive Democratic Party tried to but was soon overpowered.

    Slan go foill,

    Marie-Therese O’ LOUGHLIN.

  • #8

    Of course the Irish were better off under British rule! How dare anyone think otherwise! After all, look at the benefits: they had all their land confiscated from them; were not allowed to own land or to vote or to be members of parliament or to hold government office; Ireland was the only country in Europe to have a smaller population in 1900 than in 1800; the Irish had inflicted on them all the joys of 17th century English sectarianism, which they enjoy to this day; their language and their culture were suppressed; to write nothing of the mass murder required to bring all these benefits. Indeed a decade after part of the country escaped from all this, the UK engaged in a trade war against it because the ungrateful Paddies stopped paying loans made to them by the British to allow them to buy their own country back.

  • #9

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin.

    Liz O’Donnell’s speech to the Dail, came from a woman who obviously feels she suffered at the hands of “the special relationship” of the Church at the heart of the Irish state.

    Referring to the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, she said:

    “This ‘no more Mr. Nice Guy’ approach by the State means no longer countenancing the unhealthy enmeshing of the Church in the secular layers of our society.

    It means no more consultation between Church and State

    *on IVF.

    *On abortion services.

    *On stem cell research.

    *On Ireland’s support for family planning in the third world.

    *On contraception or supports for single mothers.

    *On adoption.

    *On homosexuality.

    *On civil marriage.

    In a democracy, all views can be articulated, but the special

    relationship is over. The deference is over.

    The cosy phone calls from All Hallows to Government Buildings must end.”

    Oh well, Bertie pops into All Hallows, a missionary seminary in his constituency.

    Those young men who attend All Hallows, undergo 7 years of education which sort of qualifies them for the best crosswords, and entitles them to be a “minister of public worship” in “the missions”.

    Not one graduate of All Hallows holds a parish in the Irish state.

    They are sent off to convert the world, be it Africa or Birmingham England.

    Please note the Irish state has not seen an equivalent import of tanned or dark skinned curates from wherever it is the Holy Men of All Hallows go.

    Liz O’Donnell’s rage at the Ferns Report which yet again reminds of the very special position the RC church holds in systematic sexual, physical, emotional and pyschological abuse of Ireland’s youth since the formation of the state was lost behind her little jibe at Bertie Ahern.

    If she had left out the All Hallows, and told us more about her wish list, attention might not have been taken from the systematic institutional

    abuse in in Industrial Schools, Hospitals, Orphanages and Seminaries.

    Liz O’Donnell has got her little list and Bertie the daily communicant does not like it one little bit.

    Here endeth the lesson.

    Pass the plate.

    Slan agus beannacht.

  • #10

    Paul,

    Shit happens in history. But as an Irishman who has had Holy Roman Catholic Apostolic nationalism stuffed down his throat for over ten years, I find this dreary catalogue of ethnocentric grievances all too familiar. Isn’t it time for us to stop competing for the ‘MOPE’ award (= Most Oppressed People Ever — Conor Cruise O’Brien)?

    There are more useful things to do than turning on the anti-British waterworks — such as determining the role of mass hysteria and sheer financial opportunism in the ongoing campaign against child abuse in Ireland. I’d say there’s a fair bit of false memory intermeshed with a lot of true horror stories in this area.

    Just to make sure we don’t go too off-topic.

  • #11

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin.

    “Shit happens in history”

    If shit happens in history, why then should it not be wiped up as it invariably leaves a dreadful stench.

    Shit, too, was symbolic when it was used to paint the prison walls of oppressed Irish people who considered they were being persecuted.

    Regarding:

    “I’d say there’s a fair bit of false memory intermeshed with a lot of true horror stories in this area.”

    Have we another British based Margaret Jarvis here from the False Memory Syndrome Society making assumptions.

    Did you read the latest Residential Institutions Redress Board Newsletter?

    I posted it on notes/comment pertaining to Goldenbridge Industrial School.

    If there are people making false claims why has the board not detected the wrongdoing?

    A cottage industry has been created out of all this child abuse debacle and I can guarantee you thatthe victims/survivors are not the real beneficiaries of same.

    Slan!

  • #12

    “I’d say there’s a fair bit of false memory intermeshed with a lot of true horror stories in this area. Just to make sure we don’t go too off-topic.”

    Oh would you. Based on what? Just your hunch? Skepticism is a fine thing, Cathal, but you haven’t cited any evidence, you’ve just said ‘Nuh uh.’ That doesn’t count.

  • #13

    Cathal:

    I was trying to educate someone who is so ignorant of his own country’s history that he thinks British rule in Ireland was better than what replaced it. That’s all.

  • #14

    Ophelia writes:

    Skepticism is a fine thing, Cathal, but you haven’t cited any evidence, you’ve just said ‘Nuh uh.’ That doesn’t count.

    Ophelia, I cited evidence in some earlier letters (following your Goldenbridge posting of 17 December): (a) the case of Christine Buckley, in which I provided a link with an article published in The Sunday Times on 28 April 1996 (entitled “Medical View ‘Inconsistent’ With Goldenbridge Abuse”) and (b) the case of Kathy O’Beirne, with a link to an article published in The Irish Times on 20 August 2006 (entitled “’Magdalen’ Author Challenged”).

    Kathy O’Beirne is a particularly interesting case. Her ghost-written book ‘Don’t Ever Tell: Kathy’s Story – A True Tale of a Childhood Destroyed by Neglect and Fear’ has sold over 300000 copies in the UK alone.

    O’Beirne is obviously deranged . Here is an extract from the transcript of a radio interview she had with Irish journalist-pundit Vincent Browne (undated, sorry, I hope the interview itself isn’t a falsification):

    O’Beirne:

    “They were somebody’s children and they are only the ones we know about, there is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bodies buried on the land of the Magdalene Laundries all around Dublin and the country and in Letterfrack, hundreds, hundreds and they just didn’t die from being under-nourished or anything else, a lot of the children were murdered and they were left to starve to death, you know.”

    […]

    O’Beirne:

    I was there, I was there, you could buy a boy for 50 shillings [for adoption – CC], you could buy a girl for 10 shillings, you got a girl cheaper and they were all shipped down, because I was on a programme and the man that drove the babies heard me and he rang in and he said, I am the man that she was talking about, I am the man that drove the babies. That was only last year and he came forward to the Inquiry and the babies were taken in his taxi once a month and they were brought down to the North and they were put on a ship to America and they were sold to the wealthy Americans, a good Catholic family in America where the Godless bastards would be brought up to have a good life, and their Mother’s washed away their sins in the Magdalene Laundries, un-human, un-human. Hitler didn’t treat his people like that, he was decent, he put them all in and he gassed them.”

    The isn’t hyperbole – this is ueber-hyperbole. This is madness. Hundreds of dead bodies. ‘Lots’ of murdered children. Hitler didn’t treat his people like that, he was decent, he put them all in and he gassed them.

    Jesus C-hyphen-forking Christ! And she has sold over 300 000 copies of her book.

    More about O’Beirne at the ‘Kathy Story Scam’ website – http://kathystoryscam.blogspot.com/” target=”new”> here. This site contains inter alia newspaper articles on the ‘Kathy Story’ scam published in The Guardian, The Times, The Scotsman, The Daily Mail, The Sunday Times, etc. plus the undated radio interview transcript I quoted above.

    If link fails:

    http://kathystoryscam.blogspot.com/

    To that I should add that (according to newspaper reports) Irish solicitors have been trawling and dredging the country to find victims and ‘survivors’ seeking compensation. Do you think these ‘survivors’ are going to play down their sufferings? We’re talking big money – to date approx. €70 000 for each ‘certified’ victim. Figure it out for yourself. At any rate I smell not a rat but an ‘exaltation’ of rats (not that I’m saying that ‘it’s all a lark’, though).

    Recommended introductory reading for all who are interested in the Irish child abuse scandals:

    Ofshe and Watters’ ‘Making Monsters – False Memory, Psychotherapy and Sexual Therapy’, Prendergrast’s ‘Victims of Memory – Incest Accusations and Shattered Lives’, and the Afterword to Webster’s ‘Why Freud was Wrong’.

    [BTW all three books contain references to Allen Esterson’s ‘Seductive Image’ – just for your information.]

  • #15

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin.

    The way we were.

    Believe it or not the Irish Government could barely afford to pay fares for a 1976 visit by the Taoiseach to the United States of America.

    Things were so bad thatplans for an expensive present to the Americans were ditched to save money for the fares of Liam Cosgrave and his party.

    The St Patrick’s Day Trip was being paid for by the US Government.

    It certainly paints a picture of doom and gloom in sharp contrast to the booming Celtic Tiger.

    On a relevant note.

    I was told by a prominent leader of the institutional abuse groups that monies from “the off shore accounts” that the State collected will be directly going to foot the Residential Institutions Redress Board bill.

  • #16

    Paul writes:

    I was trying to educate someone who is so ignorant of his own country’s history that he thinks British rule in Ireland was better than what replaced it. That’s all.

    Well, Paul, you did lay it on a bit heavy. When did the British last perpetrate (three or four or five-digit) ‘mass murder’ in Ireland?

    And didn’t the Irish have the right to vote in the UK Parliament since the beginning of the 19th century? Shure and didn’t we hold them all to ransom begorrah from the Catholic Emancipation Act of 1829 onwards?

    And so what anyhow? Apologies? From whom? From the English ‘race’ or ‘ethnie’? We’re all a pretty miscegenated bunch. So on behalf of my 20% ‘planter’ genes I apologise to my 80% Celtic genes. Nasty business under Cromwell at Drogheda several million years ago.

    Thank you, oh 20%! Don’t do it again, though …

  • #17

    Thank you Cathal.

    Yes, the Irish had the same rights to vote (in the Wewstminster parliament) – and I speak as an Englishman, who thinks that Home Rule should never have been removed from Ireland – as any English or Scots’ person at the time.

    The Irish whingers (see Conor Cruse O’B) carefully forget/ignore the fact that the whole of Europe was starving, or at least short of food in 1846-48: the weather was foul, and the harvests failed. Only the most industrialised counties (England, Scotland parts of Wales, Belgium and the Netherlands managed to feed themselves, and there it was close. That is why 1848 was a year of revolution.

    Ireland got shafted because of the reliance on potato monoculture, and Brit administrative gross incompetence.

    There WAS food in Ireland, but it went the wrong way.

    As for sectarianism, the English had very good reason to loathe and fear the catholic church and its’ heirarchy.

    For the same reasons we should fear the islamists today.

    The pope(s) had made it clear that killing the English monarch was legitimate, and overthrowing the state was, as well, and re-lighting the bonfires at Smithfield and elsewhere ….

    But then, what do you expect of christianity -love & peace?

    Which is where we came in, I think.

  • #18

    I’ve read Making Monsters and Why Freud was Wrong. They’re two of the many causative agents that got me here doing this. However – Marie-Therese’s account is not like the claims made either by Freud or by Paul Ingram or the children at McMartin preschool. It’s not far-fetched stuff; on the contrary it’s drearily familiar and plausible, despite being surprising. It’s sadly recognizable petty tyranny, neglect, and cruelty. Therefore, given that you have no actual knowledge that things were otherwise, I don’t want you bouncing around here announcing your incredulity about Marie-Therese’s account. This isn’t a court of law, you’re not a witness, you have no special information, so your doubts or whatever they are are not useful or relevant. And they’re bloody unpleasant and rude, so I’d like you to shut up about them now.

    By the way, the Dáil spent a little time discussing Marie-Therese a few months ago –

    http://debates.oireachtas.ie/DDebate.aspx?F=DAL20060208.xml&Dail=29&Ex=All&Page=2

    They had the opportunity to express skepticism about her account of what was done to her, and they didn’t take it; if anything they seemed to take its truth or plausibility for granted. Maybe they have some background knowledge that would account for that; maybe you’re overlooking that possibility.

    And what is the point of talking about someone else’s exaggerated account in order to substantiate your suspicion of this one? When I said you hadn’t offered any evidence, I meant evidence about Marie-Therese’s account in particular. Damn. Again, skepticism is a fine thing, but it cuts both ways. A little skepticism about your own perspicacity might be in order. Suppose someone you know is assaulted. Do you tell her about some other person who claimed to have been assaulted but wasn’t and then say ‘therefore I don’t believe you were assaulted?’

    In short, stop it. I invited Marie-Therese to contribute that article; I do not want your baseless speculations about it.

  • #19

    The above is addressed to Cathal, by the way.

  • #20

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    It was exactly a year ago that I first started asking questions about the High Park burials.

    Of the 155 remains in the unmarked plot, I discovered that 80 of the deaths had never been notified to the authorities.

    The nuns had no names for 45 of the women – several of them were identified merely as Magdalen of the

    Good Shepherd, Magdalen of Lourdes, and so forth. Most of these women had died as recently as the 1960s and ’70s.

    Since 1880, it has been a criminal offence to fail to register a death which occurs on your premises.

    In the case of High Park, it was the duty of the nuns (the Sisters of Our Lady of Charity of Refuge) to do this. The current penalty for this offence is a fine of €2,000, six months in prison, or both.

  • #21

    I don’t want you bouncing around here announcing your incredulity about Marie-Therese’s account. This isn’t a court of law, you’re not a witness, you have no special information, so your doubts or whatever they are are not useful or relevant. And they’re bloody unpleasant and rude, so I’d like you to shut up about them now.

    I didn’t comment on the substance of Marie-Therese’s account. I referred to two other dubious cases.

    It’s true that I am not a ‘court of law’ — but I still think it more ‘useful’ and ‘relevant’ to try to play the role of judge than the role of barrister in highly controversial cases.

    Thanks for the reference to the Dail debates.

  • #22

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    The Magdalen Laundries: Ireland’s Shameful Past

    In 1993, the Sisters of Charity, who owned a large piece of land in Dublin, Ireland known as the High Park Convent, were forced to sell a substantial portion of this property for public use. The sale came as a result of heavy losses suffered due to a bad investment in an experimental, new Guinness Aerospace company which went bust. As arrangements were being made for the sale of the property, it came to light that some 133 graves existed on this piece of land — graves belonging to women who had worked in the Convent’s laundry and in other areas within the Convent as housemaids, domestics, and the like. These women, known as “penitents,” or, popularly, as the “Magdalens” worked behind these and other walls for a variety of reasons.

    Since the early 1900′s, Ireland has fostered a system of convent laundries — some ten or more, spread across the country in cities like Dublin, Limerick, Galway, and Cork. They existed to provide laundering services for nearby prisons, orphanages, and to launder the clerical robes of the Catholic clergy. The women and girls who worked in the facilities did the highly symbolic task of laundering and ironing as penance for a variety of crimes. Some became pregnant outside of wedlock and, disowned by their families, were forced to seek refuge behind Convent walls for the rest of their lives, many after relinquishing their children to the State. Others were remanded to Convent care because they were ‘delinquent,’ of ‘poor moral character,’ ‘dysfunctional,’ or simply too pretty — too much of a ‘temptation’ to the males of their village. Some of those who entered pregnant became that way by their parish priest, fathers, or brothers. They were societal outcasts, a shame and a burden to whatever family they may have had. Many had no family at all — orphans themselves, or also born out of wedlock. Their “penance” was to spend a life in sad servitude to the various religious orders who gave them food, shelter, and in equal measures, pity and abuse.

    mor

    When the 133 graves at High Park were discovered, a huge cry went up among Irish society. What would become of these sad women and their legacy? Many of the graves were unmarked. With no family to claim or name them, so many women died within the system itself, actually cared for in their last days by their own sisters in shame, but with no other family member to step forward and bury them decently. And so the good Sisters of Charity did what they could, quietly interring these 133 souls over a period spanning nearly 100 years.

    As public outrage grew, a decision was made to reinter the bodies in nearby Glasnevin Cemetery. Some were identified in the process and claimed by younger generations of whatever family they had left. Slight memorials exist at Glasnevin Cemetery in Dublin and in St Stephen’s Green, where a simple, sad bench and plaque sit.

    Society — still outraged at the sad history of these women — continued to stew over this state of affairs in the media, in books, and in plays. Recent allegations of abuse at the Goldenbridge orphanage in Dublin as well as newly-discovered archives of some 2,000 Irish children exported to the US and elsewhere had already added to the fury and questions began to fly. What kind of so-called al, decent society could so shun and penalize its women?

