Artane boys faced music and straps

In Croke Park the Artane Boys Band will strike up, as much a part of the All-Ireland tradition as the final itself. Patrick Walsh was in the band once. He told his story to Patsy McGarry It was cold in Croke Park on April 12th, 1966. Thousands had gathered there with the President, Mr Eamon de Valera, and the Taoiseach, Mr Seán Lemass, for a pageant marking the 50th anniversary of the Easter Rising.

Also there was inmate number 14723 from Artane industrial school. Patrick Walsh was on his first outing with the Artane Boys' Band. He was 12 and played B-flat clarinet. He had joined the band for safety. When he arrived at Artane in 1963 his two older brothers, John and Frank, who were already in the band, took him aside and made him agree to join. He had to, they said, if he was to avoid being beaten. Boys in the band proper were an elite. They were untouchable.

It wouldn't do for them to arrive in Croke Park with black eyes, bruises or broken limbs. Patrick's brothers began to teach him how to play the B-flat clarinet. They presented him to Brother Joseph O'Connor, who was in charge of the band. "OK," he said, "he's in." Patrick, two of his brothers and their sister, Mary, had been in industrial schools since August 1955. They were from Churchtown, Dublin, but their parents' marriage had failed. They were detained by order of the Dublin Children's Court and were to be held by the State until they were 16.

Each was "charged" with "having a parent who does not exercise proper guardianship". Patrick was not yet two. His "sentence of detention" would continue until his 16th birthday, September 25th, 1969. Before entering Artane, Patrick had never encountered violence. There, however, boys were beaten with straps on the slightest pretext, he recalled.

"A classroom of 25 11-year-olds and every single one of them crying for mercy. Every day. Can you imagine the sound that makes. I can still hear it in my head . . . for not understanding a Gaelic word, or not being quick enough with responses to some mathematical problem." The man in charge of the infirmary would get extremely agitated when boys came in clutching their stomachs after being punched by Christian Brothers. He was afraid of appendicitis. Patrick recalled two funerals of boys who had been rushed to the Mater Hospital with "acute appendicitis".

Not yet in the band proper, Patrick was also beaten. Records say that between October 1963 and October 1964 he was detained in the infirmary five times. Each followed bad beatings.
One of the most savage he witnessed was of a boy who attempted to escape. He was brought back by gardaí. "Is it any wonder we as children associated the State [through the Garda] with that sort of thing?" said Patrick.

He remembered when a group of boys went to Clontarf Garda station to complain about beatings at Artane. Gardaí brought them back back to the school, and all were flogged. "We always dreamed that one day the State would step in to stop it, but they were just dreams. Wishes. Hopes."

Attempts at escape continued and there was one outstanding moment when a boy tried to get something done about the terror at Artane. Anthony Burke was 15 when the minister for education, Mr Brian Lenihan, visited the school in 1967. Mr Lenihan was shown around spruced-up classrooms, pristine dormitories and neat workshops Then it was time to go. The boys had assembled on the school steps behind the brothers. Anthony Burke stepped forward. He said to Mr Lenihan: "They beat us every day. Stop them beating us." The brother superior put his arms around Anthony Burke's shoulders and smiled, with a "what-a-laugh" attitude, as Patrick recalled. Mr Lenihan turned to his chauffeur and said: "Get me out of this f---ing place." It became a catch-phrase among the boys. "Get me out of this f---ing place," they would say, and keel over. Then brother superior banned it.

Poor Anthony Burke. As soon as Mr Lenihan left, the brother superior dragged him inside and, along with one of the most savage brothers in the place, punched and belted him along a corridor in front of all the other boys saying: "Can you believe the lies that this dirty bastard said to the minister about being beaten every day? Imagine! People being beaten every day? Can you believe it?"

Anthony was sent to Letterfrack.

Letterfrack had "an awesome reputation", said Patrick. The brothers decided to dispatch his brother, Frank, there after a bout of mischief. Patrick contacted their mother in London. She had been denied access to all her other children when she fled her husband, to London, with their fourth child, baby Gerald. Once, illegally, she visited her three other boys at Rathdrum school. She was allowed to see them briefly, one at a time, and told not to come back again. The boys saw her again in June 1966 when the Artane Boys' Band visited Blackpool. She had arranged with Patrick that Frank should be outside a church near Artane at 5 p.m. on a given day. She picked up Frank in a taxi and took him to the airport.

That night the brother superior shone a torch in Patrick's sleeping face and asked him who the woman was who had been seen picking Frank up. Patrick said he didn't know. The brother superior raided Patrick's locker and found letters from his mother. However, Patrick had removed her address from them all. The letters were placed on a table in the brother superior's office as two gardaí interrogated Patrick. They said they could charge him with assisting an unlawful flight. Then the brother superior threw the letters in the fire. "They were very important to me," said Patrick.

He was not sexually abused at Artane. But he was aware of the activities of some of the brothers and one layman in this area. The layman had grabbed him one day but had to let him go immediately when a group of boys came along. The same layman used to take selected, usually illegitimate, boys out for trips in his mini-bus. After one such trip six of the boys had to be taken to the Mater hospital for treatment following brutal sexual abuse. He was then barred from Artane.

Some boys would be taken to some brother's private rooms at night. Or to a cubicle in each dormitory, where a supervising brother slept. No one talked about what happened in those cubicles. Artane was shut down in July 1969 when Patrick and the band were on a tour of Boston and New York. They returned to find the place empty. Patrick was taken in by a woman in Mullingar, where he was until 1971. He is now a successful businessman in London. His brothers are also in London. None of them has played the clarinet since leaving Artane.

Patrick has come to believe that "you can judge the nobility of a people by the way they deal with children". I have to say I didn't see much nobility in the Irish." He does not consider himself Irish. He is 46 today. The Artane Boys' Band is no longer run by the Christian Brothers.

Patsy Flanagan Never Went Home

This is the death certificate of Patsy Flanagan

who died while incarcerated

at Artane Industrial School, February 1951.

Patsy Flanagan is one of the many unaccounted for deaths in the Institutions in Ireland. Patsy died in hospital after what was probably a violent incident in Artane Industrial School. Much of the so-called testimony on the events leading to Patsy's death is so obviously false - criminally false.

What is so obvious and undisputed about Patsy's short life and violent end is that in the great scheme of things as preached by his jailors, the Christian Brothers, Patsy didn't count for much - only what his labours could produce for these jailors.

He Lived - He Worked - He Died

And those responsible for his violent end STILL parade with the mask of religiousity and moral probity.

But they HAVE blood on their hands - at the least Patsy Flanagan was refused proper medical attention for one and a half hours, crucial time that could have saved his life. At the worst Patsy Flanagan was murdered - plain, simple and awful murder.

Angry on Ultimate Disposal has asked searching questions on Patsy's death, and made very telling points worthy of Maigret. These points, ALL THESE POINTS, must be addressed at the Commission if the truth leading to the events surrounding Patsy death is to FINALLY come out.

ARTANE HEARINGS FULL

A R T A N E

ARTANE 7 - Reynolds: I Know Mental Case Brother

Q. I think it is true to say, when one goes through the visitation reports, that occasionally there would be criticisms made of a particular Brother, this is within the Order?
A. Yes.

Q. Of Christian Brothers themselves, that they would make criticisms of a Brother if he wasn't adhering to his religious vocation properly or practices, or if he was too strict or harsh on the boys, is that right?
A. Correct, and I give some examples of that.

