Thank you for writing.
It would of course be arrogance in the extreme for me to suggest that you should know anything about me but as you’ve told me something about yourself perhaps I might be allowed to tell you something about me.
I was a Luddite at one time, just like you claim to be now. Like you I am a parent – three children. Unlike you, I don’t keep on trumpeting that fact every chance I get. Could it be the case that you are trying to prove something by repeating time and time again “I am a mother and a nurse”
Briefly then:
I am the author of a book which you obviously haven’t read or perhaps even heard of entitled: The God Squad it deals with the institutional abuse of children by religious orders and also deals with how the medical profession took part in what has been deemed to have been experimental brain surgery on me when I was just 9 years of age. My writing has sold over one million copies world wide and not one person has ever disputed a single line or word of what I’ve written or “said”. On the contrary, it has received praise from your own profession and also from religious orders around the world. As you, for reasons best known to yourself, quote Nora wall – perhaps you will allow me to do the same. In a letter written to my (then) doctor she refers to me as “a fine young lad but constantly kept talking of his father and how he found him hanging – it was his one and only topic of conversation” (I should add that every time I mentioned my father to the nuns, I was beaten and often starved). Sister Dominic Wall continues in the same letter… “When he was 8 years old they noticed he was developing a limp”. She continued, naming the doctor. “Doctor “X” said that his limp was the result of a childhood shock”. She then goes on to quote a nun to whom she had spoken to about me. “Sister (the nun is named) believes that Pat did have a lot of un-necessary operations”. As a nurse, and in particular a children’s nurse, you will appreciate the value a child attaches to having a visitor while he/she is in hospital. Here is an irrefutable fact: Not once in the ten years I spent in various hospitals undergoing experimental brain surgery as well as surgery to both my legs, did ONE SINGLE NUN from St. Michael’s Industrial School, Cappoquin, Co. Waterford, or the Mercy Order come to visit me. Indeed, to this day, I haven’t heard a single word form the people in whose care I was put by the courts of the land. Many eminent doctors around the world believe that the experimental brain surgery I underwent is a major contributory factor to the severity of the disability I now have. Allow me to quote one prominent Irish doctor: “I wonder how different things would have been for you if, as a four year old child, just one nun had put you sitting on her knee and said – Tell me about your Daddy”?
No doubt you will come up with a good reason for the way in which I was treated – a cliché like: “Those were hard times” or “That wouldn’t happen today”. Some people would say that I have the ultimate “scar”, a chronic physical disability that requires me to use a wheelchair. Invisible “scars” don’t move about in wheelchairs. Neither L.O.V.E. (Let Our Voices Emerge) or the B.F.M.S. (British False Memory Society) are in the slightest bit interested in that of course. Statements issued by L.O.V.E and the B.F.M.S, have alleged that people like me are “liars” – both organisations have also been all too willing to issue the most offensive comments regarding our parents and even to say that we are “genetically disposed” to becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol. You’ve also alleged that we who have had our childhoods defiled and ripped away from us are likely to end with depressive illnesses. I presume it is your qualification as a nurse that leads you to believe these things.
I’m not suggesting that any of the 80 people you refer to in your organisation – L.O.V.E. – are telling lies. What I would love to know is this: Why are you and your “friends” in the B.F.M.S so adamant that ALL of the people you claim to represent are actually telling the truth when they say they have never abused a person, physically, sexually, psychologically or emotionally?
Let me finish with further quote from a letter signed by Sister Dominic Wall – Nora Wall: “Really, there is great credit due to Pat in the efforts he has made to overcome so much ….life seems to be so unfair to so many who deserve what we would term a better deal from human nature”. I respectfully suggest that L.O.V.E. bear this in mind when making reference to ALL people who were abused while in the care of religious orders.
You say you are a Luddite when it comes to computers!. Funny how it didn’t prevent you asking me to put your praise of Patsy McGarry on my site. As someone who claims not to be able to use a computer I presume you are more than able to find your way around your own organisations website – or is it the case that Luddites are selective in what they read and selective in the interpretation of that reading.
Please don’t patronise me with comments such as “And the truth matters Paddy, the full truth, yours and theirs” I presume the L.O.V.E. have the words dignity and respect, in their vocabulary.