    Today we hear horrifying stories of ritualistic genital mutilation in some sectors of Muslim society; we hear of the thousands of Chinese infant girls left to languish and die at birth because they were not born male and exceeded the one-child-per-family rule in effect in China. We hear of Romanian orphans, illegal Brazilian adoption schemes, Chile’s horrifying baby-brokering history — each and every case a horrible example of man’s inhumanity to mankind, or in this case, womankind.

    But in a relatively civilized European country? It seems unfathomable. But there it is — and the Catholic Church staunchly defending its actions, asking us to place it within the ‘context of the times.’ This is just the way it was done back then and besides, it was society who judged and sentenced these women, not the church, they say.

    Well, there are two vital flaws in their theories:

    If we accept their ‘place it in the context of the times’ excuse, then what next? Do we excuse Nazi genocide of Jewish and other people because it was ‘just the way things were done then’? Do we next excuse the Inquisition by placing it in a ‘time context’ as well?

    And as for placing the blame on society — it is and was well-known that Irish society has been Church-driven since at least the 6th century AD, when Ireland’s native Brehon law was completely eradicated and replaced with Roman/Canon law. Interestingly, under ancient Brehon law, if a man impregnated a woman he was not bound to by marriage, regardless of her societal station, mental status, etc., he was required to care for her and the resulting child. The child was then accorded the same rights and privileges of inheritance and ascendancy as a child born inside the bonds of marriage.

    How far Ireland has come. While it has always been and is still a highly matriarchal society, Ireland’s laws and social mores have for hundreds of years been not only Church-driven, but male-dominated. If the Church says birth outside marriage is wrong, then society would simply march in step and agree, not the other way ’round. Which throws a fly in the ointment of Mother Church’s other infamous excuse.

    And what of the men who impregnated women in this modern Ireland? I have been asked so often what role Irish birthfathers play. The answer: none. These randy old goats simply went their merry way, or if they wanted to be involved, were forbidden by church and family. Many went on as if nothing had ever happened, still holding their head high, with no recriminations on the part of church or society. Perhaps a muffled, “Best be careful Paddy, boyo, next time…” on the part of a slyly winking father, would have been the only admonition. More likely, the lad’s evidence of virility would have been celebrated over a pint in the nearest pub, amid much laughter and derision over the poor girl’s plight.

    The last wave of this legacy, women like my birthmother who bore the final vestiges of Catholic guilt and shame by bearing children out of wedlock, still hide shamefully in the shadows. Much like many of us sitting here today, they silently bore their stigma, doing as they were told to get on with their lives, forget the past, marry and never tell a soul your dreadful secret. Until the mid-1970′s, the birthmothers, the ‘penitents’, the Magdalens of Ireland, bore an unimaginable cross of ill-treatment, ritualistic abuse and, most cruelly — were often required to stay with their children until the time came for them to be adopted into new homes: some in Ireland, many far away in America. My birthmother and many of the women who entered homes like the Sacred Heart Convent in Cork, Castlepollard in Westmeath, St. Patrick’s in Dublin, and Sean Ross Abbey in Tipperary, even breastfed us and cared for us — often up till age two or older. They were then cruelly parted from us, often under questionable circumstances. Many were told the relinquishment was a fostering arrangement, that they could reclaim their child if they proved themselves ‘decent’ women and came back with marriage certificates in hand. I know of one woman who did just that, only to learn her daughter had already gone to America. She was given a photo of her daughter’s first Christmas with her new American family. I cannot even begin to fathom that sort of heartbreak, even having relinquished my own daughter through the Catholic Church in Philadelphia in 1978.

    Even today, the Irish birthmothers I have come into contact with are extremely skittish, scared, and unwilling or unable to come forward with their secret. It’s as if some invisible sword of Damascus hangs over their heads, ready at any moment to strike them the minute they publicly acknowledge their relinquished children. I have shared the success empowerment has brought to many of us here in the US with these women. Successes like the march on Washington, DC, the full-page ad we sponsored in the Oregonian prior to Measure 58′s passing. Still, the stigma hangs so heavy, they have only taken feeble, tentative steps towards making their voices heard to the Irish government and the Catholic church.

    Much remains to be done. And for my part, I have made it my goal to continue educating people on the story of the Magdalens. Their voices have been silenced; mine has not. I will continue to speak out so that these women will be remembered.

  • #23

    Cathal, think what you like, but don’t play the judge in this instance. And don’t be disingenuous, either – you didn’t need to comment on the substance of Marie-Therese’s account; you’re urging skepticism about it on the grounds that other cases are ‘dubious’. Don’t.

  • #24

    Also, there’s a somewhat interesting epistemic issue here.

    “Do you think these ‘survivors’ are going to play down their sufferings? We’re talking big money – to date approx. €70 000 for each ‘certified’ victim.”

    What you say is true as far as it goes – compensation can of course provide a motivation for fakery or exaggeration; but it is also true that people do bad things to each other; your point does not cancel out the second point. The fact that some people may be motivated to invent or exaggerate claims does nothing to demonstrate that abuses did not happen. I’m sure you realize that, but I’m not sure you don’t lose sight of it when you post these things.

  • #25

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    Magdalen Laundries have not been included in the Irish Residential Institutions Redress Board.

    I find this a gross travesty of justice.

    However, children who went into them directly from the Industrial Schools will be catered for in the RIRB up to the age of eighteen.

  • #26

    They haven’t!? That’s grotesque.

  • #27

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin.

    Kathy O’Beirne was never in an Industrial School so she will obviously not be dealt with by the RIRB. so there is no fear of her ripping off the Irish Governments – off shore accounts.

  • #28

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    A young Irish Solicitor with five years experience earns the same amount as the average amount being paid out by the Redress Board = E70K.

    A Goldenbridge contemporary of mine who went into the system at three years of age was last year offered a meagrely sum of 25k. She naturally refused same.

    I wont go into the pendantics of case as it would not be my remit, but at the end of it all she got 90k.

    This person was classed as “slow” in the institution, so the RIRB thought it

    would get away with its shenanigans.

    Thought, though, left it thinking.

  • #29

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    Magdalen Laundries were privately religious run/ownned and very profitable enterprises so the Government does not see that it had/has any responsibility.

    The same is applicable to Boarding/Day Schools which were/are totally autonomomous from the Government.

    Mother/Baby homes on the other hand are on the RIRB schedule, albeit too few, as they come under the Department of Health.

    I am presently seeking to get my respective institution on the list.

    It’s a hard slog.

    The Government to this very day owns the building which was once a work-house.

    It is no longer a mother/baby unit but instead a hostel for the most downtrodden of Irish society.

    Regarding injuries that I received in above feeder institution, there is no dispute as to same not having occurred.

    Documentation concerning matter is to be had from the institution per se.

    I suspect there is another more sinister reason as to why the government has not put it on the RIRB list.

  • #30

    Ah – Regina Coeli/Morning Star. I saw the discussion in the Dáil – that explains what they were talking about.

  • #31

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin.

    Re: Kathy o’ Beirne

    >O’Beirne:

    “They were somebody’s children and they are only the ones we know about, there is hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of bodies buried on the land of the Magdalene Laundries all around Dublin and the country and in Letterfrack, hundreds, hundreds and they just didn’t die from being under-nourished or anything else, a lot of the children were murdered and they were left to starve to death, you know.”<

    Re: LETTERFRACK

    Brother Gibson said there was nothing out of the ordinary about the death of 100 boys during the history of the former industrial school.

    The deaths at St Joseph’s occurred from illnesses such as pneumonia, TB and meningitis or from fatal accidents. Brother Gibson said there was not a shred of truth to the recent allegation that the boys had been killed by brothers and buried in unmarked graves.

    He added the school had kept records of each of the 100 boys who died during the 86 years it was in existence and that every one had been fully accounted for.

  • #32

    MarieTherese O’ Loughlin

    >Hitler didn’t treat his people like that, he was decent, he put them all in and he gassed them.”>

    I presume that Kathy means that Hitler was decent in that he took them out of their agony.

    Kathy, like myself, would not have been educated so our way of expressing ourselves could be easily misconstrued.

    The following is the last sentence of my statement to the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.

    Why were we not exterminated altogether as it would have put an instantaneous end to the pain and suffering.

    Reading excerpts from Kathy’s that Cathal posted I can plainly see that she is all over the institutional shop.

    I hope dementia never darkens Cathal’s door door. It would not do for him to become deranged.

    You are making judgments on peoples lives you know nothing about.

  • #33

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin.

    >I cited evidence in some earlier letters (following your Goldenbridge posting of 17 December): (a) the case of Christine Buckley, in which I provided a link with an article published in The Sunday Times on 28 April 1996 (entitled “Medical View ‘Inconsistent’ With Goldenbridge Abuse”)<

    It has not been proven that it did not occur irrespective of the Medical View Inconsistency theory.

    The outcome of this has still yet to be decided by Judge Sean Ryan.

    The Commission to inquire into Child Abuse Report should be out in 2007

  • #34

    Marie-Theresae O’ Loughlin

    >To that I should add that (according to newspaper reports) Irish solicitors have been trawling and dredging the country to find victims and ‘survivors’ seeking compensation. Do you think these ‘survivors’ are going to play down their sufferings? We’re talking big money – to date approx. €70 000 for each ‘certified’ victim. Figure it out for yourself. At any rate I smell not a rat but an ‘exaltation’ of rats (not that I’m saying that ‘it’s all a lark’, though).>

    Because of the systematic atrocities endured in the institutions, inmates were left with no other alternative but to take the boat to various corners of the world.

    Hence the massive campaign that Christine Buckley and others took, without the help of the government. The latter wanted to deal with few as possible.

    Solicitors were needed for this as is only natural.

    Compensation for Residents of State Run Institutions

    ABUSE SURVIVOR URGES 100,000 MISSING IRISH CLAIMANTS TO COME FORWARD

    CUT OFF POINT FOR CLAIMS EXPIRES 2005

    A worldwide campaign has been launched to locate some 100,000 Irish people who went through State Institutions in Ireland. Children who suffered abuse may now be entitled to compensation and education grants as survivors of abuse.

    The search for survivors is taking place in the United Kingdom, United States, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Approximately 150,000-plus children and teenagers went through residential institutions in Ireland between the 1920s and the 1980s.

    Many of these experienced abuse at the hands of religious and others while in orphanages, industrial schools and centres for young offenders.

    It is estimated that as many as 100,000 of those, who went through 100 such institutions, fled Ireland and went abroad. But of these, only a proportion appear to be aware of the Residential Institutions Redress Board which has been set up by the State to compensate and assist people who were abused in institutions.

    Ms Christine Buckley of Aislinn is leading the campaign to alert survivors of abuse to the existence of the Redress Board.

    Aislinn is one of the foremost leaders in the campaign in Ireland which led to the Irish Prime Minister’s apology to victims, the establishment of the Residential Institutions Redress Board, the Child Abuse Commission, which is investigating the abuse suffered in institutions and nationwide counselling.

    “Aislinn receives some calls from around the world, including Canada, from people who are vaguely aware that there is a Redress Board.

    There needs to be a much greater level of awareness and this campaign is an attempt to connect with survivors and to make them aware of their right to counselling, education, compensation and assistance in tracing their records,” Ms Buckley said.

    Ms Buckley has been critical of the Irish Government’s failure to put resources into notifying survivors in the US and Australia. This has led to her travelling to many international centres to raise awareness of the Redress Board.

    Ms Buckley was put into care at three weeks of age. At four years old she was sent to the notorious Goldenbridge Industrial School, which was run by the Sisters of Mercy in Dublin. Whilst there from 1950 to 1964, she suffered severe physical abuse.

    Many of the victims who fled Ireland once they were old enough to do so ended up in difficult circumstances. Because they were denied an education, many cannot read or write and may be unaware that there is a compensation process in Ireland. Hopefully through radio and television publicity, these people will be aware of what is happening in Ireland and will get applications in before the closing date.

    Aislinn was set up in 1999 by Ms Christine Buckley and Ms Carmel McDonnell-Byrne, both victims of institutional abuse in Goldenbridge. Aislinn has been heavily involved in lobbying the Government and religious orders to receive compensation for its members.

    Aislinn is both an education and counselling centre and has assisted over 4,000 people since its inception. Its many services include literacy classes, intervening with the government on behalf of survivors and helping victims trace their parents and families.

    A call save number ( 617-737-9969 ) has been established in America and Canada for abuse survivors to leave their details in strictest confidence. Callers will be contacted and provided with legal advice and assistance with the application process.

    Survivors can contact call number 617-737-9969 for further information.

    PS; Am I putting up too much in the one comment.

  • #35

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    >To that I should add that (according to newspaper reports) Irish solicitors have been trawling and dredging the country to find victims and ‘survivors’ seeking compensation. Do you think these ‘survivors’ are going to play down their sufferings? We’re talking big money – to date approx. €70 000 for each ‘certified’ victim. Figure it out for yourself. At any rate I smell not a rat but an ‘exaltation’ of rats (not that I’m saying that ‘it’s all a lark’, though).

    Yes undeniably,

    there were a myriad forager solicitors from all over the country who got on the Residential Institutions Redress gravy train {in this context} through the back door trying to sing the praises of not a soul but themselves, they thought and still think it is a great prank with all the extra pennies they have rattling in their back pockets., Why wouldn’t they?

    There is no larking about with these fellows.

    They get paid approx 11k per client, commit to memory this also that the statement used for the CICA is also practically the same one used for the RIRB and who knows it could also be the one used if one decides to take the court route.

    ” Do you think these ‘survivors’ are going to play down their sufferings? “

    The RIRB, which is half way through its work is quite well aware of the institutions make-up and would be well competent of sussing out the “suffering” repartee from the “suffering “truth . “Suffering wise” They are experts and know their job.

    Figure it out for yourself.” “We’re talking big money – to date approx. €70 000 for each ‘certified’ victim

    I am trying to figure out all this “big money” that you go on about,

    Ireland is a very expensive country, to give an example: a trainee {school leaver} Legal receptionist’s wage per annum would be in the region of 25/30k

    So a school leavers two and a half years wage is awesome in your mindset and way over the top to give to a victim/survivor who may have spent their whole childhood working in a factory, farm, or laundry?

    I do not see the fairness in this.

    Ireland is also awash with dosh, victims/survivors are not exactly bleeding the country dry.

    What is your definition of “certified “victim?

    Am I reading into centre word too much?

    Perhaps, if you started smelling the roses you too might become illustrious

    How can you smell an exhaltation of rats when you cannot even distinguish between the smell of the individual rat. What a lark indeed!

  • #36

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin.

    Corrections in earlier postings. “autonomous” “owned”.

    Micheal E Hanahoe Solicitors of Sunlight Chambers, 21, Parliament St,

    Dublin 2, is a fantastic firm.

    It was there at the outset of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and the Residential Institutions Redress Board.

    There are innumerable victims/survivors who are eternally indebted to it for its understanding of very complex and traumatised people. The firm believed in us when others were not in the least bit interested.

    It has been exceptionally kind and patient, well, most times anyway.

    HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!

  • #37

    Marie-Therese, thanks for the information on the ‘trawling solicitors’ — no wonder lawyer jokes will never go out of fashion.

    Please don’t misunderstand my mild skepticism. It’s just that so much is based on testimony rather than palpable evidence, which I suppose is unavoidable given the many years that have elapsed since you were so badly abused (on the other hand, given Goldenbridge’s horrific reputation, I’d almost say you had been abused even if you yourself denied it).

    I’m still flabbergasted that you haven’t received entitlement to compensation, though. Isn’t Goldenbridge covered by the RIRB?

    Slan,

    Cathal

  • #38

    “It’s just that so much is based on testimony rather than palpable evidence”

    Sure; and in many circumstances that is reason for caution; in some circumstances it’s just plain inadmissable. But, Cathal, I did invite Marie-Therese to contribute precisely because I wanted her testimony. I’d read enough (little though it was) about the overall subject to want to know more and to be very pleased to have access to some personal testimony. (And I’d googled her and read about the protest outside the Dáil, so I knew the Dáil took her testimony seriously.) It’s an article, not a sworn statement, and it’s an article I requested. Under the circumstances I just think it’s unpleasant and uncivil for you then to express skepticism.

    But, I daresay you’ve taken that in by now. But I wanted to explain that this particular testimony already had a certain credibility; that’s why I requested it.

    In future how about emailing me first if you have questions.

  • #39

    Cathal:

    You’ve lost it completely. Mr Tingey thinks Ireland was better off under British rule. I pointed out what Britsh rule entailed in order to demonstate the absurdity of this claim. That’s all. Don’t cloud this issue.