Q. Yes.
A. The visitation itself was a rigorous exercise through which the Congregation carried out what it saw as its role in ensuring that everything was as it should be, both within the community itself and within the school or whatever institution was in question. There was a report written which didn't come back to the community, it went to the relevant Council, the Provincial Council. A covering letter came back to the superior or manager highlighting some of the positives, but generally highlighting the negatives and the things that needed to be attended to. There was follow up on those to ensure that it happened.

Q. Do you think the follow up was adequate?
A. I would say in general yes, in other instances no. A lot of that would depend on the individual person. In some that I could point out, I would certainly say in one that I quote, the 1952 visitation report was certainly one that was carried out that I have quoted quite liberally on, in which a lot of views were expressed and I would say it was responsible for a lot of the discussion that took place among the Brothers themselves through the 1950's and eventually led to significant changes in the running of the institution.

Q. Do you think that the suitability of a Brother to remain in the school would be something that would be addressed in these reports and followed up?
A. It would, and I have no doubt that Brothers were changed out. I have read all the reports and reading through them, one of the things I said to myself at times was that if the visitor was putting that in writing now about a Brother, he might want to consult his legal advisers before he would write some of the things that are written.

Q. I want to draw your attention to one such matter, and before the Chairman gets too apprehensive, it is redacted, there is no name in it. At page 48 of the book which you have there, there is a visitation report for 1958/59, and below the heading "Poultry Farm" the next heading says: - "The arrival of Brother ..., who is a mental case, created the problem of trying to get him something to do." - Then he lists a few different catastrophes he was involved in. Then if one moves on to page 51 in that book, you will find another reference in the second paragraph on that page: - "Brother ... is seemingly a mental case and it is very difficult to place him." - If you go on to the next page, page 52, that is a visitation in 1963, some considerable time later. I know it is not entirely helpful because the names of the Brothers who were there at the time are blanked out, but you may take it from me that that Brother's name is still there as a member of the Congregation in 1963, having been referred to in those less than flattering terms in 1958/59.
A. I would say a number of things about it. First of all, obviously I know who the Brother was, I knew the Brother and I would not agree with the description of the visitor, but so be it. Secondly, I would say that he wasn't a teaching Brother and I don't think the criticism was in relation to the mental soundness of the person. I think the main criticism was here
was somebody that was sent in and he does not seem to be able to fulfill any role, so essentially I think the visitation report said that he was a negative quantity in the place. I would take that certainly I presume not in the community and from religious observance, but from the point of view that his work rate wasn't very good and his contribution wasn't adequate in the eyes of the visitor. As you wisely say, why not take him out. The simple fact of the matter was he was left there, they tried him in a number of situations, they didn't work and eventually he was moved on. During part of that time incidentally, the Brother in question was studying in university, he wasn't a full-time member of the staff.

Q. I will be coming back to this later, Brother. There are examples of some Brothers who were there a very long time, some as long as 30 years, not many, but there are some there over 20 years, 25 years or 30 years. Was there any fixed policy in the Christian Brothers about ensuring a regular turnaround of Brothers?
A. There wasn't, I would say, in relation to industrial and residential schools, because people with experience and who were seen to be successful were left there. I think it is also worth noting that many of the primary and secondary school principals nowadays are also there in that once you go into the job, that is it, and there is no system of sabbaticals or anything like there, you are there in the job for that duration.

Q. I am not suggesting that there wasn't a regular turnaround, because we have been furnished with the dates when Brothers were there, and they clearly show that a great many of them were there only for two or three years at a time. I am just wondering was there any policy on this?
A. From reading it I would say the teaching Brothers were probably transferred more frequently and moved along, but part of the reason for that was that the system within the Brothers was you had a primary school in Artane and the system within the Brothers at that stage was, and right up until recent enough times, that every Brother who trained as a teacher trained first as a primary school teacher and then the decision afterwards as to whether or not he wanted to move to secondary school or remain in primary was largely left to himself. Those who were moving, who were deciding they were going to go would be applying to go to university and so on, and they would be moved rather more quickly so that they would attend studies and move into secondary school. A lot the principals, all of the them -- well, not all, and I am trying to think of names at the minute, but most of the primary school principals were there for a longer duration, but they were also people who were committing their lives to primary school education and hadn't any desire to move out of it.

ARTANE HEARINGS 6

Q. Yes. I think there were other administrative staff in Artane as well, the trades area, the farm, the kitchen?
A. Yes.

Q. The band and the infirmary, they all had designated people to run those?
A. They had. Some of these, their management role would be smaller than in others. Obviously there was a farm manager, who was a Brother, whose role was a very significant one. The Brother in charge of the band was strictly an administrative role, not a musical one as such. There were musical directors and so on and teachers who taught music. The same in the infirmary, there was a Brother who generally looked after the nuts and bolts issues in the infirmary, but you had the medical officer, the doctor and the nurse who looked after all the medical affairs.

Q. What forms of inspections was the school subject to?
A. Three really, three forms of inspection. Number one, from the Department of Education, the primary school was under the normal inspection of the Department of Education for Primary Schools. They were really three types of inspection. You had a general inspection in primary schools where an inspector or a group of inspectors came to a school and spent a period of a day, two days, three days a week, depending on the size of the school. All classrooms were visited and so on. Teachers were inspected at their work and all the various documentation was inspected, at the end of which a general report was issued. They inspected individuals then who were in their first year of teaching after completing training college. You had to do a two year probationary period really and there were inspections during that, at the end of which you were certified as a qualified national teacher. Then there were casual inspections.

An inspector was advised to spend about a fortnight a year in his district calling into schools and so on. In relation to the other half of the Department then, you had inspections by the Department of Education's Industrial School branch. From my reading of the documentation, it would appear that the medical section of that was carried out well and vigorously, but there seems to be little evidence that any other aspect of the institution was adequately inspected by the Department. I would have to say the primary school one, there is plenty of evidence there that it was inspected quite well. I would say in relation to the Department of Education and the institution, that included medical issues as in strict illnesses or injuries, general health, food and clothing, but I would say other aspects of it were not well, and that is referred to in the Kennedy Report and I think the Kennedy Report stated that the experience of other European countries would show that you would need at least six people in Ireland to provide that type of inspection that was needed.

The third time was there was an inspection by the Congregation visitor. The Congregation visitor was a member of either the Provincial or the general Council who came along and also spent, again depending on the size of the community and the ministries that were going on there, anything from three or four days to a week or more. His role was a double role; it was pastoral on one level, he would have met all the Brothers and met the community and so on, but it was definitely inspectorial in relation both to the religious observance in the community and in relation then to the operation of any ministries that were there, which included personnel, how the work was done, buildings and general conditions.

ARTANE HEARINGS 5

Q. At the top of page 12 of the submission, you give some indication of the workload of the Brothers' teaching.
A. Yes.

Q. Could you just tell the Commission about that?
A. The teaching Brothers were also responsible for supervision. Whereas, the disciplinarian had overall responsibility for supervising people, obviously one person wasn't going to be able to supervise anything ranging from 400 to 800, depending on the students in the yard. There was a rota of Brothers who supervised during break times and so on, who supervised the dormitories in the morning when the children were rising, at night when they went there and prior to going to bed and preparations and so on,and a supervision rota for that as well, then the dining room. All aspects of supervision required the assistance of the other Brothers and that mainly was the lot of the teaching Brothers simply because they were active and young and able for it. Essentially they were providing what was almost a 24 hour seven day a week service.