    As for Mr Tingey’s latest comments: it will come as a shock to those who read his regular contribution on how religion is all about lying and blackmail, that he can look upon so much evil perpetrated by members of one religion on those of another and not only not get angry but can actually rationalise it. Hence his paean to sectarianism : “As for sectarianism, the English had very good reason to loathe and fear the catholic church and its’ heirarchy.” All well and good if the English had restricted themselves to their own country. But no, they had to murder and oppress Irish Catholics in Ireland . And Mr Tingey can see no wrong in that – because the victims were Paddies and therefore do not count. The repression of English non-Catholics during the short reign of Queen Mary justifies centuries of oppression of Irish Catholics . Even though the Paddies did not want to have anything to do with England then or later! How absurd can an argument get? To analyse it: it is acceptable to an avowed enemy of religion of all kinds that a group of people who had the same religion as a despot should be persecuted because of their shared religion for centuries after, even though the oppressed group were innocent of involvement in the despot’s activities at the time and even though then and later they wanted to have nothing to do with the despot or her successors and even though the despot and her successors insisted – with violence – on interfering in its affairs.

  • #40

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    >”It’s just that so much is based on testimony rather than palpable evidence, which I suppose is unavoidable given the many years that have elapsed since you were so badly abused”<

    Time, never erased my memories of Goldenbridge, you see Cathal I did not have the added distraction of the outside world to contend with.

    I worked to rule, every day was the same, with the exception of summer time when other children/myself, who had no family went to a holiday home in Rathdrum Co Wicklow, which was, incidentally, paid for with monies accrued from the Rosary Beads “lark”.

    The only happy memories I have are connected to this exquisite environment, {not staff} which was the only positive thing in our lives.

    Not ever having human comforts we could at least enjoy the absolutely natural beauty of our surroundings.

    To this day I still love the Garden of Ireland.

    There is now a statue of Charles Stewart Parnell standing on the spot where once the old rambling Victorian house stood.

    We always ascertained that there should have been a plaque erected to all the Goldenbridge inmates as well.

    Parnell originated from nearby Avondale, and part of the property was sold to Wicklow Co council, the other part was handed over to The Residential Institutions Redress Board.

    I have retained memories of the first book that I learned.

    “There are three pigs, the first pig is fat the next pig is fatter the last is even fater, he is indeed the fattest of them all.”

    “If I were an apple and grew on a tree ,I think I would fall down on a nice boy like me I would not stay there giving nobody joy I would fall down at once and say, eat me my boy”

    Would you like me to go on, and on, and on!

    By the way, Cathal, you might think I am going into my second childhood with this racket, well let me tell you something for nothing, I have not as yet stepped outside of my first one.

    Slan go foill.

  • #41

    I was merely suggesting, perhaps over-strongly, that substituting the rule of the evil black crows was no improvement whatsoever over the rule of the “English” in Ireland.

    I have never suggested in any way that killing and or oppressing “paddies” _ P. Powers own description, not mine – was a good idea.

    He seems determined to ascribe things I have neither said, nor meant to me.

    I suspect Cathal has it right – he is determined to be an oppressed victim.

    Going to the original subject, I knew the church was bad, but Ms. O’Loughlin’s comments were truly shocking and horrible.

    But then, what’s a few tortured children, provided their souls are pure for god to take them up aftrewards?

  • #42

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    Goldenbridge “is” on the RIRB schedule, and I do not have a problem with it – with respect to my own situation.

    But I do have with regards others and their treatment to date at the hands of it.

    It, indeed, leaves very much to be desired.

    Victims/survivors are also gagged, they

    are not even allowed to discuss their cases afterwards with their own siblings.

    The RIRB should in my estimation be taken to the European Courts of Human Rights.

    The arrogance is also something to be reckoned with, I experienced it first hand when I went there in the capacity of witness.

    I saw two of the experts sniggering as they left a meeting of a very traumatised highly strung victim.

    Dr. Michael Corry, of “Depression Dialogue,” had a similar experience and wrote to the media concerning it, the letter should be had on Paddy Doyle’s God Squad site.

    Victims/survivors have never forgotten him for sticking up for us.

    Slan,

    Marie-Therese O’Loughlin

  • #43

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    On receipt of Goldenbridge Records which was allowed under the Freedom of Information Act, I discovered therein in medical section evidence relating to the injuries received in the feeder institution, the Regina Ceoli/ Morning Star.

    It is there in black and white, these records would have come from the Department of Education, who was the overseer of the industrial schools.

  • #44

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    I was also horrified to learn when I got my records that at five years old I was on the dying list at a fever hospital in Clonskeagh, Dublin. The only person that was allowed in to see me was my guardian

    who was none other than Sister X.

    No relative was contacted or was any effort made to do so.

    I vividly remember standing in a cot and looking up at a black huge window, the memory haunted me all my life.

    I always associated it with being in hospital with burn injuries and could not fathom how I could have been standing in a cot as I was only eighteen months.

    Christine Buckley, who was a midwife told me the reasoning behind black window. Fever hospitals put black blankets/curtains up to stop the light from entering.

    The Sisters of Mercy should be ashamed of themselves for denying me and thousands of others the rights to our natural parent/parents

  • #45

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    Tearing children away from their biological parent/parents was a common feature in Goldenbridge.

    I have one huge memory of this, that so much so I almost went into convulsions.

    The memory of it never leaves, it is virtually relived in very emotional upheavals.

    Like a monster, every now and again, it claws away at me scratching and scraping away at my emotional skin till blood is drawn

    Watching other children being torn away from their parents was also a sore sight, indeed.

    Children who lost their parents through death were also never afforded any empathy.

    They were told to get along with it and the subject was never again raised.

    Such was life in the cold miserable gulag.

  • #46

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin.

    >The Church to this day still sits around the government table discussing what is good for dear old mother Ireland.<

    Re:Impending referendum on children’s rights.

    “Meanwhile Minister for Children Brian Lenihan has confirmed to The Irish Times that he will meet Catholic Church representatives in mid-January to discuss a referendum wording.”

    {The above was taken from todays paper]

    Media, Church and State singing out of the one hymn sheet as per usual!

  • #47

    To G.Tingey:

    You really do need to learn how to think.

    “I was merely suggesting, perhaps over-strongly, that substituting the rule of the evil black crows was no improvement whatsoever over the rule of the “English” in Ireland.

    I have never suggested in any way that killing and or oppressing “paddies” _ P. Powers own description, not mine – was a good idea” is a contradiction. As nothing since independence matches the worse barbarities of English rule either quantitatively or qualitatively, there is no way independence could not have been an improvement. So to admit the mass killing of Paddies is to contradict yourself.

    Your position is that it is ok for the English to do to the Irish what is not not ok for anyone to do to the English. Is this because you have somthing particular against the Irish or because you see the English as better than the rest of humanity?

    As regards the Famine, yet again your blindness to the basic problem leads you astray. The Irish did not want to be ruled by the British, so there should have been no question about the competence of the British administration of Ireland. Only 2 years before the famine started, a campaign to restore Home Rule was ended when the British government threatened to murder those campaigning. Without Home Rule, the Irish doomed because the British were still debating the repeal of the Corn Laws (banning the importation of corn) which together with the incompetence mentioned led to mass starvation.

    As for all this nonsense about being able to vote: I’ll ignore that hardly anyone could vote for most of the period in question, I’ll ignore the power of the unelected House of Lords to veto any legislation (until 1911 – a bit late in the day), I’ll even ignore the fact the the Irish representatives were hugely outnumbered. But I will point out that the Irish were never asked whether they wanted to be involved in the British parliament. And that at first they consistently voted about 80-20 for Home Rule and never got it; and that in the 1918 election they elected 76 out of 100 MPs from Sinn Fein who wanted independence and who promised to boycott the British Parliament. And they never got independence either. (In case you’re confused, in both cases they voted for a single political authority in all of Ireland, not some piece of it). Some “vote”!

  • #48

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    EU foreign ministers approved the Government’s proposal at a meeting today. The new arrangements will come into effect on January 1st, 2007.

    Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Dermot Ahern welcomed the decision, saying: “I am very pleased that the Irish language has been accorded official and working status in the European Union.

    “This affirms at European level the dignity and status of our first official language. This represents a particularly significant practical step for the Irish language, and complements the Government’s wider policy of strong support for the language at home.

    In Goldenbridge, the sisters always spoke in Gaelic to each other in our presence when they did not want us to know the content of their conversation. From their demeanours it was obvious that whatever they were prattling on about what not positive.

    One of them hailed from a Donegal Gaeltacht area and was naturally fluent in this ancient brilliant language.

    Unfortunately, she never passed on her talents with the exception of teaching us some enchanting Irish songs which I still to this day retain.

    We were robbed of our cultural rights.

    I am thrilled that Irish has been officially accorded working status in the European Union.

    I dread to think how they will get their tongues around it as it is such a difficult language to learn.

    Slan go foill.

  • #49

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin.

    Re: Reformatory/Industrial Schools Records

    CRIMINAL RECORDS Page 83 Criminal records. Many victims/ survivors feel strong bitterness at having “a criminal record” as a result of their committal to a reformatory or industrial school thirty, forty or more years ago; some have been refused employment on account of such record. It is their wish for the record to be expunged in some way, so that no reference can no longer be made to their past confinement in an institution. It is still not known, for example, whether a person’s formal criminal record includes the details of his or her detention in an industrial or reformatory school. Victims/survivors have been informed that there would normally have been a record in respect of children who committed offences as a result of which they were detained in a reformatory or industrial school, but that there ought not to be a criminal record in respect of a child placed in such an institution for care reasons.The Children Act, 2001 provides in section 258 a type of rehabilitation. From another source the present Tanaiste and

    Minister for Justice Michael Mc Dowell Justice said that the reason forms with the Heading: ORDER OF DETENTION were used after our trips to the District Courts was because the Court Service had no other types of forms on hand.

    Obviously the Minister has never seen an ORDER OF DETENTION. These Forms had only ONE obvious use and that use was to do with the DETENTION OF CHILDREN IN the Institutions.

  • #50

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    Pope Benedict XVI, in his New Year homily in St Peter’s Basilica in Rome, described peace as a “gift to invoke with prayer, a task to carry out with courage, without ever tiring”. Peace, he added, can only be achieved if individuals’ human rights are respected. He stressed that there can be no excuse for treating people as “objects”. He’s right that there can be no excuse for treating people as objects. That is the road to dehumanisation and evil.

    SLAN!

  • #51

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    Freudianism never really caught on in in Ireland. It was strongly opposed by the Church because it appeared to contradict Catholic doctrine in the area of free will and personal responsibility. By the time the Church started to lose its influence in Ireland, Freudian ideas were also past their heyday.

    Slan!

The CICA report

Posted on by
Reply

The CICA report

May 20th, 2009 | By 

Category: Notes and Comment Blog

The Commission into Child Abuse report is out. It found that children lived in ‘daily terror’ of being beaten in industrial schools (which weren’t really schools at all) from 1940 onwards.

It found that corporal punishment was “pervasive, severe, arbitrary and unpredictable” in the institutions where “children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from.” The report said that the level of emotional abuse of disadvantaged, neglected and abandoned children by religious and lay staff was “disturbing” and that the Catholic Church was aware long-term sex offenders were repeatedly abusing children…the Commission found that “children were frequently hungry, food was inadequate, inedible and badly prepared in many schools.”…Accommodation in the institutions was “cold, spartan and bleak” with sanitary provision “primitive” in most boys’ schools particularly. Academic education “was not seen as a priority for industrials school children” and “in reality, the industrial training afforded by all schools was of a nature that served the needs of the institution rather than the needs of the child.”

But the emotional abuse was even worse.

A finding which the Commission said was “a disturbing element” of the evidence presented before it, was “`the level of emotional abuse that disadvantaged, neglected and abandoned children were subjected to generally by religious and lay staff” at the institutions…Separation of siblings and restrictions on family contacts “were profoundly damaging for family relationships.” It meant that “some children lost their sense of identity and kinship, which was never recovered.”

This is the Catholic church, don’t forget, which is always making a parade of its extreme compassion and sympathy and tenderness toward the fetus. These are real, thinking, feeling children who were starved, frozen, beaten, terrorized, taken away from their mothers, prevented from ever seeing their mothers, called horrible names, denied an education, made to work at slave labour, denied even the small wages they had theoretically earned – this is the compassion and tenderness of the Catholic church.

It was institutional.

The five-volume study concluded that church officials encouraged ritual beatings and consistently shielded their orders’ paedophiles from arrest amid a “culture of self-serving secrecy”. It also found that government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.

Well hey, these were only children. If they’d been fetuses it would have been a different story.

The report said that girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.

Yeah – we know. Marie-Therese has told us.

Sister Fabian always called children by disparaging names; she had a list as long as her arm. Amadan; oinseach; gombeen; half-wit; crackawley; cracked; dope, clown, clot, crackpot; she predominantly said to me; “there is a ‘want’ in you Lougho” – meaning that I was not “the full shilling!”…We were mere nonentities who were never going to quantify to anything in this life. We were never, ever, going anywhere. The sisters could as a result unremittingly lay before us reminders of our lowly status…Sr. Fabian for all time held her nose at children and said “you dirty thing, get out of my sight.” She was a very intolerant sister and caused huge damage to children because of it.

As the report says:

The commission said overwhelming, consistent testimony from still-traumatized men and women, now in their 50s to 80s, had demonstrated beyond a doubt that the entire system treated children more like prison inmates and slaves than people with legal rights and human potential. “The reformatory and industrial schools depended on rigid control by means of severe corporal punishment and the fear of such punishment,” it said. “The harshness of the regime was inculcated into the culture of the schools by successive generations of brothers, priests and nuns.”

Like Sadie O’Meara for instance.

Sadie O’Meara, a 15-year-old Tipperary girl working in Dublin, was brought to one of the Magdalene Laundries by the Legion of Mary. There she worked long hours washing and ironing customers laundry. The daughter of an unmarried mother, she says she never found out why she ended up there and for four years suffered physical and emotional abuse in an institution run by the Sisters of Charity. “You’d be up at 6am and you had to go to two Masses,” she said. “Your cell door was locked every night when you went in and you had a bucket and an iron bed and you couldn’t look out the window. It was all bars. The food was absolutely brutal. And my mam died but they never told me she died. She died on Christmas Day but they never told me. I didn’t know that until they let me out four years later. That’s something that really upsets me.”

Well it would. They told Marie-Therese, on the other hand, that her mother was dead when she wasn’t. “Those at the industrial schools have said the abuse they suffered stays with them all their lives.”

18 RESPONSES TO “THE CICA REPORT”

  • #1

    Infuriating.

  • #2

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    The report in to child abuse has found that religious congregations are not prepared to accept responsibility for the abuse perpetrated by their members. I know for fact that the religious have shielded some of their religious perpetrators of abuse, as they find it so unfathomable that they could be responsible for such cruelty, both sexual and physical, towards children. The church continues to protect their own, even to the point of allowing them to be buried in consecrated ground.

    I see that the long-awaited report recommends that management should be held accountable. I sincerely hope Sr Helena O’ Donoghue, ex leader of the congregation of the southern province of the Sisters of Mercy, swallows a spoonful of this tasteless medicine.

    It also recommends that a memorial should be erected for the victims with the words of the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s apology on behalf of the State in 1999.

    Yeah, the Goldenbridge folk, I do know, from past conversations, would like their own memorial placed in Rathdrum, Co Wicklow. They were very embittered that a statue of a well-known Irish figure was erected on the very ground of the holiday home – which is incidentaly, in the most scenic part of the garden of Ireland.

    The Commission has spent the past ten years examining the abuse of children in schools and religious institutions since the 1940s.

    What a long decade it has been indeed! It is hard to believe that CICA has reached its finality.

    Thank you OB, for playing your part in all of this – I am so indebted to you.

  • #3

    Marie-Therese, it is a bastardly set of crimes we learn of here. I am very sorry that you and so many others suffered from them.

  • #4

    Eric MacDonald

    OB, I’m glad you made the connnexion between the abuse in the schools and the so-called “pro-life” (heavy scare quote) position of the abusing church. This needs to be underlined. This is a power-hungry institution that really cares not a whit for others. Its pro-life nonsense is a way of holding on tight, a way of continuing to subordinate and abuse women.

    One of the victims whose statement was recorded by (I think) the BBC, said that victims want justice, not just a report. I don’t know how many victims would like to see their tormenters charged with criminal offences, but it is inconceivable that so many living criminals should be permitted to walk away from this.