Q. Did they get any holidays?
A. They did, they would have got a month's holidays in each summer and shorter breaks during Christmas and Easter.

Q. I would like you to comment on an item that appears in one of the visitation reports, this would be a report of the Christian Brothers' own inspectorate who would visit from time to time. It is at page 58 of that book of documents you have. One of the comments made in this particular report, which is dated May 1968, just a year before it closed, it says:
"There was a feeling among them that we do the work, that it has some basis. It does not help that some of the senior Brothers have little sympathy for the younger Brothers who have very long hours in a very wearying day's work for the most part seven days a week. They have some justification for their belief that they are being watched and criticised by the older non-teaching Brothers." This suggests that within the community themselves some of them felt they had a very heavy workload.
A. They had a very heavy workload, that is true. I think the reference there was, and I referred to it in some other section of the submission, that a lot of the older brothers who had retired and so on, they were still people who looked back to the Artane of the 1940's and the 1950's, and when the younger generation then were moving along and did bring in change bit by bit, sometimes it was resisted because people thought that the system that they knew was tried and tested and that it shouldn't be changed,and so on. As you can see from the submission, gradually change did come in and significant change in the late 1950's and early 1906's and right through the 1960's.

Q. The disciplinarian also had a very onerous day, would that be right?
A. Yes.

Q. You talk about this in the summary at the end of paragraph 2.6 of the submission.
A. Yes.

Q. It is on page 13. You say: "The role was an onerous one because of the many and varied duties associated with the post."
A. Yes.

Q. Did that impose any stresses or strains on the disciplinarian, do you think?
A. Well, on individuals obviously I don't know because I don't know the individuals, but it certainly was an onerous task, the same as the principalship of the school, either primary or secondary, is an onerous task. The disciplinarian was responsible for order and safety, for organising home visits, for organising Godparents, for ensuring that boys didn't abscond, for discipline. The one thing I want to say is that in one sense it is a misnomer because the issuing of sanctions wasn't the primary role of the disciplinarian, the primary role of the disciplinarian was the care and welfare of the pupils outside of school time. It did, of course, entail dealing with recalcitrance and issuing punishments and so on, but that wasn't the primary role. The discipline in question was a positive discipline rather than a negative one.

Remembered Horrors

Remembered horrors of a religious education

The Christian Brothers

Ron Blair’s one-man play The Christian Brothers deals with a significant social issue - education in a religious school and a system of teaching that he exposes as violent and incompetent. First produced in 1975, the work has consistently resonated with audiences who recognise in it their own school experiences. While the play deals with a specific type of schooling, it also raises a number of more universal questions about education. Ron Blair was born in 1942 and attended a Roman Catholic Christian Brothers’ school in the Sydney suburb of Lewisham. He hated his education and reportedly wrote the play to get it out of his system, presenting the order’s teaching methods as narrow, authoritarian and brutal.

For the current production, the Sydney Theatre Company has brought most of the play’s original team together, including director John Bell, designer Larry Eastwood and actor Peter Carroll as the unnamed elderly Christian Brothers’ teacher. Carroll’s performance is masterful and has been deservedly acclaimed by local critics. He brings an unrelenting energy to the role—at once brittle and smug then launching into angry rages. Carroll, who was also educated by the Christian Brothers and has played the part many times, has said that he strongly identifies with the teacher and his situation. The play is set in the 1950s. The teacher fronts his (imagined) classroom of boys, lashing out with his leather strap, verbally abusing his students and constantly warning them they risk eternal damnation—all in the course of a series of Poetry, History, French and Physics “lessons”.

A jittery character, the Brother’s teaching technique consists of extracting the prescribed correct answers from his students on pain of the strap. The play culminates with the class clown, a rebellious student represented by an empty chair at the front of the stage, being beaten to a pulp. The Christian Brothers not only reveals how damaging such a regime is but also delves into some of the reasons for the teacher’s behavior. Blair focuses attention on the teacher, invoking considerable sympathy for him, while moving the audience emotionally backwards and forwards from shock, to laughter, to fear.

The play’s opening scene immediately highlights the Brother’s central flaw. Carroll enters the classroom—the setting is deliberately sparse: a large blackboard, a crucifix, a lift-up desk and one wooden chair—dressed in the white collarless shirt, black soutane and trousers of the Christian Brothers order. He recites Keats’ “Ode to a Nightingale”, which has, as its central point, the understanding that humans are not simply spiritual entities. We only live by embodying flesh. Without ears to hear, the nightingale would sing in vain.

But these conceptions are at odds with a religious worldview that divides everything into two categories: good and evil. Particularly antithetical, as far as the Brother is concerned, are the spirit and the body. This is one of the major themes of the play: the Brother’s unease with his own body, his sexual anxieties and frustration. He is bound by the church’s vow of celibacy and subject to all of the psychological pressures that flow from an unnatural lifestyle enforced in the name of giving glory to God. The pledge of chastity has very material roots in the desire of the feudal Church to ensure that its wealth and property were not dissipated to the progeny of the clergy. But the God-fearing Brother, convinced that the worst punishments in hell are reserved for the fallen, considers that even thinking about sex is sinful. As for his students, it is his moral responsibility to warn them against “impure thoughts” or “touching themselves”. The tensions caused by such views initially provide some amusing moments.

Beginning a history lesson on the French Revolution, the Brother turns quickly from the subject of hunger to lust. This reminds him of a lewd picture from a tabloid magazine that he earlier confiscated from a student. He sets it alight in front of the class, timing its burning with a stopwatch and grimly reminding his charges that they face an eternity of hell for a minute’s pleasure leering at the picture. A French language lesson follows with the Brother conjugating the reflexive verb deshabiller, “to undress”. Becoming increasingly agitated, with pieces of breaking chalk flying across the room as he stabs at the blackboard, the Brother begins: “je me deshabille, I undress myself, tu te deshabilles, you undress yourself...” The tension rises until a vulgar interjection from one of the students leads to four cuts from the Brother’s strap and another round of prayer.

But the play reveals another side of the teacher. In the Christian Doctrine lesson he confides in the boys, telling them about his own school days and why he became a Brother. Lonely and impressionable, he was flattered by his teachers, who were also Christian Brothers. Under pressure and in a state of adolescent hysteria, he imagined a vision of the Blessed Virgin Mary. “The most beautiful woman I have ever seen. All around her body was this light, emanating out of her in a slow, steady stream, giving off a sort of hum, like high tension cables. She was wearing a mantle of blue light and she smiled at me and nodded.” The next day he applied for entry into the Christian Brothers. However, as the tone of the play darkens and, in a fit of rage, he beats the rebellious student, the Brother admits that his visionary experience is wearing thin and hardly sustains him now. He wonders aloud about what it might be like with a wife and a mortgage but knows there is no escape and declares that “there’s nothing more comic than an old man who is both broke and looking for a wife”. Yet, “...just to see her one more time... Just once. Then all his doubts and terrors would be gone and he would be young again.”

A pitiable figure, he takes a tin of blue paint from his desk, turns the overturned chair upright and proceeds to paint it, while chanting a litany to the Holy Virgin. The student is either dead or comatose.

This strange behaviour points to another element in the play. It is not accidental that TheChristian Brothers is a monologue. It is bound up with the Brother’s attitude to his students. Education for him is a one-way process. The students are simply empty vessels into which he pours “knowledge”. Or, as he says at the end, they are objects to which he gives “an undercoat, a primer, and then a first coat to be going on with”. The students have only to memorise the facts and regurgitate them when required. Any other response is unwanted and probably sinful. The teacher’s attitude to his students is shaped by the religious belief that they are born in sin and have to be taught to be good. There is nothing of value within them. In fact, any creative spirit they possess has to be suppressed. This authoritarian outlook explains the Brother’s violence towards the students; necessary, he thinks, in order to maintain control and get them working.

He regards his students as neither children nor young men. In the lesson on Keats, he reads out two lines of the poem, directing the students’ attention to the particularly evocative images they contain. This sets the students thinking. But the Brother is so insensitive, so mechanical and distant even from his own lesson material, that upon catching the student in the chair “daydreaming” he gives him three lashes with his strap. He ridicules students when they give unwanted answers. In the reviews of the play and in the Sydney Theatre Company’s program notes, there is a tendency to dismiss the authoritarian school regime as a thing of the past. The program, for instance, devotes an entire page to listing the Christian Brothers “thriving new ventures”. What the play reveals, however, was not exceptional and continued well beyond the period in which it was set.

Beginning in the early 1990s, a number of former students publicised documentary evidence of widespread sexual and physical mistreatment of students by the Christian Brothers over decades. A West Australian psychologist investigated the Christian Brothers and found that a staggering 52 percent of boys at their institutions had been sexually abused and 88 percent physically abused. The Christian Brothers first denied the charges, and then, after being forced to hold their own investigations, tried to minimise the extent of the practices.

These revelations, coming 20 years after The Christian Brothers was written, only make the play more compelling and the questions that it raises crucial.

The play also has a broader significance to the current situation. In conditions where resources for public schools are being cut back, governments are boosting “discipline” to clamp down on the social problems and tensions within classrooms. Progressive educational concepts such as child-centred learning, the development of natural talent and the encouragement of self-expression are under attack, and suspension, expulsion and corporal punishment are being brought back. In raising issues that go to the heart of education, Ron Blair’s play not only challenges the Christian Brothers’ order, but is a healthy antidote to conservative views on educational practice now gaining ground in Australia and elsewhere. The Sydney Theatre Company’s staging of The Christian Brothers is an important and welcome artistic contribution to any serious discussion on this subject.

ARTANE HEARINGS 4

Q. Was the Resident Manager invariably a Christian Brother?
A. Yes, for the total period.

Q. How would he be appointed?
A. He was appointed by the Provincial Council normally for a period of six years.

Q. What other people would be in the hierarchy of management of the school?
A. One I think that is possibly sometimes neglected was he had a bursar who looked after all that end of things, because obviously all of that area had to be catered for and accounts were kept and so on. Then you had the principal of the primary school. The principal of the primary school was exactly the same as the principal of any other primary school at the time or, for that matter, the principal of the primary school now. There was no Board of Management. At that stage in all primary schools there was a system of unitary management.

In other words, an individual was a manager, and that was the Resident Manager and he was also the manager of the primary school. For the running of the institution outside of primary school, you had a person known as the "Disciplinarian" and his role was also a Brother for the entire duration of the period of relevance here, also for that 30 year period. He was responsible for the day to day management of the students outside of school hours. So for the total time outside of school hours, he was the person in charge there.

Q. I think he was responsible for the general welfare and safety of the boys in all matters other than educational and medical matters?
A. Yes, correct, and for supervision and so on. To an extent if somebody was injured in the yard, or whatever it was, then that child was referred to the infirmary.

Q. To go back to the Resident Manager for a moment, was the Resident Manager a member then of an Association of Resident Managers of industrial reformatory schools?
A. Yes, he was the Resident Manager for all the duration and for quite an amount of the time was an executive member as well. He was also the superior of the local community of Christian Brothers. Then there was an Association of Managers of Industrial Schools under the management of the Christian Brothers, a smaller and less formal one than the Association of
Resident Managers of Industrial and Reformatory Schools. It really met once or twice a year, normally it met in the morning prior to the afternoon meeting of the Resident Manager.

Q. What sort of things would be discussed at those meetings?
A. Mainly looking through the minutes. Finance, unfortunately, was the main item on the agenda.

Q. In the national umbrella group, the Association of Resident Managers of Industrial and Reformatory Schools, what would they do?
A. In relation to all aspects of running an industrial school and particularly in matters that concerned the Department of Education, it was a sort of umbrella group. Rather than having the Department dealing with each individual industrial school, they acted as an umbrella group for the managers of industrial schools and they dealt with all areas of relevance.
Again, finance forms a large portion of the minutes of those meetings.

Q. What about the teaching staff in Artane?
A. Up to about 1947 the teaching staff consisted of 20 something Brothers and then up to I think 46 or 47, there were six lay staff as well on the primary school. Generally they were phased out. From there on in, from 1947 until it closed, it was practically all Brothers with the exception from 1966 or 1967 afterwards in which a remedial teacher was appointed to the staff of the primary school. She was the only lay person on the staff at that stage, the rest were all Brothers.

ARTANE HEARINGS 3

Q. Allowing for that, if I might generalise for a moment, what is the position of the Christian Brothers regarding the complaints that there was excessive corporal punishment and that there was sexual abuse? Without asking you to agree that every complaint was valid, in overall terms what is the position of the Christian Brothers?
A. The position of the Christian Brothers is that there were instances of both perpetrated by individual people, but the overall picture that has been given of Artane as an abusive institution is not correct, in fact the opposite is the case.

Q. We will come back to this in more detail later obviously, but to try and get some general observations out of the way first of all. I think your statement and submission is divided into a number of areas. The first deals with the early years and then you deal with management and administration, funding and finance, admission and daily routine, and discharge procedures in Artane?
A. Yes.

Q. Then issues of general welfare, such as food and health issues, then education and then you deal with a special inspection in December 1962, which was an inspection Archbishop McQuaid had put in place which the Christian Brothers were unaware of at the time?
A. Yes, it was an inspection that the Department of Education put in place as a result of events.

Q. Of course, you are quite right. The Archbishop had set up an investigation unknown to the Brothers and then following on that, there was another investigation by the Department?
A. Yes.

Q. We will be coming back to that. Then you deal with the issue of deaths of boys in Artane in the period under review?
A. Yes.

Q. Then the final years and closure. Your last section deals with the issues of both physical and sexual abuse?
A. Yes.

Q. Just to go to the particular areas of the statement and submission, can I ask you this; in general terms was the somewhat potted history and brief history which I gave of the institution correct? Was there anything you would disagree with in terms of the chronology of events?
A. No, I think that is fine.

Q. We know it started around the time Archbishop Cullen asked the Brothers to get involved and it ended in 1969?
A. In the early years the Brothers already had the property in Artane, it was intended for a novitiate and a training house for the Brothers. When the request came from Cardinal Cullen, the proposals in relation to the novitiate were shelved and the property was then used for the industrial school.

Q. Yes. The school was there to provide education, I think, up to Primary Cert level and then some further education evolved as well, is that right?
A. Yes, I would say there were three things. There was a formal primary school, which would be the same as any national school throughout the country and was under the Department of Education and so on and subject to Department of Education rules and regulations for primary school and for inspections. Then there was a trades training section or department, not a vocational school, but a training in trades. In addition to that, there was, I would say, part of the training in Artane was for the welfare, care and the health and so on of the pupils, and there was a lot of emphasis at that stage on physical care, on matters of hygiene and so on, on a way of life and practice of life and on seeking to be good at whatever you were doing. That sort of character building was very much a part of it as well and, I would say, was characteristic of Artane, and it is referred to frequently in the submission.