    The Christian Brothers – the guilty ones in the St. John’s, Newfoundland, abuse case, some of whom were imprisoned, and at a private school in British Columbia too, I think – were apparently the worst offenders, and the least willing to take responsibility, “explaining”, rather than apologising, and they managed to get an injunction to expunge names of ofenders from the report.

    The church surely can’t just walk away, saying, as its befrocked leaders will, how terrible it all was, and how shocking, if it’s not willing to step up and pay the price. There should be some way to keep this pot on the boil until they come clean, hand over the guilty, stop playing the moral leader game, and admit that power is not good for churches. Sadie should be more than upset; she should be boiling mad, and we should be angry on her behalf.

    And let’s not pretend this was yesterday. The pope’s idiotic statements in Africa, the excommunication of the doctors and the mother of a child in Brazil, the continuing hold that the Vatican holds on every RC majority country and its laws, is clear proof of that. Churches are criminal organisations – and big ones ruled by a closed club of ‘celibates’ especially so – extorting money and loyalty out of people with lies (a kind of after-life protection racket). They push pretty hard. They make absolute moral claims. Is there an organised way that we can we push back? At least to see that its enforcers in Ireland are sent directly to jail (gaol)?

  • #5

    I agree with Eric. A report is not enough. These organizations need to be DISSOLVED. Their proeprty taken and distributed to the victims. No mercy.

  • #6

    Eric MacDonald

    I wrote my response first thing this morning, before I had a chance to reread Marie-Therese’s heart-breaking accounts of a childhood in Goldenbridge.

    But the story just keeps getting worse. Archbishop Nichols has just remarked on the courage of the religious orders who have faced their past. This is not a matter of courage, and he should have pointed out that the religious orders still have not answered charges of criminality that should have been brought against them. This is bizarre, someone who is to be installed as Archbishop of Westminster, today, who has the never to speak of courage with respect to religious orders that torments and cruelly treated and enslaved generations of children for their own and the Vatican’s benefit! The man himself should be charged for aiding and abetting the criminal behaviour of the institution he represents. For shame!

    Religions, they do poison everything. Nichols praises courage, and has none himself. For shame!

  • #7

    Eric MacDonald

    What passion can do. The word ‘never’ in the second paragraph of my last note should read ‘nerve’, ‘torments’ should have been ‘tormented’.

  • #8

    I’ve been reading some of the statements from senior clergy regarding this and their choice of phrasing is interesting. There are frequent references to regret that children ‘were abused’, regret that ‘this happened’, regret that the victims ‘feel’ pain.

    I believe this is characteristic of abusers confronted with their crimes – they talk about what they did as though it were something that ‘happened’ and tend to use the passive voice. They also make frequent references to how bad they feel, as if they were also victims of some impersonal event.

    I may have missed it, but I have not yet seen an honest mea culpa. Saying ‘We regret that this happened’ rather than ‘We are guilty of this and we are sorry.’ strongly implies that they have not actually absorbed the horror of what they did but are merely reacting to being caught out.

    Of course, that implication is redundant, as capping the compensation and refusing to identify the abusers screams it from the roof tops. An irredeemably vile institution, may it wither away and may I live to see it.

  • #9

    Indeed. I’ve just been composing an enraged comment on the archbishop. ‘Courage’ indeed! The mind reels.

  • #10

    And I didn’t even remember to say never mind the courage to confront blah blah, how about the courage to face prosecution?!

    Courage?!? The gall of it!

  • #11

    This is the first time I’ve read about what you suffered under that hideous regime, Marie-Therese. I am so very sorry.

  • #12

    And Mary Kenny’s piece was disgusting. At such times you either pay your respects to the victims’ pain and suffering or you shut up. She did neither.

  • #13

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    Thanks KB, and Eric.

    I am in total shock at the reaction of the world at large to the publication of this diabolical child abuse report. It is beyond belief.

    Yeah, it was a very cruel regime and the publication of the child abuse report is such a relief to those who grew up in the industrial school system in the past in Ireland.

    There were people out there telling us that we were suffering with false memory syndrome, we were in it for compensation alone and we were out to get at the church.

    We have been vindicated at long last.

    I am presently numb-struck and cannot articulate my thoughts on the whole scenario. The phone-lines of radio shows, and counselling services in Ireland have been flooded with people expressing their horror of the contents of the report.

    So many people have broken down – including radio presenters.

    Bernadette Fahy, Goldenbridge, “Freedom of Angels”, author and Mary Raftery, “Suffer the Little Children” co-author, are now both this instant on “Prime Time” giving a Christian Brother leader a run for his money, by reflecting to him the failure of his order to believe victims, in the first place and also the reluctance of the order to pay sufficient monies to the indemnity deal that was struck up by the government to recompense those who were abused in the system.

  • #14

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    “At such times you either pay your respects to the victims’ pain and suffering or you shut up. She did neither”.

    Aye, she never shut up about the black garbs, at all.

    PRIESTSX2I

    Strange are the crooked priests of humanity, that Mary Kenny had to repeat *priests* twenty-one times, in her article at B&W, in order to convey to readers, I would assume, her obsession with same.

  • #15

    “The phone-lines of radio shows, and counselling services in Ireland have been flooded with people expressing their horror of the contents of the report.

    So many people have broken down – including radio presenters.”

    Good. Good, good, good. It’s about sodding time.

  • #16

    Marie-Therese, thats the trouble with public moral outrage, it produces evidentiary corruption like false memory ‘therapists’ capitalising on true suffering from real crimes.

    If you look at the articles by Richard Webster about the witch-hunts in England known as police trawling operations, you see how judges were corrupted by public outrage into convicting many innocents.

    We also have in Australia many who suffered hardship and abuse in child migrant schemes and welfare homes, most publicly Aboriginal children but there were always many non-Aboriginals in institutions too. It has been shown here that the evidence offered in investigations such as the one in Ireland where no trials and prosecutions are possible, may be overwhelmed with anecdote only distantly able to form evidence. The ‘public moral outrage’ is less beneficial, I think, than actual prosecution and jailing of the perpetrators of the real acts of these criminal exploiters.

  • #17

    Great post! Just wanted to let you know you have a new subscriber- me!

  • #18

    KattyBlackyard

    I really like your post. Does it copyright protected?

The Cica Report

Posted on by
Reply

The CICA report

May 20th, 2009 | By 

Category: Notes and Comment Blog

The Commission into Child Abuse report is out. It found that children lived in ‘daily terror’ of being beaten in industrial schools (which weren’t really schools at all) from 1940 onwards.

It found that corporal punishment was “pervasive, severe, arbitrary and unpredictable” in the institutions where “children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from.” The report said that the level of emotional abuse of disadvantaged, neglected and abandoned children by religious and lay staff was “disturbing” and that the Catholic Church was aware long-term sex offenders were repeatedly abusing children…the Commission found that “children were frequently hungry, food was inadequate, inedible and badly prepared in many schools.”…Accommodation in the institutions was “cold, spartan and bleak” with sanitary provision “primitive” in most boys’ schools particularly. Academic education “was not seen as a priority for industrials school children” and “in reality, the industrial training afforded by all schools was of a nature that served the needs of the institution rather than the needs of the child.”

But the emotional abuse was even worse.

A finding which the Commission said was “a disturbing element” of the evidence presented before it, was “`the level of emotional abuse that disadvantaged, neglected and abandoned children were subjected to generally by religious and lay staff” at the institutions…Separation of siblings and restrictions on family contacts “were profoundly damaging for family relationships.” It meant that “some children lost their sense of identity and kinship, which was never recovered.”

This is the Catholic church, don’t forget, which is always making a parade of its extreme compassion and sympathy and tenderness toward the fetus. These are real, thinking, feeling children who were starved, frozen, beaten, terrorized, taken away from their mothers, prevented from ever seeing their mothers, called horrible names, denied an education, made to work at slave labour, denied even the small wages they had theoretically earned – this is the compassion and tenderness of the Catholic church.

It was institutional.

The five-volume study concluded that church officials encouraged ritual beatings and consistently shielded their orders’ paedophiles from arrest amid a “culture of self-serving secrecy”. It also found that government inspectors failed to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and humiliation.

Well hey, these were only children. If they’d been fetuses it would have been a different story.

The report said that girls supervised by orders of nuns, chiefly the Sisters of Mercy, suffered much less sexual abuse but frequent assaults and humiliation designed to make them feel worthless.

Yeah – we know. Marie-Therese has told us.

Sister Fabian always called children by disparaging names; she had a list as long as her arm. Amadan; oinseach; gombeen; half-wit; crackawley; cracked; dope, clown, clot, crackpot; she predominantly said to me; “there is a ‘want’ in you Lougho” – meaning that I was not “the full shilling!”…We were mere nonentities who were never going to quantify to anything in this life. We were never, ever, going anywhere. The sisters could as a result unremittingly lay before us reminders of our lowly status…Sr. Fabian for all time held her nose at children and said “you dirty thing, get out of my sight.” She was a very intolerant sister and caused huge damage to children because of it.

As the report says:

The commission said overwhelming, consistent testimony from still-traumatized men and women, now in their 50s to 80s, had demonstrated beyond a doubt that the entire system treated children more like prison inmates and slaves than people with legal rights and human potential. “The reformatory and industrial schools depended on rigid control by means of severe corporal punishment and the fear of such punishment,” it said. “The harshness of the regime was inculcated into the culture of the schools by successive generations of brothers, priests and nuns.”

Like Sadie O’Meara for instance.

Sadie O’Meara, a 15-year-old Tipperary girl working in Dublin, was brought to one of the Magdalene Laundries by the Legion of Mary. There she worked long hours washing and ironing customers laundry. The daughter of an unmarried mother, she says she never found out why she ended up there and for four years suffered physical and emotional abuse in an institution run by the Sisters of Charity. “You’d be up at 6am and you had to go to two Masses,” she said. “Your cell door was locked every night when you went in and you had a bucket and an iron bed and you couldn’t look out the window. It was all bars. The food was absolutely brutal. And my mam died but they never told me she died. She died on Christmas Day but they never told me. I didn’t know that until they let me out four years later. That’s something that really upsets me.”

Well it would. They told Marie-Therese, on the other hand, that her mother was dead when she wasn’t. “Those at the industrial schools have said the abuse they suffered stays with them all their lives.”

18 RESPONSES TO “THE CICA REPORT”

  • #1

    Infuriating.

  • #2

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    The report in to child abuse has found that religious congregations are not prepared to accept responsibility for the abuse perpetrated by their members. I know for fact that the religious have shielded some of their religious perpetrators of abuse, as they find it so unfathomable that they could be responsible for such cruelty, both sexual and physical, towards children. The church continues to protect their own, even to the point of allowing them to be buried in consecrated ground.

    I see that the long-awaited report recommends that management should be held accountable. I sincerely hope Sr Helena O’ Donoghue, ex leader of the congregation of the southern province of the Sisters of Mercy, swallows a spoonful of this tasteless medicine.

    It also recommends that a memorial should be erected for the victims with the words of the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s apology on behalf of the State in 1999.

    Yeah, the Goldenbridge folk, I do know, from past conversations, would like their own memorial placed in Rathdrum, Co Wicklow. They were very embittered that a statue of a well-known Irish figure was erected on the very ground of the holiday home – which is incidentaly, in the most scenic part of the garden of Ireland.

    The Commission has spent the past ten years examining the abuse of children in schools and religious institutions since the 1940s.

    What a long decade it has been indeed! It is hard to believe that CICA has reached its finality.

    Thank you OB, for playing your part in all of this – I am so indebted to you.

  • #3

    Marie-Therese, it is a bastardly set of crimes we learn of here. I am very sorry that you and so many others suffered from them.

  • #4

    Eric MacDonald

    OB, I’m glad you made the connnexion between the abuse in the schools and the so-called “pro-life” (heavy scare quote) position of the abusing church. This needs to be underlined. This is a power-hungry institution that really cares not a whit for others. Its pro-life nonsense is a way of holding on tight, a way of continuing to subordinate and abuse women.

    One of the victims whose statement was recorded by (I think) the BBC, said that victims want justice, not just a report. I don’t know how many victims would like to see their tormenters charged with criminal offences, but it is inconceivable that so many living criminals should be permitted to walk away from this.

    The Christian Brothers – the guilty ones in the St. John’s, Newfoundland, abuse case, some of whom were imprisoned, and at a private school in British Columbia too, I think – were apparently the worst offenders, and the least willing to take responsibility, “explaining”, rather than apologising, and they managed to get an injunction to expunge names of ofenders from the report.

    The church surely can’t just walk away, saying, as its befrocked leaders will, how terrible it all was, and how shocking, if it’s not willing to step up and pay the price. There should be some way to keep this pot on the boil until they come clean, hand over the guilty, stop playing the moral leader game, and admit that power is not good for churches. Sadie should be more than upset; she should be boiling mad, and we should be angry on her behalf.

    And let’s not pretend this was yesterday. The pope’s idiotic statements in Africa, the excommunication of the doctors and the mother of a child in Brazil, the continuing hold that the Vatican holds on every RC majority country and its laws, is clear proof of that. Churches are criminal organisations – and big ones ruled by a closed club of ‘celibates’ especially so – extorting money and loyalty out of people with lies (a kind of after-life protection racket). They push pretty hard. They make absolute moral claims. Is there an organised way that we can we push back? At least to see that its enforcers in Ireland are sent directly to jail (gaol)?

  • #5

    I agree with Eric. A report is not enough. These organizations need to be DISSOLVED. Their proeprty taken and distributed to the victims. No mercy.

  • #6

    Eric MacDonald

    I wrote my response first thing this morning, before I had a chance to reread Marie-Therese’s heart-breaking accounts of a childhood in Goldenbridge.

    But the story just keeps getting worse. Archbishop Nichols has just remarked on the courage of the religious orders who have faced their past. This is not a matter of courage, and he should have pointed out that the religious orders still have not answered charges of criminality that should have been brought against them. This is bizarre, someone who is to be installed as Archbishop of Westminster, today, who has the never to speak of courage with respect to religious orders that torments and cruelly treated and enslaved generations of children for their own and the Vatican’s benefit! The man himself should be charged for aiding and abetting the criminal behaviour of the institution he represents. For shame!

    Religions, they do poison everything. Nichols praises courage, and has none himself. For shame!

  • #7

    Eric MacDonald

    What passion can do. The word ‘never’ in the second paragraph of my last note should read ‘nerve’, ‘torments’ should have been ‘tormented’.

  • #8

    I’ve been reading some of the statements from senior clergy regarding this and their choice of phrasing is interesting. There are frequent references to regret that children ‘were abused’, regret that ‘this happened’, regret that the victims ‘feel’ pain.

    I believe this is characteristic of abusers confronted with their crimes – they talk about what they did as though it were something that ‘happened’ and tend to use the passive voice. They also make frequent references to how bad they feel, as if they were also victims of some impersonal event.

    I may have missed it, but I have not yet seen an honest mea culpa. Saying ‘We regret that this happened’ rather than ‘We are guilty of this and we are sorry.’ strongly implies that they have not actually absorbed the horror of what they did but are merely reacting to being caught out.

    Of course, that implication is redundant, as capping the compensation and refusing to identify the abusers screams it from the roof tops. An irredeemably vile institution, may it wither away and may I live to see it.

  • #9

    Indeed. I’ve just been composing an enraged comment on the archbishop. ‘Courage’ indeed! The mind reels.

  • #10

    And I didn’t even remember to say never mind the courage to confront blah blah, how about the courage to face prosecution?!

    Courage?!? The gall of it!

  • #11

    This is the first time I’ve read about what you suffered under that hideous regime, Marie-Therese. I am so very sorry.

  • #12

    And Mary Kenny’s piece was disgusting. At such times you either pay your respects to the victims’ pain and suffering or you shut up. She did neither.

  • #13

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    Thanks KB, and Eric.

    I am in total shock at the reaction of the world at large to the publication of this diabolical child abuse report. It is beyond belief.

    Yeah, it was a very cruel regime and the publication of the child abuse report is such a relief to those who grew up in the industrial school system in the past in Ireland.

    There were people out there telling us that we were suffering with false memory syndrome, we were in it for compensation alone and we were out to get at the church.

    We have been vindicated at long last.

    I am presently numb-struck and cannot articulate my thoughts on the whole scenario. The phone-lines of radio shows, and counselling services in Ireland have been flooded with people expressing their horror of the contents of the report.

    So many people have broken down – including radio presenters.

    Bernadette Fahy, Goldenbridge, “Freedom of Angels”, author and Mary Raftery, “Suffer the Little Children” co-author, are now both this instant on “Prime Time” giving a Christian Brother leader a run for his money, by reflecting to him the failure of his order to believe victims, in the first place and also the reluctance of the order to pay sufficient monies to the indemnity deal that was struck up by the government to recompense those who were abused in the system.

  • #14

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    “At such times you either pay your respects to the victims’ pain and suffering or you shut up. She did neither”.

    Aye, she never shut up about the black garbs, at all.

    PRIESTSX2I

    Strange are the crooked priests of humanity, that Mary Kenny had to repeat *priests* twenty-one times, in her article at B&W, in order to convey to readers, I would assume, her obsession with same.

     

  • #15

    “The phone-lines of radio shows, and counselling services in Ireland have been flooded with people expressing their horror of the contents of the report.

    So many people have broken down – including radio presenters.”

    Good. Good, good, good. It’s about sodding time.

  • #16

    Marie-Therese, thats the trouble with public moral outrage, it produces evidentiary corruption like false memory ‘therapists’ capitalising on true suffering from real crimes.

    If you look at the articles by Richard Webster about the witch-hunts in England known as police trawling operations, you see how judges were corrupted by public outrage into convicting many innocents.

    We also have in Australia many who suffered hardship and abuse in child migrant schemes and welfare homes, most publicly Aboriginal children but there were always many non-Aboriginals in institutions too. It has been shown here that the evidence offered in investigations such as the one in Ireland where no trials and prosecutions are possible, may be overwhelmed with anecdote only distantly able to form evidence. The ‘public moral outrage’ is less beneficial, I think, than actual prosecution and jailing of the perpetrators of the real acts of these criminal exploiters.

  • #17

    Great post! Just wanted to let you know you have a new subscriber- me!

  • #18

    KattyBlackyard

    I really like your post. Does it copyright protected?

Society for the Prevention of Kindness

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Society for the Prevention of Kindness

Aug 23rd, 2005 | By 

Category: Notes and Comment Blog

Jesus Christ. There is just no limit to human disgustingness, is there.

I am here to talk about her catastrophic childhood in an industrial school — a euphemism for workhouse — in Ireland in the 1940s and 1950s, and as anyone who survived this experience will confirm, it is a painful subject. There, incarcerated by 6ft walls and under the tutelage of the Sisters of Mercy nuns, Kathleen was beaten, starved and humiliated to a point where she felt worthless and wanted only to be invisible. Her education was scant; instead she was put to work scrubbing floors, in the laundry and, barefoot and dressed in rags, in the surrounding fields…Denied water between what passed for meals, she drank from toilets.

Denied water between meals. For what? For what purpose? For what monstrous purpose? Is it the Jane Eyre thing again, Catholic version instead of Protestant? You’re poor therefore you have to be given especially bad treatment, treatment that goes beyond mere neglect to outright sadism, so that – so that what? So that you’ll know ‘God’ hates poor people?

…the quality of their mother’s care counted for nothing when the NSPCC charged her with being “destitute” — ie, unmarried — and sent her daughters to St Vincent’s Goldenbridge, an Industrial School. Kathleen was 5. There she was put to work threading rosary beads on to wire that cut into her hands, and she was beaten…By the time Kathleen and her sister escaped a year later, they had scabies and ringworm and were painfully thin.

She was allowed to stay home for awhile but then she was raped by a neighbour and her mother tried to push for a prosecution –

unwittingly giving the NSPCC the proof it needed that she was an unfit mother and that her children needed “protection”. This time her daughters — there were now three — were committed to Mount Carmel Industrial School in Moate, Co Westmeath, until their 16th birthdays…But as she describes the eight years of persistent neglect and abuse that she endured, it is the emotional deprivation that is most disturbing. The girls were not allowed to talk to each other, which meant that there was no friendship or solidarity between them, no care for each other, no way of expressing how they felt — indeed they learnt not to express their feelings. Kathleen felt lost and alone and as she cried herself to sleep each night (and then invariably wet the bed), she could only conclude that she was a very bad girl.

It’s the NSPCC that got her sent there. Funny way to prevent cruelty to children.

We had no rights. We were fortunate that the nuns gave us a roof over our heads or we’d be walking the streets of Dublin. They had such power. When people visited we were threatened to within an inch of our lives. We had to say, ‘I’m very well, thank you, I’m very happy, thank you, we have lovely food, thank you’. You did it because you were within 6ft walls, there was no one to talk to and if you talked, you knew what you would get.

Sounds exactly, to the letter, like Mary McCarthy’s Memories of a Catholic Girlhood. If you haven’t read it – lose no time.

Thousands of children in Ireland were tortured, robbed of their childhoods, by the religious…How could they call themselves religious and treat children in this manner?…How could they have thought that they were doing good by beating us? Well, if you’re obsessed by the Devil, you need it beaten out of you, and that is what we were told. They were evil, sadistic people.

Also sounds exactly, to the letter, like that account of ‘exorcists’ and ‘witchcraft’ in small villages in Kinshasa. It seems safe to assume that immense numbers of children are treated this way around the globe.

17 RESPONSES TO “SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF KINDNESS”

  • #1

    For what purpose? Why, to teach them not to have been born out of wedlock, of course. If we don’t torture and abuse illegitimate children, sinners will continue to breed unsanctioned outside the marriage bed. Besides, since we can’t get at the actual fornicators, at least we can scapegoat their offspring. Also, we can torture girls who have been raped (hussies!)and girls who simply attract too much male attention (harlots!). It sort of makes up for our own miserable blighted lives if we can torture others with impunity. Weeee!

    BTW, have you seen Peter Mullan’s excellent but deeply depressing “The Magdalene Sisters”?

  • #2

    No, I haven’t seen it, though I’ve had it in mind to. Want to. [makes mental note] But I did see a very good, hair-raising 60 Minutes segment on the subject. Almost unwatchable, just as that Times piece borders on the unreadable.

    There really is something deeply bizarre about the level of sadism involved.

    But I guess it’s silly of me to think so. Religion makes cruel people worse, not better. And nuns are famously sadistic. Irish catholicism is famously sadistic – Portrait of the Artist made that clear enough.

  • #3

    Gosh, you mean nuns aren’t all Julie Andrews?

    The Catholic church needs calling to account for a lot of offences.

    Any bets on Pope Rottweiler dealing with that?

  • #4

    “Gosh, you mean nuns aren’t all Julie Andrews?”

    Of course not, silly. Only half are like Julie Andrews; the rest are like Sister Wendy.

  • #5

    No, a third are like Julie Andrews, a third are –

    No, a quarter are like Julie Andrews, a quarter are like Sister Wendy, a quarter are like Sally Fields, and a quarter are like Audrey Hepburn.

  • #6

    You forgot Debbie Reynolds and Greer Garson. So, six prototypes.

  • #7

    Don:

    kudos to Jesus’ General (my FAVORITE immature, silly, over the top fantastic secularist/lefty site!), but the proper title, given his background as a goose-steppin’ youth:

    Pope Panzerfaust. 🙂

  • #8

    A nun vs. an unbeliever John Huston’s film “Heaven Knows, Mr. Allison” – with Deborah Kerr as the nun and Robert Mitchum as the Marine NCO stranded on a Pacific island in WW 2

  • #9

    Not to mention Jennifer Jones. Yowza! What healthy, red-blooded heterosexual male wouldn’twant to join a church that’s got luscious Jennifer Jones? Sign me up!

  • #10

    Brian T. Urmann

    Doesn’t all this fit the standard pattern for the Catholic Church? The Vatican has covered up a long-standing pedophilia problem among its clergy and it has sheltered Cardinal Bernard Law from arrest by the United States. It actively discourages condom use in poor countries plagued by AIDS, thus leading to the deaths of millions. Why wouldn’t a church with such a strange and cruel fixation on sexuality also abuse and torment little girls in its care, especially since the abusers know they will never be prosecuted for it and will always be protected by an extremely powerful organization?

  • #11

    Marie – Therese O’ Loughlin

    FROM THE TIME I WAS BORN TILL I WAS 33YRS OLD I WAS IN ONE FORM OF INSTITUTION OR OTHER. THE MOST INFAMOUS ONE OF THESE WAS ST. VINCENT’S INDUSTRIAL SCHOOL GOLDENBRIDGE, INCHICORE DUBLIN. IRELAND. I WAS INCARCERATED THERE AT THE YOUNG AGE OF 4 & LEFT AT 16. HAVING SPENT 6MONTHS ON THE OUTSIDE I LANDED BACK IN GOLDENBRIDGE FOR AN EXTRA 6MONTHS. INSTITUTIONALISATION PROBLEMS WAS THE REASON. THE HARROWING STORIES OF COUNTLESS INMATES WHO WERE IN THE SYSTEM FROM VERY YOUNG AGES WILL NEVER BE TOLD, AS THESE PEOPLE ARE SO FRAGMENTED & TORN. THEIR PERSONALITIES WERE WROUGHT & SHAPED BY THE SYSTEM. TO GIVE A SNIPPET. I WAS TOLD THAT MY MOTHER WAS DEAD. I WENT LOOKING FOR HER GRAVE WHEN I WAS 29YRS OLD. I DISCOVERED THAT SHE WAS IN FACT ALIVE & LIVING IN BIRMINGHAM. I WAS AT THE TIME LIVING IN A HOSTEL IN LONDON. THROUGHOUT MY WHOLE LOCK-UP TIME IN GOLDENBRIDGE GULAG I NEVER HAD A VISIT FROM A FAMILY MEMBER. I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW WHO I WAS OR HOW OLD I WAS. I ALWAYS LOOKED OUT THE SACRED HEART DORMITORY WINDOW ON SUNDAYS TO SEE IF SOMEONE WOULD VISIT ME. NOBODY RELATED TO ME EVER DID. MAMMY & DADDY WORDS WERE SYNONYMOUS WITH FLOGGINGS IN THAT DURING THESE TIMES WE HOLLERED THESE WORDS OUT TO COMFORT OURSELVES. I ONCE WENT UP TO A LADY WHO CAME TO VISIT US AT XMAS, SHE HAD BEAUTIFUL LONG HAIR I ASKED HER IF SHE WOULD BE MY AUNTIE. SHE TOOK ME OUT FOR A WEEKEND. I NEVER RECEIVED EDUCATION BEYOND PRIMARY LEVEL.IN ACTUAL FACT I SAT THE PRIMARY CERT, BUT ANSWERS WERE LAID OUT BEFOREHAND. THE ETHOS OF THE SISTERS OF MERCY WAS TO EDUCATE THE POOR. WE WERE SENT INTO THESE PRIVATELY RUN RELIGIOUS INSTITUTIONS IN THE FIRST INSTANCE TO BE EDUCATED, AFTER-ALL WHAT OTHER PROSPECTS DID WE HAVE IN LIFE. WE WERE ‘THE FORGOTTEN ONES’ IT WAS THE LEAST THEY COULD HAVE DONE. INSTEAD WE WERE FORCED INTO MAKING ROSARY BEADS. A QUOTA OF 60 DECADES HAD TO BE REACHED EVERY DAY. ST. BRIDGETS CLASS ROOM WAS TURNED INTO A MAKE-SHIFT FACTORY. IT WAS ABSOLUTELY AGAINST OUR HUMAN RIGHTS.

    I COULD GO ON FOREVER TELLING SAD STORIES…………6 GOLDENBRIDGE PEOPLE, THIS YEAR, HAVE ALREADY PREMATURELY DIED. 75 PEOPLE HAVE EITHER DIED OR HAVE TAKEN THEIR OWN LIVES SINCE THE OUTSET OF THE COMMISSION TO INQUIRE INTO CHILD ABUSE. FRIGHTENING STATISTICS!. I ASK THE GENERAL PUBLIC OUT THERE TO GIVE A THOUGHT TO THOSE VICTIMS/SURVIVORS OF INSTITUTIONS IN IRELAND & ELSEWHERE WHO DIDN’T – AS CHILDREN HAVE {& STILL DONT HAVE} THE SUPPORT, ON A PERSONAL LEVEL. SOME PEOPLE I KNOW – DON’T HAVE THE CONFIDENCE TO SPEAK ON THE PHONE. SOME CAN’T EVEN READ , BASICALLY DRAGGED MYSELF OUT OF A QUAGMIRE.

  • #12

    Marie – Therese O’ Loughlin

    There will be a Referendum,- hopefully in Ireland in March 2007, concerning the rights of children. This is sweet music to the ears of victims/survivors of institutional abuse who have, along with other organisations virtually shouted for a very long time. from – outside the political rooftops. At long last voices of Irish children will be heard when their rights are enshrined into the Irish Constitution.IT IS ABSOLUTELY INCREDIBLE. Taoiseach Bertie Ahern has said there will be change because of past abuse, he said that he has seen first hand what the effects of child abuse can do to humans.

    I WANT TO CONGRATULATE KATHLEEN O’MALLEY ON HER BOOK. OTHERS LIKE HER WHO WERE DEALT THE SAME BLOW IN LIFE DIDN’T HAVE THE VISION OR WISDOM TO PUT THEIR PAIN BEHIND THEM – IN THIS RESPECT ITS SURVIVORS LIKE HER WHO MUST BECOME THE VOICES FOR THEM.

    SLAN AGUS BEANNACHT. Marie-Therese O’Loughlin

  • #13

    Yikes. Thanks you for the comments, Marie-Therese. We missed them because this post is old, but I’ve mentioned it in a post today in hopes that readers will see them. I’ll look for news of the Referendum and post about it in News.

  • #14

    The stories that I have recently come across re the cruelty of the Irish nuns fills me with horror. I would like to ask Marie-Therese O’Loughlin whether the hostel in London that she refers to in the above comment was in fact St Louise’s Hostel in Medway st, London. This hostel was run by the sisters of mercy and my divorced mother, my sister and I lived here for about 18 months. Although we lived together in one small cubicle, we were very lucky that we were threated with kindness but I shudder to think what could have been. Although I was brought up a catholic, I now question my religion as I can’t understand how nuns and priests could be so barbaric to other human beings, especially children. In Kathleen O,Malley’s book entitled Childhood Interrupted, she relates the story of a nun actually using her ‘wedding’ ring to Christ to torture young children.

  • #15

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    “I would like to ask Marie-Therese O’Loughlin whether the hostel in London that she refers to in the above comment was in fact St Louise’s Hostel in Medway st, London. This hostel was run by the sisters of mercy”

    Jane, I have just acidentally stumbled across your post at this late stage – so here is hoping you drop in once again.

    Yes, indeed, the hostel you mention was indeed St Louise’s, Medway St. But nope, the hostel, though, was not not run by the sisters, of mercy, but rather, the daughters of charity of St Vincent De Paul. (In olden days, they were habitually known as the butterfly nuns.)

    They wore navy blue habits as opposed to black austere ones such as that worn by the sisters of mercy. They take vows, (light ones, I think) each year, the latter take solemn ones for life.

    The DC were very secularised and slept in cubicles beside the rest of the girls.

    They are also the female half of the Vincentians.

    They were very kind to me, two sisters in particular were very special and tried to understand me (although they knew nothing about me – as I in turn knew nothing about myself. – and I also shied away from everyone – because I did not have the social skills with which to adapt to outside life.

    Sr Anthony and Sr Ellen Flynn were the two sisters who treated me so well. Sr Ellen was a very young beautiful singer/guitarist, and she reached out to me through music. I learned how to play the guitar and it has been for me, since then, a therapeutic instrument throughout the rest of my life.

    Sr Anthony, by all accounts, is momentarily living in Carisle place, Victoria.

    Sr Anne took over the hostel after Sr Anthony was moved by the order – the former was a very harsh northerner. She found me to be a trifle difficult, wild and impertinent – which I was, and she wanted to kick me out into the world, and I was really afraid and scared.

    She did not like the girls from Ballet Rambert befriending me – as in her book I was a mere nonetity.

    There was also another sister there (on the periphery, who did parochial church work) and she also tried to discourage another guitarist girl from making friends with me. But I was young and foolish and never understood then the meaning of their bias.

    Goldenbridge industrial school was another nightmarish kettle of fish. No comparison, not even in the slightest.

  • #16

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    “In Kathleen O,Malley’s book entitled Childhood Interrupted, she relates the story of a nun actually using her ‘wedding’ ring to Christ to torture young children.”

    Wedding bands, heavyweight crucifixes of gigantic rosary beads, which hung around some stout pot bellied black-garbed waists of the sisters of mercy and strong black leather straps were used as implements to regularly beat children.

    Children were also pinched on their arms (by staff) with rosary bead pliers. So you see, religious objects had by the religious/staff a multiciplicity of purposes.