Q. On page 9 of your submission you deal with the subject of management and administration. You say that on the establishment of Saorstát Éireann, the Department of Local Government and later the Department of Justice became responsible for the administration of industrial schools?
A. Yes.

Q. Then this task was passed on in 1924 to the Department of Education?
A. That's correct, yes.

Q. Did that remain the position?
A. Yes, it remained the position. My understanding is, and I am not as well up on the legalities of it as obviously yourself and other people, that the Department of Health would have responsibility for health and particularly for contagious diseases like tuberculosis and so on. Generally speaking the main agent of the Government that was dealing with Artane was the Department of Education under two branches; the Primary School branch which dealt literally with the primary school in Artane, as it did with any other primary school in the area, and the Industrial School section which dealt with all other aspects of the institution.

Q. You then deal with the issue of local management of the school. I think the day to day management was the responsibility of the Resident Manager?
A. Yes, the overall responsibility was that of the Resident Manager, in other words, on the day to daybasis, the buck stopped with him. Then within each section, primary school, the trades, the farm, the band, the infirmary and so on. There was a person in charge of managing that and reporting, as it were, in management terms to the Resident Manager. On the ground they ran their thing and he was the overall boss, as it were.

ARTANE HEARINGS 2

BROTHER MICHAEL REYNOLDS HAVING BEEN SWORN WAS EXAMINED, AS FOLLOWS, BY MR. McGOVERN

THE CHAIRPERSON: Sit down, Br. Reynolds.
Thank you very much.

MR. McGOVERN: Good morning, Br. Reynolds.
A. Good morning.

Q. I understand that you are the Deputy Leader of St. Mary's Province in Ireland?
A. That's correct.

Q. One of two provinces of the Christian Brothers?
A. Yes.

Q. You were appointed to the province leadership team in March 1998 and then to the position of Deputy Leader in April 2002?
A. That's correct, yes.

Q. I think you have been instrumental in preparing a statement to the Commission, is that right?
A. Yes, correct.

Q. That sets out in broad terms the position of the Christian Brothers on the issues which have arisen giving rise to this Commission's work?
A. Yes.

Q. Can I ask you were you yourself at any time in Artane as a Brother doing work there?
A. No, not in the industrial school, no.

Q. I think you are familiar with the layout?
A. I am familiar with the buildings and the place as it is now. As it was within 12 years of its closing, from there on I was familiar with it for a number of years.

Q. On the first page of your statement you say that the contents of the submission is based on certain material, would you tell the Commission what that material was?
A. The main sources are the archives of the Christian Brothers, but the province archives which are located on the North Circular Road in the Provincial Headquarters and the archives in Rome. All of the documentation used has already been discovered to the Commission. In addition to that, speaking to Brothers and others who worked there, including former residents, and from various other documents I have referred to that are in the public domain and so on, and various other reports with which people are familiar.

Q. In compiling this submission and in making some of the comments that it does make, was any regard had to the written complaints which were submitted by any former residents in Artane?
A. Let's say it was written in the consciousness of all of these but not specifically in relation to any individual complaints. I would be reasonably familiar with the overall picture also that is presented in the complaints, yes.

Q. You make comment about newspaper reports and radio and television reports. What is your general comment and the comment of the Christian Brothers with regard to media reports in recent times on Artane?
A. My general view on that is that from the late 1980's onwards the picture that was presented at Artane was one that was predominantly negative and I would certainly say that the record shows that that is not true. I would say it was seriously unbalanced and I would say that it probably in a sense has conditioned the public mind, the mind of the public to that.
Certainly the main tenor of my submission would be that taken in the round and in the whole Artane was quite a positive place that made a great contribution to people who were in need. That is not in any way to belittle -- certainly the Congregation does not wish to add hurt to anybody who was abused there, we apologised for that in March 1998 and we repeat that apology to anybody who has been abused. Nonetheless, I think there is need for balance at this stage because the Congregation's position is that Artane in the whole and in the round was a very positive institution.

Q. Your statement is a lengthy one and I am not going to take you verbatim through it. Obviously the Commissioners have the statements and will consider everything that is in it. There are certain aspects of the contents of the submissions which I would like to take you through and there are some areas, such as funding, which have already been covered to a certain extent in the public hearing in Letterfrack, also involving the Christian Brothers. There are certain particular details you might want to address with regard to that. I think one of the concerns that the Brothers have that emerges from the submission is to contextualise the various matters which have been complained of, is that correct?
A. Correct. I think it is very difficult for everybody in the sense that Artane, as you have already said, closed on 30th June 1969, which is quite some time back. So the lapse of time alone makes it difficult to present a picture. The picture of Artane that is presented and is now in the public mind to a large extent does not help. A lot of the Brothers who worked there are now deceased and, therefore, we haven't the benefit of their direct evidence. A lot of those who are still alive are well advanced in age. They are people who worked there in the 1940's and the 1950's. Even the 1960's is a long time back. The other concerns we would have is that in relation to all of this, it is almost putting an onus on people to prove their innocence, which is really an inversion of the normal process. Therefore, it makes everybody's task, including the task of the Committee, quite difficult.

The other thing in relation to context is that many of the attitudes and behaviours that were acceptable at that time in the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's would now not be acceptable, and I accept that. I instance in the submission the industrial school system itself is now gone, but it was the system of the time with its imperfections and so on. The other one I instance is corporal punishment that at that time was common enough in family homes, in schools and so on, and that now has been abolished in schools in Ireland since 1982 and obviously is not acceptable, but within its time it was part of the system.

ARTANE HEARINGS 1

THE HEARING COMMENCED, AS FOLLOWS, ON THURSDAY, 15TH SEPTEMBER 2005

THE CHAIRPERSON: Good morning everybody. Now, Mr. McGovern.

MR. McGOVERN: Good morning, Chairman, Members of the Commission. This is a public hearing into Artane Industrial School. The hearing will follow the same format that has been used in the past year or so when investigating other institutions and will be in line with statements made by the Commission on the question of procedures to be followed. This means that the evidence regarding Artane Industrial School will be heard in three phases.

Phase 1, commencing this morning, will consist of the hearing of Br. Michael Reynolds, Deputy Leader of St. Mary's Province, Ireland, one of the two provinces of the Christian Brothers in Ireland. This province would have had responsibility for the northern half of the country, north of a line from Dublin to Galway and would have included Artane. Brother Reynolds' evidence will be based upon a submission which aims to describe life in Artane in the period coming within the remit of the Commission, including the Congregation's view as to how the institution operated and what life was like there, and is intended to serve as a general background information on the institution. I would like to make it clear, Chairman and Members of the Committee, that it is appreciated that some, or perhaps even all, of the evidence which he gives will not be accepted by some who were present in the institution at the relevant time. If there are issues raised which require resolution or clarification, they will be returned to in Phase 3 at a later stage. When this brief public hearing comprising Phase 1 has been completed, Phase 2 will begin. This will involve the hearing of evidence from a number of persons who have filed statements with the Commission outlining abuse suffered by them at Artane.

The Committee have prepared a schedule of hearings involving relevant witnesses who may have evidence to give with regard to the institution. These hearings will commence on Monday, 26th September and are expected to conclude in mid-December. These hearings will take place in private as provided for in the legislation governing this Commission of Inquiry. After the Committee has had an opportunity to consider the evidence given in both Phase 1 and Phase 2, it is proposed to return to a public hearing which will deal with any contentious matters outstanding or any other relevant issues concerning the management and operation of the institution. At that stage the Investigation Committee will deal with issues which have been identified in Phases 1 and 2.