  • #17

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    Oops, multiplicity – it should have read in last line of last post.

    “The stories that I have recently come across re the cruelty of the Irish nuns fills me with horror.”

    Sadly, Jane, the majority of stories you have come across are true.

    Children in industrial schools had terrible lives. They were, used by the religious, (throughout their whole childhoods) as slaves by their religious caregivers. From morn till night they slaved away in laundries/rosary bead factory.

    When I was as a late teenager in Medway St, I habitually steeped my white sheets in frozen cold water in the bathroom. Sr Raphael, who had a cubicle next to the bathroom could not figure me out when I told her that the cold water would make the sheets snow-white. I now know that this practice harped back to my days in Goldenbridge when as a child worked almost every day in a laundry.

    One only (mostly) ever hears of teenagers slaving in Magdalen laundries. But there were also pre-teen children doing the same work every single day of their lives (in the early hours of the morn – before so-called school) hidden behind high enclosed prison walls in Goldenbridge.

Goldenbridge II

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Goldenbridge II

Feb 1st, 2007 | By Marie-Therese O’Loughlin

Category: Articles

“The Children Act allowed destitute children to be sent to industrial schools, even if they hadn’t committed a crime.” Paddy Doyle.

Incarceration

This “destitution” lark was a ruse used by the judiciary and the religious in order to obtain convictions. I was, for example, in a feeder institution, known as The Regina Ceoli, Mother and Baby unit for over four and a half years. So how could I have been even considered “destitute” by the judiciary? “Destitution”, this terminology, was in my estimation “illegally used” on my committal order to Goldenbridge Industrial School – where I was incarcerated until I was sixteen years old. There was no limit on my stay in the “hostel”.

It is imperative for people to comprehend that “touting for business” explicitly from feeder institutions, such as the aforementioned hostel, went on big time. As well as, I might append, “baby farming” which is an additional gigantic undeclared subject. Like the Magdalen Laundries, it is an extraordinarily brittle subject. The Irish powers-that-be are fearful to shine the torch down that very indistinguishable shadowy road.

The religious colluded in this unauthentic committal lark in order to boost up their numbers in the mainstream industrial schools. They railed at the judiciary who were becoming unenthusiastic about sending children to the gulags. They insisted on wanting to know why their wishes were not being adhered to as they (the religious) were very bothered about the up-keep of their mammoth Victorian “private” buildings. As with all, they unquestionably won out! The Irish Church/State was and is synonymous with conjoined twins.

At first, girls only went into the industrial schools run by the Sisters of Mercy and others, but when numbers began to diminish, they asked for boys up to the age of ten. Consequently, survivors like Paddy Doyle landed up in one. On attainment of ten years the boys customarily thereafter graduated to the industrial/reformatory schools such as Artane, Daingean, and Letterfrack. These boys-only child labour camps were run by the Christian Brothers, Oblate Fathers and other orders of that ilk. A majority of older boys in these industrial schools were there for minor criminal activities, such as mitching (skiving) from school or stealing apples from orchards. A smaller number of older boys would have been there for more serious misdemeanours. These boys were naturally more streetwise. They had the wherewithal to be able to differentiate between the outside world and their newfound abodes. Boys who came from the female-religious-run institutions on the other hand did not have a clue about outside life and were thus treated abominably by the system, which could or would not tolerate their social inadequacies. They were classed as orphans, yet they too, like myself, would have been taken from their parent or parents, and would have been hauled before the courts and would have been considered to have been “destitute” and would have been sentenced until they were sixteen years old. Boys who were criminally committed would have received sentences ranging from as little as six months to roughly six years.

Mass and Breakfast time in Goldenbridge.

Throughout the winter months those who were not doing duties like getting small children up, cleaning dormitories, washing soiled sheets in cold water in the uniformly cold stone school laundry, lined up in the cloister, which was situated just outside the wicket gate, with no warm clothing other than our berets. We could not enter the chapel without the arrival first of the convent chaplain to the chapel. He generally arrived at 6:55am for 7 am mass. It was okay though, at this time, for the convent nuns to sit comfortably in their pews. The chapel was a private one and it would consequently have served the children who were usually freezing to have been able to have to go into it even – just for warmth’s sake. There was never any such luck. We were mere mediocre little people who must at all times be kept in place.

On the arrival of the chaplain, we made our way silently to the chapel. The priest said the mass in Latin. Again, those on the lowest rungs of the Goldenbridge ladder would not have been allowed by the nuns to serve mass. This was a very privileged task! Children couldn’t dare to turn their heads around in the chapel to look at the nuns behind. The all-black, bended, hooded figures sat some distance behind us in rows of pews. It was always a scary, eerie pursuit for the children when they did turn their curious heads as the nun’s heads were hidden, I always wondered why they were hiding – after all did these holy nuns not sacrifice their lives for God? It should have been an uplifting happy experience. They exactly reminded me of people who were waiting for death.

During the course of mass children fainted through sheer hunger, as no food would have entered the children’s’ bodies from 6 o’clock the preceding evening, and that would have been a inadequately two slices of smelly bread and marge and a cup of black sugarless cocoa. The children who passed out also had the misfortune of being reprimanded by the nuns in charge of the institution. The nuns consistently told the weakened children “You are a notice box – looking for attention, and what will the other nuns be thinking” how dare ye show us up in their presence.” Children who fainted were indeed also told to go to” the notorious Goldenbridge landing” by the nuns or staff to wait for a flogging from the head capo, Sister X. It was suffice it to say hard luck all round.

In the classroom

St Bridget’s classroom had massive windows, we sat two to a desk which were made of heavy oak, attached to curved wrought- iron legs. Each desk also had two inkwells with copper lids. The dark walls were adorned with pictures depicting the Joyful, Glorious, and Sorrowful Mysteries of the Rosary. Posters, also of mothers/fathers in domestic situations for teaching purposes bedecked the walls. Children were not allowed under any circumstances to write with the right hand it was classed as “the devils work”. I am naturally citeog, so one can imagine how difficult that was to use right hand.

Ms. L was legendary for using the corner of the ruler on the very young children’s knuckles and tip of the fingers. Ms L always for some strange reason, cried out: “I will draw blood. I will write your name in blood.” She was not though despite all the cruellest teacher.

Sister Fabian always called children by disparaging names; she had a list as long as her arm. Amadan; oinseach; gombeen; half-wit; crackawley; cracked; dope, clown, clot, crackpot; she predominantly said to me; “there is a ‘want’ in you Lougho” – meaning that I was not “the full shilling!” Nonetheless, at the time of declaration it went in one ear and out the other. I did not have the foggiest discernment as to its denigrating meaning.

We were mere nonentities who were never going to quantify to anything in this life. We were never, ever, going anywhere. The sisters could as a result unremittingly lay before us reminders of our lowly status. We were everlastingly receiving negative sound bytes.

Sister Fabian also systematically threatened children with”Moate” again, nobody had a notion what this word signified. “You ninny hammer, if you do not watch yourself, or pull yourself together you will find yourself up in Moate.” I now know that Mount Carmel, Moate, Mullingar, was an Industrial School run by the Sisters of Mercy. I heard from others that it was not as bad as Goldenbbridge.

Sister Fabian, being a Donegal country sister, loved flowers; in later years, there was a rockery outside the Wicket Gate, which lay along the side footpath leading up Goldenbridge Avenue. I remember helping with the spraying of the bi-annuals. The children in general considered it an honour when Sister Fabian specially selected them to do this interesting task. It was in colossal disparity to the more repugnant, loathsome, monstrous and detestable chores I (and other girls – on different occasions) had to do which was to sweep up residue of excrement from the never-ending overflowing, end of the yard shores. No wonder children ended up with scabs, warts, ringworm, serious forms of conjunctivitis, or as we called it – “shut eye”, and every other conceivable ailment.

Miss G, who taught “third” and “fourth” 8 to 10 yrs class was something else, she, like Sister X, put the fear of God in us. We were petrified of her; she too, moreover was also an un-trained “jam” teacher. I have never forgotten the merciless, callous ruthless acts of this teacher, for example, she compelled us to stand on top of the school seats or desks with our hands held high in the air for unwarranted extravagant amounts of time, and she would at the same time flay us on the legs with a long bamboo stick or long ruler. She also made us stand on one foot for some unknown reason. She also would boomerang the long “ruler” at children who, she professed, were not learning fast enough.

We learned parables, miracles, and the catechism off by heart. Children had to circle around her desk and thump each other whilst almost singing the above in unison. Little boys learning the Koran would not have been up to the likes of us. Again, we also rocked like mad in order to learn the whole lot off. She invariably unexpectedly crept up behind us and gave us thumps on our backs with her fist that jolted us or else she needled us with the bamboo stick, causing stinging pain. Monday mornings were the worst as she was enthused with fierce energy.

St Teresa’s classroom was nestled on its own in the back of Goldenbridge. It was a cold miserable large open spaced room, which also doubled up as a locker room after classes. Ms G, as it were, could do what she liked as there was no authority figure in near sight to hear her or our cries. Everyone in Goldenbridge dreaded this teacher.

The children who were privileged to go to “the outside” National School, said that they were initially asked to spell the word “ingredient” and do a simple arithmetic question which they got correct hence their getting selected from Ms. G’s class.

Children were also made to stand in the corner of St Teresa’s classroom with the name Amadan or Dunce pinned to their backs. I also explicitly remember at various times a wicker waste paper basket being put over the heads of the children while they stood in the corner of the classroom. Some children were always told to stand outside the classroom. Two children at any given time were also sent into a separate area and the brighter of them was obliged to thump religion into the slower one. They were bright enough then but not enough to secure them a position in the national School.

We were sporadically sent out of this class to do work in the scullery or outside yard,washing and cleaning vegetables which were placed in a big aluminium tub.

Ms G hailed from Kildare and commuted to Goldenbridge Industrial School each day. She was very prejudicial in that she repetitively uttered the following mantra, ‘dirty Dublin, dirty Dublin, dirty Dublin!’ I believe at one stage Ms. G lived on the premises in Goldenbridge, she was thick with Sr. Xaveria. We knew not what she was on about notwithstanding the fact that we were approximately near the heart of the city of Dublin. Gosh, in retrospect, we were implausibly institutionalised and in this fashion hideously green. Dublin could have been in Timbuktu as we were concerned!

Each year a priest came to examine us in cathechism – I recollect winning 2/6 but remember even more not being in receipt of same, it was typical. This also was very prevalent with the making of the rosaries, in that we too never got our proper yearly earnings of 2/6d – it was always deviously clawed back.

Christine Buckley told me that she was grateful to Ms G, as the teaching that she indisputably had in her class stood her in good stead. Bernadette Fahy, who was given a similar “outside” education became a Psychologist. Christine eventually went into mainstream outside school afterwards. She then became a midwife by profession, so she had a lot to be indebted in that respect. Ironically, both ended up doing fantastic work on behalf of victims/survivors of institutional abuse, and many are much indebted to them.

I would have endured any punishment from this teacher if it would have gotten me somewhere later on in life as she certainly knew how to teach.

Sr. Fabian’s Classroom – One afternoon

Valerie made a clatter as Sister Fabian tackled inhumanly with her “soiled” clothing in order to remove them. Valerie clasped forcefully on to them to save herself from this loathsome embarrassing act. All was in vain as poor Valerie was conquered by this malevolent piece of work. She succeeded in savagely stripping her of her soiled clothing – this sister of mercy – who always said to Valerie “you have evil eyes, you have the devil’s eyes.” It caused her to keep her head untiringly down, as she was so feeling shame at having even been born with all the systematic abuse that was consistently thrown at her. It was said, by Sister Fabian to Valerie, “it is nothing more than the devil that is coming out of you”.

This episode occurred in front of young girls in St Philomena’s classroom. Children were totally beside themselves frightened out of their wits and with ignominy and astonishment and did not know where to put their heads. Unexpectedly, like lightning, Valerie roared like a wild animal and with all her power went for the jugular, the “sacrosanct” holy “veil”. All hell was let loose. Sister Fabian then let go of Valerie as she tried to fix her veil into position. She then said to us “get on with your work”.

The raison d’être behind this whole monstrous performance was medical. Valerie had a severe hormonal problem whereby she haemorrhaged profusely. Her face was always as white as snow. She thus became delirious and hallucinated, and constantly talked about ‘moving’ statues before they ever came into vogue. Also because of the nature of her illness and no medical treatment/supervision, she was at a loss as to what to do. There was no considerate or kind adult in Goldenbridge to direct her in her need. Ironically, the washroom was right next door to St Philomena’s but it was out of bounds, so when she was having hygiene problems there was nowhere for her to go. As a corollary, foreseeable accidents occurred which resulted in overshadowing repugnant smells. It permeated all over, but what was she to do? Well enter Sister Fabian, she indisputably sorted it out. A lot of victims and survivors have never forgotten this sad sordid saga.

Sr. Fabian for all time held her nose at children and said “you dirty thing, get out of my sight.” She was a very intolerant sister and caused huge damage to children because of it. One afternoon in St. Philomena’s was no exception to the rule. Valerie died last year due to self neglect, but she lived long enough to tell the sad tale.

Valerie, who unendingly held her head down in shame, had Bambi-type beautiful brown eyes. She also made the most neatest of rosary beads, and we always complimented and sought out her assistance. I wrote in my best English a long witness statement to both the CIRCA and the RIRB on behalf of Valerie, who was not conversant. Bernadette Fahy also stood up for her.

Valerie’s mother who hails from the North of Ireland was only fourteen years old when she gave birth to her first boy child, and was sixteen years old when Valerie was born, there was also another girl some years later but she was lucky enough to be contentedly adopted. The boy went to another disreputable Industrial School – Artane. So he too was just a stranger to his sister.

The adopted sister some years ago suddenly arrived at Valerie’s abode. It caused great consternation as Valerie never knew of her existence. She took Valerie under her wing, but the wounds were way too deep for her to appreciate any kindness. Valerie could not grasp the logic as to why she was also not adopted, and it caused deep friction and resentment. This type of thinking is very common with those who were detained in Goldenbridge. The sadness of it is that one is not dealing with just normal sibling rivalry.

Valerie’s mother went on to have a second family and wanted nothing to do with any of her children who were born outside of that union. A cousin whom she had no contact with sadly died in the Northern Ireland Omagh Bombing of some years ago. Christine Buckley, Bernadette Fahy, and a host of us from Valerie’s era were all present at her funeral. She had insisted on being cremated. Everything about one’s bodily functions was cloak and dagger stuff. Prepubscent children were an enigma to sister Fabian.

Memory

Time, never erased my memories of Goldenbridge, I did not have the added distraction of the outside world to contend with.

I worked to rule, every day was the same, with the exception of summer time when other children and I, who had no family, went to a holiday home in Rathdrum Co Wicklow, which was, incidentally, paid for with monies accrued from the Rosary Beads “lark”. The only happy memories I have are connected to this exquisite environment, (not staff) which was the only positive thing in our lives. Not ever having human comforts we could at least enjoy the absolutely natural beauty of our surroundings. To this day I still love the Garden of Ireland. There is now a statue of Charles Stewart Parnell standing on the spot where once the old rambling Victorian house stood. We always thought that there should have been a plaque erected to all the Goldenbridge inmates as well.

Appendix: Some Testimony from the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Public Hearing, Dublin, 15 May 2006. Evidence of Sister Helena O’Donoghue

Q: …I am more concerned with the statements of Sr. Fabian, as it were, against interest both on her part and the interest of the Sisters of Mercy, that the general atmosphere was excessively and consistently cruel, even relative to the standards at the time?

A. Well, we have acknowledged that we believe that industrial school life and system was not an appropriate system for children who had come into care through various difficulties. We do recognise that it would have augmented the regime itself being so stylised in many ways, would have augmented their pain, but we do not accept that it was excessively harsh.

Q:…but in his report he records her confirming that: “Fear of and actual beatings and verbal abuse was a matter of routine. And that the general account of children, for example, waiting on landings was accurate…Wetting was defined as a crime and, therefore, punishable through humiliation and physical beatings. Sr. Fabian confirmed the allegations in relation to the tumble drier and drinking from the toilet cistern. She also confirmed the bead making and that failure to obey rules was normally punished by physical beatings”.

…….

A: We cannot be absolute about it, but I think it was a feature of Goldenbridge that when a number of children came to 16, and were for one reason or another, people, children, young women who might have been at risk or unable to manage outside of the school, and there was no further funding for them, a way of, if you like, meeting their need in particular was to become helpers, as they were called. It was not, I suppose, looked at in the way that we might look at it today, which was, well, were they appropriate for the care of children? They were young people who had actually lived through their years in the institution to that point and were familiar, obviously, to everybody there.

Q. Yes. I think you have fairly acknowledged in your written statement of evidence that poor educational achievement and inability to find employment, other than domestic service, was a consequence for many children; cleaning and scrubbing and household work elsewhere. These staff then retained were clearly not up to that standard of being let out into the world and were put in the care of children?

A. That is the reality and we regret that that was an aspect, that there wasn’t an awareness or a sensitivity to at the time.

Q. Have you any reason to think that they received any training at all other than their experience of having gone through Goldenbridge themselves?

A. I would be confident in saying there was no training. There was no training for the adults or the teachers who were employed at that time in childcare.

Q. Is there any evidence of which you are aware, that they were made familiar with any rules relating to discipline and punishment?

A. I couldn’t make any comment on that at this distance back.

A: Why were children in Goldenbridge not allowed out to attend the local national school? Why did there have to be one secured up in Goldenbridge?

A. I am not in a position to answer that.

Q: One of the things that the Commission will have to consider is obviously the nature of the education facilities and the teaching staff, but also its interrelationship with the work regime in Goldenbridge. There seems to have been a considerable lack of opportunity for a number of children, perhaps unquantifiable, who were pulled out of classrooms to do work, when perhaps they should have been staying in the classroom to become educated, and being required to do the laundry two days a week and prepare vegetables and minding of babies, cleaning of windows, tilling the land, tending the vegetable garden. All taken away from their schooling for this work…I have referred already to the passage in your statement of evidence about the lack of opportunity that the education provided for getting employment, other than sort of domestic work as scrubbers and cleaners, many of them feel they were educated to be. Would you be concerned, and have you heard complaints over your years of contact with the survivors, about a high level of functional illiteracy on the part of those who are said to have been educated by the Sisters of Mercy? One of the other complaints made about the relationship between study and work is that there was little time allowed for any sort of study or reading in the evenings. In your own statement, you say: “A few pupils persevered and sat the Leaving Certificate. Such students did not do much of the domestic chores carried out by the other children, but instead had extended study time”. Do I understand from that, that it was only the few who were chosen would get out of the work and therefore have the extended study time?

A: I understand from the Sisters who were there at the time, that that was the practice. That those who went out to the secondary school did not have to take the same share in the chores as those who were inside.

Q. Okay. So the heavier burden then would fall on others, who were then deprived of their study time, to allow some of the few to be released?

A. I would have to say about Goldenbridge it is acknowledged that homework at primary school level did not feature really in the after school time of the children. Now I am not in a position to say why was that.

Q. Can I suggest to you it was because they were required to do other work?

A. In actual fact they weren’t doing other work at that time. They had a half an hour after school for play in the yard. They then went to the bead making, perhaps that is what you are referring to, but it wasn’t the ordinary chores of managing the house.

Q. Just touching on that point. Do you accept on behalf of the Sisters of Mercy that the burden of work placed on the children there was excessive?

A. No, we don’t accept that. We would recognise that children had chores to do, and the children who were doing the industrial school training, particularly in the afternoon, there would have been 70 to 80 children in that group at any one time. So the sharing out of the tasks would have eased the amount of work to be done.

01 February 2007

Marie-Therese O’Loughlin can be reached at mariethereseoloughlin@yahoo.com

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Results

Sep 12th, 2009 | By 

Category: Notes and Comment Blog

As you may or may not know, Marie-Therese O’Loughlin, survivor of the nightmare of Goldenbridge Industrial School, has been working hard to get the education that the ‘Sisters of Mercy’ denied her. She took her first exam, in English, last June. She wasn’t sure she’d done terribly well, but was determined to re-take the exam next year if necessary.

She got her results a few days ago.

She got an A.

40 RESPONSES TO “RESULTS”

  • #1

    Most hearty congatulations, Marie-Therese! Your determination not to let Goldenbridge contrain your life and ambitions makes me smile.

  • #2

    Terrific! Well done, Marie-Therese. A well-deserved one in the eye for the so-called Sisters of Mercy…

  • #3

     

    Marie Therese, may I add my endorsement to the above two responses from JoshS and Geoff Coupe? It brings to mind the words of Papillon, as played by Steve McQueen in the film of the Henri Charriere novel: “I’m still here, you bastards!”

  • #4

    Hey, Marie-Therese, you have come through! Great! Congratulations! I won’t say that I’m surprised though.

  • #5

    Congrats 🙂 Never too late to learn more.

  • #6

    Well done, Marie-Therese!

  • #7

    Marie-Therese O Loughlin

    It is ironic to me that the ethos of the sisters of mercy was to educate poor children.

    This they did expertly when they worked their guts out to give education to rich children in the private sphere. Their postulants even used to practice teaching skills on us for their later jobs in national schools. We thrived on stuff they experimented on us each year when they came to the industrial school for a couple of weeks. We dearly wished the schooling would last.

    Those children who had the misfortune to be placed by the courts in their care were the ones who were so deprived of education. There was not even a library in Goldenbridge, whereby children could, at least, learn to read of their own volition. I learned to read properly from scanning signs up above shops and advertisements and picking out sentences from newspapers, when I left the institution.

    I am still picking out sentences at B&W!

  • #8

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    “The Sisters of Mercy took as their special concern the education of girls” yet, in over a hundred years, only one person who passed through Goldenbridge Industrial School was privileged enough to be educated to Leaving Cert Standard. That person was Christine Buckley.

    There being a hypothesis during the sixties and earlier, that black children were seen by the establishment to be a kind of rebellious threat when they grew up – so they were either educated or sent to far off flung places like Connemara, where, in the latter they would not be noticed. The old adage To hell or Connaught, took precedence.

    The Sisters of Mercy were also colloquially known as`the walking nuns’. To be sure, they now have all their ‘walking’ done down the Suwannee .

    It is absolutely disgraceful that they should have treated their little charges with so little respect.

    They could have at least empowered them at the most crucial stages of their lives, instead of using them as perpetual skivvies.

    Education is power and children could have proudly carried that power under their arms as they wended their way into the lonely world at sixteen years of age and made something of themselves indeed.

    Thank you one and all for the encouraging comments – they are much appreciated by me.

  • #9

    Marie-Therese: Congratulations. A well-deserved and well-earned success!

  • #10

    Well done Marie-Therese. Success is the best revenge! 🙂

  • #11

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    You can say that again, Parrthesia. Christine Buckley, who was with me in Goldenbridge, has just been on RTE television a few moments ago. Speak of the…! She won Person of the Year Award, along with Michael O’ Brien, who was also a survivor of an industrial school in Ireland.

    Thank you, Amos and Parrthesia.

    I was late into the exam room on the day in question. Despite getting up early the frigging bus was delayed, because of a hold-up of traffic by taxi-workers in the city centre of Dublin. I was literally puffing and panting after rushing up a big flight of stairs. Low and behold when I sat down in my seat at the back of the room, all my exam papers on the bench fell to the floor – alas, I had just prior to that anxiously whispered gently to the invigilator to kindly open the window as I was hyperventilating. I also could not start the exam until she had taken exam numbers, etc, which further exacerbated me as it seemed as if so much more time was wearing on and it would all be a waste of my time sitting there. So when I eventually got stuck into the exam after a quarter of an hour the devil himself could not stop me. I wrote and wrote and wrote away until my time was up. The invigilator commented to me afterwards that she had noticed that I never stopped from whence I began. I brought a large bottle of drink with me and had even forgotten to take it at all.

    There was a girl sitting in front of me on the day of the exam and after only a quarter of an hour or so she gave up completely. She simply sat there for the rest of the exam of two and a half hours, with her elbows on the bench. It rather saddened me to see her give up so quickly.

    I was not in the slightest bit worried sitting the English exam with children. We were all in the same boat on the day and I refuse to apologise for that occurring. I would thoroughly recommend it to anybody, at whatever age they happen to be, who have not passed exams in their childhood to go back to adult education and go for it.

    As Parrthesia says “Success is the best revenge.”

  • #12

    Congratulations Marie-Therese! 😀

  • #13

     

    I’ll add my congratulations. But after having the pleasure of reading your comments here for some time, I can’t believe you were worried about an English class. At least not if clarity and style were a part of the grade. Keep up the good work, and please keep adding to the discussion here!

  • #14

    I will add my congratulations to the list. My family is planning on visiting Ireland next summer for the first time and I am just starting to delve into its history. My wife’s family is in part 19th Irish Catholic immigrants to the states. It is hard to imagine the cruelty involved.

  • #15

    Marie-Therese: As Grendels Dad points out, your English prose style is triple A. You know, I’m reading Camus’s unfinished novel, the First Man, about his childhood lived in extreme poverty. Great read and one which shows that with dedication and talent (you have it too), people can overcome early childhood problems to become serious writers. Keep at it!

  • #16

    Many congratulations Marie-Therese! Good job! You’re an inspiration!

    You have classmates in Mexico, who lost their chances at schooling (but through less cruel childhoods than you had to live through). They are running to catch up too – two colleagues of mine are studying to earn middle school diplomas right now. The test is in October. They are inspirations too!

    We all know who the real “sisters” of learning are, the ones who pass on their knowledge and explain the incomprehensible and encourage and tutor and meddle and mentor and remind us to take new pencils to the exam and don’t waste children’s lives! Bravo and thanks to all of them!

    And huge brava brava brava to M-T!!!!!!!

  • #17

    From reading your comments and other writing here, I had always presumed that you were an accomplished writer, perhaps from some sort of academic background!

    Well done on passing the test. I suspect your trepedation about recieving your results back was very much unwarrented.

  • #18

    Congrats. Marie-Therese. Wonderful effort.

  • #19

    Well done Marie, bloody well done.

  • #20

    Congratulations, M-T. Going by your writing here I would have been astonished if you hadn’t got an A in an English exam. I seem to be with a lot of commenters in thinking that.

  • #21

    Congratulations from me also Marie-Therese!

  • #22

    Congratulations, Marie-Therese. You have achieved the things they fear most: eyes to see them as they are and a voice to name it. You won.

  • #23

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    Yeah, Josh, Goldenbridge constrained my mind for far too long. It literally failed to grow because of past lousy memories. I have always been transported back to the times when only very specially selected pets of the staff and Sisters of Mercy, and other children, though not pets, were given the great privilege of education in the national school. To go to outside school was just something else, and children from the lower echelons of the institution could never ever aspire to this wonderful dream happening to them. The children who attended them were held in high esteem and if we were ever seen even entering the class-room in the institution where they studied when they returned back to do their homework – we were told in no uncertain terms where our place lay – that was in the rosary bead makeshift factory. Never the twain did meet. They were going places when they left GB and we were not going anywhere.

  • #24

    Hurrah, Marie-Therese, but like so many others here, I am not surprised by the A.

  • #25

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    “A well-deserved one in the eye for the so-called Sisters of Mercy”

    We used to sing a song on the once yearly bus to the summer home in very scenic Rathdrum, Co Wicklow (garden county) which we paid for ourselves with the rosary bead monies.

    Cheer up Goldenbridge.

    It’s known everywhere

    We’ve gone down Rathdrum

    And left it lying there.

    We all called for mercy

    And mercy was not there

    Cheer up Goldenbridge.

    It’s known everywhere.

    Hahaha – it sure is – even when it is no longer in existence. Hahaha!

    The Sisters of No Mercy always told children they were good-for-nothing, amadans, crackawleys, oinseachs, ninny-hammers, twits, dunces, half-wits, dopes, good-for-nothing, wants, not the full shilling, eejits and soldiers who crucified Christ.

  • #26

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    “I’m still here, you bastards!”

    And Haunting the daylights out of you all.

    You kept us down because that was the only way you could make us pay for the sins of our mothers and fathers.

    Every morning of their lives teenage children were seen by all holding up their wet sheets to the head honcho who was perched high on her rostrum in St Patrick’s classroom. She humiliated them by reminding them of the fallen, drunken, weak, crippled, mental unmarried status of their families. They would in all likelihood not even be aware of who they were until they were introduced to their heritage in this ghastly fashion by this wicked fiery Hitlerite character. The classroom should have been used for teaching purposes – not denigration ones.

    Yeah, I’m still here, Ian but sadly those of whom held their wet sheets on display to the SISTER OF NO MERCY have either committed suicide, died young in their forties, or gave up and became alcoholics and down-and-outs.

  • #27

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    “Hey, Marie-Therese, you have come through! Great! Congratulations! I won’t say that I’m surprised though.”

    Eric, I have come through it with the help of a very good mentor; under whose expert tutelage I would not have dreamt of even attempting to sit the Irish State Exam. It was imbedded in my brain that I was a good-for-nothing; that there was a want in me and that is so terrifically hard to dispense with from one’s frail psyche.

    I have my tutor to thank for giving me the implements with which to plough the gargantuan education field.

    Thanks too for all your support. I have also learned so much from your very thoughtful and sensitive posts. You are a force to be reckoned with indeed.

  • #28

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    Dank je wel, Bedankt, Deen, Julia F, thanks. Crikey, it will be so hard trying to live up to the “A” standard the higher up the education chain one goes – but sure, one can only do the best one can. Am sounding like the queen here but, sure, ’tis no wonder, with all the best wishes to B&W I am in receipt. Thanks too Arnaud, Wes and eliza.

  • #29

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    You have achieved the things they fear most: eyes to see them as they are and a voice to name it. You won.”

    Don, speaking of eyes.

    Kathleen O’ Neill, who was in her forties, sadly died a couple of years ago; but, before she did she had her say – as she was seated directly behind a renowned sister of mercy on a television show concerning Christine Buckley and the Louis Lentin ‘Dear Daughter’ documentary pertaining to life in Goldenbridge. She had literally implored Sr Helena O’ Donoghue, the then Head Provincial of the Southern Province of the Irish Sisters of Mercy on the very popular Irish Late Late Show to look into her “eyes” and see the pain and suffering she was enduring because of her incarceration in Goldenbridge. Sr. Helena did not know where to look, but the “eyes” of the nation were on her then – you can be sure, and were taking in a few home truths about the sad hidden eyes of 165, 000 children, who passed through the care of the holy religious – through the eyes of Kathleen O’ Neill. May she rest in peace.

    Yep, the Sisters of Mercy fear greatly victims/survivors of institutional abuse. We have outed and ousted them to the extent of nearly shaking the church of its very ancient rusty foundational hinges. There is also so much ambiguity amongst fervent staunch churchgoers who see us as vindictive and one big threat to the church. You will find this mostly amongst those who depend on church institutions for their livelihood. They have families to feed and they do not want the likes of us witch-hunters upsetting the supposed secure status quo.

    We whom they did not educate dared to open the eyes of the world to their dastardly so called righteous deeds of the past in industrial schools. We knew them better than everybody else because we lived and breathed the same religious ungodly air as them for generations. There are always old fools in plays who see and hear everything – but cannot decipher the indecipherable until they are given endless time by caring people to express their thoughts. The religious have verbally and metaphorically speaking have classed us fools and never believed we would be anything but fools – but the fools they thought we were have found their foolish voice and projected it back on to them – because the caring people stopped to give us time to express ourselves. I am gone off on an abstract tangent.

  • #30

    Sorry not to notice this earlier. Congratulations, Marie-Therese!

  • #31

    Congratulations, well done Marie-Therese!

  • #32

    I was educated at a sisters of mercy catholic school and there were sisters of mercy at my secondary school. They even renamed that school from Catholic Regional College to Mercy Regional College.

    http://www.mercy.vic.edu.au/

    I remember being told how great the nuns were for dedicating their lives to educating us in the Catholic tradition. I was lucky that I was born in Australia and not in Marie-Therese’s situation in Ireland. Oddly, there were Irish nuns and priests at the school. However, the child molesting priests were Aussies as far as I know.

    http://brokenrites.alphalink.com.au/nletter/page117-ryan.html

    I was lucky to end up with a reasonable education and not be abused by clergy or nuns or whatever. Marie-Therese’s posts make me realize how lucky I was.

  • #33

    I’m so happy for you, Marie-Therese – not just for the A you obviously deserve, but for being such an inspiration!

  • #34

    Yes, congratulations!

  • #35

    Being a total stranger, it’s hard not to to seem condescending to an adult acquiring proper education, but I’ll add my congratulations.

    Hope this did come out as sincere as I meant this to be.

  • #36

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    “My wife’s family is in part 19th Irish Catholic immigrants to the states. It is hard to imagine the cruelty involved.”