A decision has been made to leave over these contentious issues until Phase 3 since by that time the Committee will have had an opportunity of hearing evidence from persons who were in the institution at the relevant time rather than now, when the Committee can only have a limited picture as to what contentious issues are likely to arise. When a clear picture emerges as to the issues to be dealt with in Phase 3, interested parties will be notified and informed as to the procedures which will be adopted.

At this public hearing, evidence will be given by Br. Michael Reynolds, who is Deputy Leader of St. Mary's Province, Ireland, of the Congregation of Christian Brothers. Since 1956 the Congregation of Christian Brothers in Ireland was divided into two provinces for administrative purposes; St. Mary's Province for the northern part of the country, north of a line from Dublin to Galway, and St. Helen's Province for the southern half of the country, south of that line. Artane comes within the area of responsibility of St. Mary's Province. Reformatory schools were set up under legislation in the mid-19th Century to provide for the needs of juvenile offenders.

It soon became clear that an alternative system was necessary in order to provide for the care, protection, education and training of children who were not guilty of any offence but who, because of destitution, neglect or lack of adequate parental care were deemed to be in need of residential care. This is how the industrial school system came into existence. The system which operated in Scotland and England was extended to Ireland under the Industrial Schools Act passed in 1868. These schools were to provide for children who in present day terminology would be 'put into care'. Historically there was a difficulty in getting most local authorities to contribute towards the maintenance of children in industrial schools and an ongoing complaint of those managing these schools was the inadequate level of funding provided by the Exchequer.

After the passing of the Industrial Schools Ireland Act, 1868, Cardinal Cullen, the then Archbishop of Dublin, approached the Christian Brothers to ask them to assist in running the task of running these institutions and, having acceded to this request, Artane Industrial School opened its doors to its first pupils on 28th July 1870. The school was established under the 1868 Act with the intention of catering for neglected, orphaned and abandoned Roman Catholic boys. Its original intake was of three pupils and it rapidly grew in size to a point where it was housing 700 boys in 1877 and reached its certified size of 825 boys before the end of the 19th Century.

During the 1940's the numbers in Artane were close to 800 and ranging from a low of 794 pupils to a high of 818. The average was 802. The 1950's showed a very significant decline in numbers; the total ranged from a low of 422 in 1958 to a high of 762 in 1950 at the beginning of that decade. The average in the 1950's was 620 pupils. The decline in population continued in the 1960's with a numbers ranging from 392 in 1960 to 24 in 1969. The average number during that period was 286 pupils.

These figures do not include voluntary or Health Board admissions which were low and only amounted to 262 boys for the entire 30 year period. Thirteen were admitted in the 1940's, 113 in the 1950's and 136 in the 1960's. Reasons for boys being committed to Artane included begging, not having any home or settled place of abode, having a parent who did not exercise proper guardianship, not attendance at school, destitution or being orphaned or involved in petty crime. From 1954 children guilty of criminal offences were not admitted to Artane.

This was because it was felt that it was not beneficial to have boys who had committed crime mixing with boys who were there for other social reasons. The vast majority of boys admitted to Artane came from Dublin and most of the rest of them came from other parts of Leinster. The school continued to operate until the decision was made in 1967 that the institution should be closed. This decision was influenced by a number of factors, including changing attitudes towards childcare, the industrial schools system and the inadequacy of State funding for such institutions.

The school finally closed on 30th June 1969. Most of the boys in Artane were either discharged or transferred to other institutions. Some 22 pupils remained on in order to pursue their secondary education in St. David's Secondary School which was nearby. Chairman, that is just setting out a brief history of the school and the type of boys who came to be there over the period of its operation. I now propose to take Br. Michael Reynolds through the statement which the Christian Brothers have submitted to the Commission.

THE CHAIRPERSON: Yes, very good.

SOME SNIPPETS FROM A DEBATE IN 1942

THE QUALITY OF EDUCATION IN THE CHILD DETENTION CENTRES

Dáil Éireann - Volume 83 - 20 May, 1941 - In Committee.
Children Bill, 1940—From the Seanad.

Mr. Hurley:> I should like to avail of the opportunity again to ask the Minister to take some cognisance of the conditions of service of teachers in a particular school—Artane. Even if the Minister is not able to remunerate those teachers fully and properly, I cannot see why he has not power to secure that their conditions approximate to the working conditions of even an agricultural labourer, who is supposed to be the lowliest-paid member of this community. I referred to those conditions before. Deputy O'Sullivan has referred to them to-night. These lay teachers work from 6.20 in the morning until 9.30 at night, with a few miserable breaks during the day. In other words, they have no day to themselves out of the seven days of the week. That goes on without a break for the whole year, with the exception of a few weeks’ holidays. Surely that should be the concern of the Minister for Education. I also ask him to inquire into the conditions of lay teachers of primary subjects in the Greenmount Industrial School, run by the Presentation Brothers. He will find that these teachers get the minimum salary of the ordinary primary teacher. He will also learn that these teachers work from 9 O'clock in the morning until 12, when there is a break. They resume work from 3 to 6, and then are completely finished. Why cannot this wonderful institution in Artane do something in the way of relating those conditions to their teachers? Members of the Fianna Fáil Party know the conditions of service of these teachers. They are not constituents of mine but I have sympathy with them owing to the conditions under which they work. They are constituents of some Fianna Fáil Deputies, who could tell the Minister the conditions as well as I can. Surely, we should not sit dumb in this House while such things obtain in this great Christian institution?

The Minister told us that no new expenditure should be incurred, on the dictum of the inter-departmental committee. I wonder if that dictum was fully observed in every Department of State? Why are these unfortunate teachers singled out for economy, despite the fact that we have the Minister’s own promise in this House—a promise not wrung from him but freely given—that their conditions would be improved? I am disappointed that the Minister has not, in some way, shown sympathy with these teachers in the conditions under which they work by making some gesture towards the implementation of the principle enshrined in this amendment.

Deputy O'Sullivan raised another point which I would like to emphasise —that is, that the children in those schools are as entitled to have teachers teaching them without the worries of bad conditions, bad remuneration, and bad terms of service, as the children in any other category in the State, as, for example, the students in the universities. They are part and parcel of this community, and I do not see why they should be segregated into a class and, in other words, told that any kind of teacher of any kind of education would suffice.

That does not apply to the universities. With all due respect to some members of the House, the university professors are pretty well paid; they do not work long hours. The students feel they are entitled to that kind. I submit that these children in industrial schools are Irish children—part and parcel of the Irish nation—and certainly the teachers should have the very same conditions, remuneration, and terms of service as the teachers in the primary schools. That is not a very big thing to ask. Therefore, I may say that I am specially greateful to the Seanad for giving us an opportunity to discuss this very important question. I tried to get something in about the conditions in Artane Industrial School in the Children Bill—in a kind of underhand fashion, I think—but I wish now to say, definately, that I am supporting this amendment. Unless we can get from the Minister some intimation that he will consider, and in some fashion implement, the principle therein, I intend to call for a division upon the amendment.

Mr. Costello: The evil of this particular grievance of the teachers can really be traced to the system. These industrial schools are dependent, in the first place, on the number of pupils that are in them. If the number of pupils falls their revenue from the State falls. Consequently, they are dependent entirely on the supply of unfortunate children sent to these schools.

Mr. Dillon: Can anybody conceive of this Government going down to a parish in Clare, in the middle of the Taoiseach’s constituency, and saying: “The children in this parish are not entitled to the same standard of education as is supplied to the children in every other parish in Ireland. Unqualified teachers, underpaid and working longer hours than teachers in the schools in other parishes, are good enough for them, and if they do not like it they can lump it”?. What is the difference between the children in a parish in the Taoiseach’s constituency and the orphan children in industrial schools in this country? This is the difference: that the children in a parish in the Taoiseach’s constituency have parents and the parents of these children have votes, whereas the children in an industrial school have no parents and therefore can bring no pressure to bear on a member of the Fianna Fáil Party.

Mr. T.Kelly: Some remarks that were made by the Deputy who was speaking when I came into the House have prompted me to intervene in this debate. His remarks echoed attacks that were made many years ago on the Christian Brothers in Artane. It must now be 35 or 36 years ago since a British Government inspector—of the old Local Government Board—made charges in connection with the administration of the Artane Industrial Schools in a report to the corporation.

Fr. Moore's Report to Archbishop McQuaid 1962

EXCERPTS FROM Fr. Moore's Report
to Archbishop McQuaid
on the Conditions
in Artane
in 1962

1. The boys are badly clothed.
2. They have no overcoats unless they can pay for them out of their pocket-money.
3. They have no vests and no change of footwear or socks; sometime's a boys shoes are too small and give him sore feet.
4. They have no handkerchiefs.
5. There is no such thing as a boy having his own shirt or pyjamas - after washing, articles of clothing are distributed at random;
6. Bed clothes are inadequate.
7. The boys are undernourished.
8. The medical facilities are appalling.
9. There is no resident nurse or matron.
10. The Brother who is in charge of the infirmary has no experience of nursing - he used to be employed on the farm.
11. The surgical room is unsuitable for the purpose [infirmary] and the room smells.

Dáil Éireann - Snippets

Dáil Éireann - Volume 94 - 20 June, 1944
Mr. Byrne: A few weeks ago, the Minister's attention was drawn to the 800 children before the Dublin School Attendance Committee for non-attendance at school, whose mothers in most cases said they either had not boots or clothing to send the children to school. Now these children do not go to school, but are taken up and sent to an industrial school, where they are provided with boots, clothes, food and shelter. If the unfortunate mother had had a voucher to get boots for them, and a little coat, the children would have the parent now to look after them, and give them home comforts, instead of overloading our industrial schools. Our Dublin children are sent down to Waterford and Cork, where their parents cannot see them for some time.

Seán MacCárthaigh: I must again refer to what Deputy Byrne said about the industrial schools. I mentioned it here recently. He was speaking about those children being removed from their families so that their families could not see them for some years. I know definitely that, year after year, when transport was better than it is now, the Very Rev. Provincial of the school to which he refers in the County Cork paid out of the school funds the railway fares for those children to go to their homes.

Dáil Éireann - Volume 101 - 12 June, 1946
Mr. Allen (for Mr. O'Connor) asked the Minister for Education if he will state how many children were committed to industrial schools, in the year 1945, on the grounds that their parents were unable to maintain them; and the total amount, paid out of public funds, to such schools, for the maintenance of such children.

Minister for Posts and Telegraphs (Mr. Little) (for Minister for Education): During the school year ended 31st July, 1945—the latest date to which complete returns are available —the number of children committed to industrial schools on the statutory grounds that their parents were unable to maintain them was 242 (89 boys and 153 girls). The total amount paid out of public funds in that period towards the maintenance of these children was £9,438; this amount was paid on the basis of a capitation grant of 7/6 per head per week from the State and a similar sum from the local authorities responsible under the Children Acts for the maintenance of the children.

Dáil Éireann - Volume 103 - 07 November, 1946
Mr. Dillon asked the Minister for Education if he will state the number of children, other than those who have been committed for juvenile delinquency, at present in industrial schools; how many such children are boarded out; what is the cost, to the local authority, of children in such schools; and what is the cost to local authorities of boarded-out children.

Minister for Education (Mr. Derrig): On the 30th September last (the latest date to which figures are available) the total number of children under detention in industrial schools was 6,446, of whom 6,176 were committed for reasons other than juvenile delinquency; only one of these children is boarded out; the cost to the local authorities of children in industrial schools for whose maintenance they are responsible was a contribution at the rate of 7/6 weekly per head up to the 30th September last; a revised rate of 8/- weekly is payable as from the 1st of the present month; the cost to the responsible local authority of the one child boarded out is a contribution of 7/6 weekly, payable to the manager of the school from which the child was boarded out.

Christian Brothers Admit Abuses At Artane - I Think?

PIC: Reynolds, apparently a "christian" brother

Artane not an abusive institution, says Brother. A senior leader of the Christian Brothers has said that the congregation accepted there were instances of physical and sexual abuse carried out by individuals at the industrial school in Artane in Dublin. However, Brother Michael Reynolds, deputy leader of St Mary's Province, said the idea that Artane was an abusive institution was incorrect. Giving evidence before the Investigation Committee of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse yesterday, Brother Reynolds said that, in the round, Artane was "a positive institution".

He said there was archival documentation verifying six cases of sexual abuse at Artane. There was also documentary evidence of 11 cases of excessive physical punishment and 14 cases of neglect. Brother Reynolds said that there was inadequate understanding of sexual abuse in the 1930s and 40s as well as a lack of awareness of the long-term psychological damage caused by abuse. He said that the congregation had viewed the issue as a moral problem and failure rather than a crime. He confirmed that in none of the six documented cases of abuse at Artane had the Garda been informed, even where the perpetrator had made an admission. He strongly denied that the Christian Brothers had engaged in a cover-up.

He said that, in the documented cases in Artane, action had been taken swiftly and in most instances the Brothers involved had been dismissed from the congregation. However, he accepted that these cases had not been adequately dealt with by present-day standards and that the effects on young people concerned had not been addressed sufficiently at all. The committee was told of a letter written in 1938 to the provincial of the Christian Brothers, which maintained that the person who had abused a child "was more to be pitied than censured".

Asked about the letter, Brother Reynolds said he had no idea what it meant but that he did not agree with it. A second letter, from 1959, maintained that a Brother who had been found to have been involved in abuse was aware that "the collar had saved him from jail". Brother Reynolds said that the most serious documented case of physical abuse involved a boy who had his arm broken. The Christian Brother involved had been transferred from Artane to another school. Brother Reynolds said that this case had been handled badly by the congregation. He said that, in recent years, media coverage of the school, which operated from 1870 to 1969, had been seriously unbalanced.

The Christian Brothers said that boys were well-cared for at Artane, with nourishing food and good clothing, and that the school regularly received favourable reports from the Department of Education. The death rate among students was lower than the national average. Brother Reynolds maintained that the primary school provided an excellent education although there was ongoing debate about the value of training for trade provided. The Christian Brothers said that sporting and cultural activities were well catered for. Televisions were installed in the 1960s and a swimming pool was built in the mid-1960s.

The committee heard that, in the early 1960s, the then chaplain at the school had drawn up a highly critical report on Artane for the then Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, John Charles McQuaid. This report criticised the regimented atmosphere in the school and highlighted episodes of physical abuse. A subsequent Department of Education investigation refuted these allegations. Counsel for the Christian Brothers Patrick Hanratty said there were significant question marks about the reliability of the chaplain's report. He also revealed that the chaplain had himself subsequently been convicted of sexual abuse.