    Yes, life in Irish industrial schools such as Goldenbridge were full of cruelty and hard labour. Children were committed into these hellholes for their whole childhoods on mostly trumped charges by the court system and with huge influence coming from the religious into accepting them into their privately run institutions. The latter wanted numbers to fill their grand Georgian/Victorian buildings, in order to receive capitation grants from the ‘department of education’ so as to keep the former up and running, thereby creating valuable assets for the religious congregation. Education, my foot! They were in big business.

    Throughout my whole childhood in GB I do not remember a single human being putting their arms around me to ask how I was feeling. The closest I ever got to a religious Sister of Mercy was when I was constantly held close to her for reasons of trying to hold me steady while she shaved my hair with an electric razor in the classroom. Or, when she made me bend my head for inordinate amounts of time, while she picked out so-called nits. This ritual happened on an ongoing basis to specific children who never had any family visitors on Sundays’. These children always feared their names being called by Sister F. as they knew they would be minus whatever little hair they already had in the aftermath. As well as always sleeping in St. Philomena’s classroom, or perhaps wheeling up and down a lucky baby in a pram (s/he would have been singled out from other countless babies for this privileged care.) she was reminding us of how stupid we were, so contradictory of her nibs given the fact that we were learning almost nothing from her. This sister was fluent in Irish and only spoke it to other Sisters of Mercy in our presence in the class. We were always called out of the classroom to either work in the laundry or clean the toilets or get dinner prepared in the scullery. I did even not know how to write a proper sentence, or where to put a comma, or a full stop, and what letters to capitalise, when I left Goldenbridge as a sixteen years old. I still struggle desperately with punctuation and proper structured sentences, but I know with the help of a terrific tutor I am getting there slowly but surely.

    While B&W’ers are in deep discussions apropos Armstrong, Dennett, Hitchings, Dawkins, Darwin, Benson/Stangroom, Baggini Kazez, Blackford, Myers, Bunting, Dunbar, and J/M, etc, etc. My head is stuck in Johanna Spri, Frances Hodgson-Burnett, E, Nesbit, Sean O’ Casey, Anne Frank, Patrick Kavanagh poetry and last but not least Laura Ingalls-Wilder.

    L.I.W.’s life and book have given me an extraordinary glimpse into the pioneers, who came from the other end of the immigrant spectrum when some of them arrived in America on the infamous coffin-boats, from Ireland and Scotland.

    My tutor has given me an invaluable tip.

    Her motto is:

    ‘You must read, read, read, and read and never stop reading. Reading makes the mind grow.”

    She is also an avid reader herself, so she practices what she preaches. She is what I would call a ‘real ‘sister’ of mercy’!!

  • #37

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    Thanks, Michael.

    Gosh, Claire I wish your Mexican friends all the best with their eduction. I am sure it cannot be too easy for them catching up. I wish them all the best with their exams in October – they must be so full of trepidation at this time.

     

    “We all know who the real “sisters” of learning are, the ones who pass on their knowledge and explain the incomprehensible and encourage and tutor and meddle and mentor and remind us to take new pencils to the exam and don’t waste children’s lives! Bravo and thanks to all of them!

    And adult lives, either.

    Yeah. Yeah! Yeah! You can say that again, Claire! They are the real jewels of this life who quietly and patiently shine their knowledgeable glittering rays in the direction of those who desperately need them to light up their way and give them a glimmer of hope.

    And huge brava brava brava to M-T!!!!!!!

    And an even bigger Brava to all those whose excellent tutelage we are so fortunate to come under. My tutor is such a brain-box and has a very independent and unique way of thinking that I never ever tire of learning.

    Thanks dirigible, Tea, Chris Per, and Richard, it was bloody well difficult , but well worth it. Blimey, I had best not be getting a swelled head with all the lovely compliments on B&W – as it will be hard trying to climb up the next rung of the ladder.

  • #38

    A belated congratulations, Marie-Therese – that’s wonderful.

  • #39

    Congratulations, Marie-Therese!

  • #40

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    KB Player, Grendel’s Dad, Rhys, I never believed for one moment that I would get an “A”, first time around. So I had it all conjured up in my mind – if that were not the case, I was going to re-sit it. l had learned from doing several mocks beforehand that I was capable, especially on the level that I did – but the timing needed by me was a big negative factor.

    I am ( hopefully, if up to scratch) going to give the Higher Level English exam a bash, next year. I wont be having “A” expectations, though. A “B” would be nice!

    Thanks for all your kind comments, Russell Blackford, Cam, Lucy, dirigible, Tea, ChrisP, Mike Rogers and Wes. I can hardly believe my luck. Christine Buckley from Goldenbridge got her trophy and I got my “A” and great B&W comments to boot!

Compassion is it

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Compassion is it

 Sep 20th, 2009 | By 

Category: Notes and Comment Blog

Oh dear god, oh jeezis, oh hell.

She told me she had given birth in a country convent at Roscrea in County Tipperary on 5 July 1952. She was 18 when she met a young man who bought her a toffee apple on a warm autumn evening at the county fair. “I had just left convent school,” she said with an air of wistful regret. “I went in there when my mother died, when I was six and a half, and I left at 18 not knowing a thing about the facts of life. I didn’t know where babies came from … ” When her pregnancy became obvious, her family had Philomena “put away” with the nuns.

But after that blissful start, things didn’t go so well for Philomena.

After her baby, Anthony, was born, the mother superior threatened Philomena with damnation if ever she breathed a word about her “guilty secret”…Philomena was one of thousands of Irish women sent to convents in the 1950s and 60s, taken away from their homes and families because the Catholic church said single mothers were moral degenerates who could not be allowed to keep their children…After giving birth, the girls were allowed to leave the convent only if they or their family could pay the nuns £100. It was a substantial sum, and those who couldn’t afford it – the vast majority – were kept in the convent for three years, working in kitchens, greenhouses and laundries or making rosary beads and religious artefacts, while the church kept the profits from their labour.

In other words they were arrested, imprisoned, and enslaved by the Catholic church. This is not news, of course, but it’s always useful to be reminded of it. Especially in a world where we keep getting told and told and told by Karen Armstrong and her fans that ‘compassion is at the heart of every great religion.’ If that were even a little bit true, the savage unrelenting brutality of the Irish catholic church would have been impossible.

Even crueller than the work was the fact that mothers had to care for their children, developing maternal ties and affection that were to be torn asunder at the end of their three-year sentence. Like all the other girls, Philomena Lee was made to sign a renunciation document agreeing to give up her three-year-old son and swearing on oath: “I relinquish full claim for ever to my child and surrender him to Sister Barbara.”…Philomena says she fought against signing the terrible undertaking. “Oh God, my heart. I didn’t want him to go. I just craved and begged them to please let me keep him. None of us wanted to give our babies up, none of us. But what else could we do? They just said, ‘You have to sign these papers.’”

Compassion is at the heart of every great religion.

Philomena embarked on a lonely, desperate search to find him. She went back to the convent in Roscrea several times between 1956 and 1989 and asked the nuns to help her. Each time they refused, brandishing her sworn undertaking that she would “never attempt to see” her child…Early on in the search I realised that the Irish Catholic hierarchy had been engaged in what amounted to an illicit baby trade. From the end of the second world war until the 1970s, it considered the thousands of souls born in its care to be the church’s own property. With or without the agreement of their mothers, it sold them to the highest bidder…[H]e was haunted by half-remembered visions of his first three years in Ireland and by a lifelong yearning to find his mother. Separated by fate, mother and child spent decades looking for each other, repeatedly thwarted by the refusal of the nuns to reveal information, each of them unaware that the other was also yearning and searching.

There’s no happy ending. Read the whole thing. Meditate on compassion.

16 RESPONSES TO “COMPASSION IS IT”

  • #1

    OB: “If that were even a little bit true, the savage unrelenting brutality of the Irish catholic church would have been impossible.”

    Careful now, careful. You’re talking about the Infallible Church here.

    When Armstrong says “compassion is at the heart of every great religion”, I think she means that ‘compassion’ is mentioned with sufficient frequency in its documents to make it attractive to its faithful and prospective recruits: along with a sufficient measure of blood-curdling stories to scare the pants off them and keep them compliant.

    I did what you suggested: read the whole thing and meditated on compassion. Documents which could have brought some peace of mind to the suffering were kept from them, then destroyed lest they slip out of Church control.

    A god who is both loving and spiteful should not be taken lightly. Vengeance is His.

  • #2

    Jennifer B. Phillips

    In an account chock-full of tragedy and loss, the bitterest bit is the ending, which reveals that after the unimaginable cruelty done to her and her son, and to countless other mothers and sons, world without end, amen, Philomena is:

    1. Attending Mass again and

    2. Blaming herself for everything.

    Words fail me.

  • #3

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    “Attending Mass again”

    Well, Jennifer, B. it is known that sometimes criminals go back to scenes of their crime.

    ‘Blaming herself for everything.”

    Unmarried mothers’ like Philomena, were classed as FALLEN WOMEN by Irish society, hence the negative thought processes. if she was not brainwashed with that negativity she would not have been in the position of handing over her precious child to the religious.

    The church has a lot to answer for the diabolical treatment it doled out to thousands upon thousands of women. Not counting too children who were deemed “bad” because they were offspring of women of the ilk of Philomena.

    165,000 Irish children passed though industrial schools. is that not a phenomenal amount for such a small Island nation?

    Harvesting of children is still an unspoken eerie subject. The country has still not gotten over the contents of the Ryan report. See B&W In Focus.

  • #4

    So she still loves Big Brother? I’m not surprised. Some people desperately need religion, however vile the faith they’ve been brainwashed by may be.

  • #5

    I can understand Philomena going back to church. Religious indoctrination is very deep. Bart Ehrman, the agnostic biblical scholar, who writes several useful books for those who are moving out of religious faith, speaks of the seismic personal problems that crop up when the religious person realises that faith is empty. The beliefs go very deep. In his case, the fear of hell and eternal suffering was very real. Just imagine, the idea of a being which cannot die and so will go on suffering for eternity! That should be enough to convince anyone to leave religion forever, and yet it is a thought that binds many people more closely to it.

    That doesn’t diminish, of course, the horror of the story that is told. It is hard to believe that, within living memory, people were treated that way by people who were acting on behalf of a God of love! And by the same organisation that glorifies the family, the love of mothers for their children, and their responsibility for them. It makes me sick.

    Don’t forget, they used to burn people alive out of such love. The Archbishop of Canterbury is quite prepared to force dying people to die in pain out of love. Sometimes, one could almost wish there were a hell for such people, who speak of love while doing the works of hate. I conclude, though, that universal love is really not a great thing. I should much rather be respected by others than loved by all. Even God. Were there a God, I should wish to be respected by God, not loved by it. Love is not above cruelty, but respect, I think, is.

  • #6

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    I would suspect that because Michael Hess, had religious connections, from the adoptive parents’ relatives, perspective – that this would have been all the more reason, (as in the twins and countless other cases) why the religious refused to give personal biological family information. I know for a fact that children who came from “religious” families in Goldenbridge were talked about in whispers by the religious.

    A silence perpetually hovered over the mention of the background of these specific children.

    They fortunately so were never singled out to suffer daily humiliations – which was otherwise aimed at children who had to hold up their wet sheets and be reminded by Sr.X. of the lowly status of their parent(s). Nonetheless, there was a similar pain in having to withstand all their childhoods utter silence about themselves.

  • #7

    “The twins were finally reunited with their mother, who was living a very lonely neglected life.”

    Oh god those bastards those bastards those bastards.

  • #8

    I can’t stand this shit. The enforced separation is the worst – it’s intolerable. It’s an intolerablething to do to people.

    Reunions are a haunting theme in literature and film, you know. Shakespeare staged them over and over again – Lear and Cordelia, Viola and Sebastian, Leontes and Hermione, Imogen and everyone, Prospero and everyone – and they’re incredibly moving. It’s moving to hang around airports and watch the reunions. Reunions are a good thing. And these wicked wicked wicked sisters of ‘Mercy’ said No to mothers longing for their children and children longing for their mothers. Over and over again.

    That is evil!

  • #9

    Turns out the great religions aren’t so great after all.

    And of course, the defense will be that they were simply doing it wrong.

  • #10

    Yeah – but that defense doesn’t work – because one of their last and most treasured justifications for the whole mess is that religion makes people better. Well if that were true the sisters of ‘Mercy’ would have been incapable of acting with such settled merciless malevolent cruelty for decades upon decades. The sisters of ‘Mercy’ are enough to falsify the whole idea.

  • #11

    I read these stories with a sense of horror, and don’t know what to say. Just the sheer horror of what Marie-Therese describes, with so many terrible variations. (I cannot imaging going through all that and still managing to create something strong and decent, as she so obviously is.) The mind starts to implode after awhile. Everyday, there are more and more stories of the horror of religion and what it does to people. Do religious people simply not notice? Do they not see why someone like Dawkins can be so angry – and he never sounds angry when he appears on TV – he is so thoughtful and softspoken – and the futility of religion, and why it is so terrible to induct children into it, in whatever form? Do they not see where that anger comes from? How can they not? It fills me with shame to have spent most of a lifetime tied up in it.

  • #12

    Marie -Therese O’ Loughlin

    Suffering, suffering and more suffering is all that ever mattered to the religious. The more one suffered pain in the manner of the crucified Christ the more nearer one was to God the Father in Heaven. The notorious Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers seemed to have been the most cruellest of all the religious put together. Young children, of the same sex, in their care, were deprived of innocently holding hands with each other – as this act was considered “dirty”. They would be called love-birds and were frowned upon. You must take into account that the very same children had no adults to comfort them either. They not only constantly deprived some children of visitation rights from their parents – but also beat others when they mournfully cried the death loss of their other siblings – who accidentally died whilst in their care in another institution. Emotions of any normal descriptions were not entertained.

    “It’s moving to hang around airports and watch the reunions. Reunions are a good thing.”

    OB: I find reunions very disturbing- as they trigger off emotions that I cannot handle at all. its a legacy of the past.

    Eric, Dawkins was in Dublin last week promoting his new book. but the presenter of the show that he appeared on – being Catholic, did not seize the opportunity, that a secularist might have had, to talk to him in depth. It was such a pity.

  • #13

    Marie-Therese, the actions of the Sisters of Mercy go beyond mere indifference to the suffering of the twins and the other children placed in their ‘care’. To deliberately withold what they knew from them when adults can have no justification, and amounts to outright sadism. That fits with the theory that suffering is good for the soul, and the Sister probably had no trouble justifying it to themselves in those terms.

    ‘Wicked’ is far too modest a word to use in this context. The word is ‘evil’, and in its own terms, the whole system was Satanic.

    For a proselytising religion, internal discipline and hierarchical control become paramount. Power corrupts, but conversely the corrupted seek power. It can be more easily gained over children than over adults, and far more easily abused. It is no coincidence that the churches have faced their greatest crises lately over the behaviour of their priests and nuns towards children.

  • #14

    The only positive thing from this evil saga is that these holy orders are pretty much on their way out. They have very few new people joining and the older ones are dying off. Even in the early 70s when I began school in a small town in Ireland the nuns there were mostly elderly (and yes, scary and sadistic and not inclined to ‘spare the rod’ – or in the case of myself and the other 4 year olds in my class, ‘spare the steel tipped ruler’.)

  • #15

    You hear time and again of the brutality dished out by the likes of the Christian Brothers, but no one ever goes in and shuts the bastards down. Can you imagine the outcry if this sort of casual sadism emerged in a state school?

    Religious education is child abuse.

  • #16

    Marie-Therese O’ Loughlin

    Ian, a lot of victims/survivors from SOKA UK protested outside Dublin’s Mansion House earlier on in the year, to highlight concerns about the €400 million that the Christian Brothers were planning on shifting to trust funds. See:

    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2009/0528/1224247598982.html

    Do note all the influential high profile educated people they have protecting them. Directors of the type mentioned below in the article are also of the type who have never supported victims/survivors of institutional abuse. They all drink out of the same religious soup bowl. They make their living out of the religious and there is too much of a price to pay for them to speak out on injustices going on under their own noses.

    Like with some Irish celebrities – they would rather been seen helping causes in far off-flung places as they will become even bigger in their celebrity status with all the advertisement coverage.

    There is a new programme coming up on RTE this Sunday. It is called, “Does God Hate”?!

    The CB’s plan on shutting themselves down -that is after they have shifted all their assets.

    The Florida misappropriation case of millions of dollars dollars is presently on the box. Fancy spending $300,000 dollars on gold coins and the parishioners, with the same token gathering funds to bail the culprits out of jail!