Crime & Punishment in Artane

Dail Eireann - Volume 145 - 23 April, 1954

Adjournment Debate. - Punishment of Schoolboy in Artane Industrial School.

Captain Cowan: I gave notice this morning that, on the Adjournment of the Dail, I would raise the matter of a boy who received injuries in Artane Industrial School on the 14th of this month. I want to state briefly to the Dail the facts as they were reported to me. The boy concerned is aged 14 and a half years old. He has been in Artane Industrial School for one and a half years, and, during his period there, his conduct has been satisfactory. On the 14th of this month he was punished for some boyish altercation with another boy. Apparently, as I am informed, before the punishment was inflicted, the doors were locked, the windows closed and the punishment, which was the normal punishment, was inflicted in the presence of all of his classmates. The punishment, I am informed, consisted of a number of slaps on the hand from the punishment leather that is generally used for that purpose, but on the completion of that punishment the boy was ordered to submit to further punishment with the edge of the strap and he refused to accept that punishment.

The Brother in charge sent for another Brother to come in. Apparently the boy who was being punished felt that the Brother was being brought in for the purpose of compelling him to receive this additional punishment to which he objected. Whatever his boyish mind was, he ran from the place in which he was being punished, lifted a sweeping brush, which was apparently standing in a corner, and held it up as a protection. At this stage, the second Brother arrived and seeing the bush in the boy's hands, snatched it from him, struck him on the head injuring him, struck him on the back injuring him, struck him on the arm and broke his arm.

That happened on the 14th and the boy was taken to hospital on the 16th instant when his arm was set in plaster and is still in plaster.

The mother of the boy, although she lives not too distant from the school, was not informed of the injury the boy had received, but she heard about it during the week-end. She sought to see the Superior but was refused permission to do so.

In regard to that, I should perhaps make it plain that, so far as I am informed, there was on that particular point apparently some misunderstanding but she sought the Superior during that week-end and did not see him. She saw him on the first occasion on Tuesday of this week when the Superior admitted to her that the boy had received the injuries I have mentioned and that he had been taken to hospital. She did not see the boy. Whether he was then in hospital or not, I am not in a position to say but she did not see the boy. She came to me about half past eight yesterday morning. I communicated by telephone with the Superior and she was then allowed to see her boy.

She was shocked at the state in which she found him. Yesterday was the 22nd; the incident occurred on the 14th and eight days afterwards, on the 22nd, she saw the boy. I immediately, having heard her story as to what had happened, sent a telegram to the Minister asking him to investigate the matter and I stated in that telegram that I would raise the matter on the Adjournment of the Dail, and you, Sir, have kindly given me permission to raise it now.

These boys, who are sent to these schools by the courts, are all the responsibility of the Minister for Education, and the Minister for Education, as I understand it, must answer to this House and to the country for the conditions under which the boys sent there by the courts are kept, the conditions under which they live, the conditions of punishment and matters of that kind. I think the House and the country will want to have from the Minister an assurance that an incident such as has occurred in this case will not be permitted to occur again.

I am informed that the Brother who injured the boy was barely past 21 years of age, not much older than the little boy who was injured in the fashion I have described. I think the House will want an assurance from the Minister, and the country will want an assurance from him, that punishment, if it is to be inflicted on those sent to industrial schools, will be inflicted by some person of experience and responsibility. If punishment were to be imposed in a fit of hot temper, it would be exceptionally bad and, in fact, as in this case, it would be dangerous.

I regret very much that I have had to mention or raise this matter in this House. I have lived for many years convenient to Artane Schools. For many years, whenever I was asked, I have been a subscriber to the funds of the schools. I have seen their boys week after week passing my house, looking exceptionally fit, well clothed and happy. All of us have seen their magnificent band playing on big occasions in Croke Park and it would be regrettable that an incident, such as I have mentioned in this case, should be permitted under any circumstances to occur in a school of that kind.

I myself personally am satisfied that it is an isolated instance. I am satisfied that the superiors will take appropriate action against the Brother concerned. The very fact that the incident did occur shows how necessary it is that this House, through the machinery of the Department of Education and through the Minister charged with that responsibility, should have the closest supervision of schools such as this, where children, many of them without parents at all, are sent to be brought up.

This incident, when I heard it yesterday morning and heard the details subsequently, profoundly shocked me. I am perfectly certain that the fact that it has been raised in this House, that the Minister has investigated it, will ensure that no similar incident will occur in the future. It will be a guarantee to the parents and relatives of children who are in these industrial schools that this House and the Minister and the staff of the Department will jealously guard and protect those children while they are under the care of the State in these institutions.

Minister for Education (Mr. Moylan): I think Deputy Cowan has been quite reasonable in admitting that this is an isolated incident and that in general his appreciation of the work of the Artane School and of the condition of the children there has not lessened. The boy was hit and his arm was broken. I would be as much concerned as the Deputy is if I thought it was anything other than a very isolated incident and in one sense what might be called an accident. I would not tolerate cruelty to any boy or misuse of any boy in any institution.

I visited Artane and found the boys were healthy and well cared for. I visited the schools there and it struck me that there was great evidence of very earnest endeavour, even of notable achievement, in the schools. It would be very difficult to improve the conditions under which the schools operate, certainly without a very substantial subvention from this House for the upkeep of the schools and for the development of what may be essential and necessary there.

I would like to remind the House that the community provided the lands in Artane, the building and the equipment from their own resources; and they did this in a Christian endeavour to ameliorate certain conditions the development of which had not been provided for in any way by anyone. I cannot conceive any deliberate ill-treatment of boys by a community motivated by the ideals of its founder. I cannot conceive any sadism emanating from men who were trained to a life of sacrifice and of austerity. They are also trained to have great devotion to a very high purpose.

The point is that accidents will happen in the best regulated families and in this family there are about 800 boys. Many of them were sent to Artane because of the difficulties of their character and because of a good deal of unruliness of conduct. These boys are difficult to control at times. Maybe it is essential now and again that children should be punished. I am not all at one with the people who claim that children should never be punished, but I think the punishment should be administered, as Deputy Cowan says, by a responsible person in conditions of calm judgment. I do not know how the edge of the strap is used, but I will make an inquiry into that.

I think it would be an evil thing for the school, for the character of the children, for the future of the children, that any misuse should arise in any school like Artane. Because of the unfortunate background of many of these boys, possibly due to evil social conditions, Deputies must realise how careful the handling of them as a group must be and how far from easy it is to ensure the working of such an institution. I deeply regret that there should be such a happening and I appreciate the anxiety of the boy's mother. Apart from my high regard for the Brothers concerned, the community concerned, there is also a very constant system of inspection for all such institutions. I personally have visited practically all of them and I make personal and constant inquiry as to what is happening in them. I know in that particular school how deep is the anxiety for the children's spiritual and physical welfare.

This is an isolated incident; it can only happen again as an accident.

I hope it will never happen again. I have not neglected full inquiry into the working of these schools at any time. There are conditions that should be created in all these schools, they are deficient in many things; but that will cost a good deal more money from the State than the relatively small amount that is paid now. These things are essential from the point of view of the children. Unfortunately, this year I have not been able to make provision for the things I need in those schools; but Deputies will remember that in future a wider provision must be made if these schools are to serve the purpose they ought to serve in the nation.

This is an isolated incident. I wish to express my sympathy to the parents of the child and I can assure them that nothing of the like will happen again. While giving this as a guarantee to parents and knowing the difficult conditions under which the school is run, I would point out to parents that any guarantee I give them of full protection for their children is no licence to any of the children to do what they like.