Yours sincerely,
Paddy Doyle
Dear Paddy,
It never ceases to surprise me on how people add abuse to abuse. I am heartened by your courageous and forthright response to what is an attack on your experience.
I and my husband have been the victims of abusers and we know how deceptive they can be.
I pray that you have a great quality of life now and can or have been able to put the past behind. it is difficult to heal the scars and the sadness for a life that might have been had the abuse not occurred.
I believe the world is changing. Abusers will no longer be tolerated.
With every best wish for a bright and hopefilled future,
Jen Fitzpatrick O Hagan BA Lic BSH
please forward on any comment via e. mail about earlier letter or just
phone for a chat.
Miss florence hogan:
A woman to whom I recently called on the phone with a desire to find out how she amassed a wealth of fact based only on opinion about victims of industrial child abuse. False memory syndrome was one of the defences put foward by her and the religious against these same victims and I was wondering did the convicted religious suffer from this disorder as well. Had this same condition rendered the Ryan Report redundant with its testimony and proof in abundance, but most of all I was wondering has this pestilence spread to her. A casual look at the bile and filth she has written in the past proves that it has.
Of course the phone call between us was brief and terse with her accusing me of being a sick man and left me to ask did she also suffer from an attention disorder. It seems she needs lots of it. A natural sympton of not having being loved as a child, while also being symptomatic of being in an Industrial school where even the abuser gets the most respect of all. Florence has not gone away yet. The Ryan Report just simply exposed her and the religious but they will re-invent themselves with Florence getting off to a good start.
She now says that many years ago {vague}, she was accused by a young boy of sexual abuse when he did not do so, while also knowing about several members of the medical profession who were also accused of sexual abuse, {vague}. In this she did not wait around to see if they got convicted at all which I would have thought was a most important point.
Had this non- charge being leveled against her those years ago of sexual abuse based on what we know now, I am quite sure she would have got a promotion after the usual cover up. The boy would have been sent to an industrial school after being called a liar, and either or both were suffering from false memory syndrome anyway so it could not have happened at all. The final paradox.
Barry Clifford, former inmate of St Josephs industrial school in Salthill, Galway
LOVE members who have been themselves abused in some of the institutions have found themselves accused in the RIRB. (Residential Institutions Redress Board) A child care worker in Joseph’s Kilkenny was accused by five of the inmates of gross sexual abuse. When it was revealed that due to a birth defect it would have been physically impossible for him to have committed the acts, they dropped their case in the courts and went through the RIRB instead.
An ex inmate in Salthill, Galway admitted and apologised for accusing one of the Brothers of sexual abuse. He claimed ‘false memory’ at the time. He later came out on air to state he had received compensation in the RIRB and was going to donate some of it to charity.
After the Garda investigation into abuse in Artane, they sent a file to the DPP (Director of Public Prosecutions) on one of the residents who they felt was guilty of assisting twenty five others to make false accusations of abuse. He was and still is a prominent spokesperson for one of the victim support groups.
One of the allegations (among many) in Goldenbridge was that a girl was locked in a furnace for two days and that they could hear her screams. Christine Buckley repeated this allegation on air a few days ago. The girl was actually locked in an old disused building called ‘the furnace’ by one of the women ( not a nun), who worked there. According to the girls sister, it was only while everyone was at mass – a matter of a half an hour or so.
The truth was bad enough. What happened was totally horrifying.It serves those of us from the institutions no purpose in making exaggerated or fraudulent claims. And it serves the eight victim support groups no good to be continually fighting and bickering amongst each other.
Florence.
BFMS is based on the pseudo science of theology graduate Underwager, who along with another quack Gardiner have been using their pseudo science as experts in family courts to get sexual abusers off.
When we moved in on Gardiner he committed suicide, rather than face the music.
These two promote paedophilia, and I can send you proof if you need it.
Florence is no doubt conditioned to believe what she speaks of, like brainwashed, even though it makes no logical sense to you or I.
The men in frocks are being replaced by the men in white coats.
They have the same power as the church, can lock you up for daring to speak your truth.
Truth hurts and those who do evil will use every trick in the book to avoid facing the mirror.
Given the publication of the Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse and it’s damning indictment on religious orders for the abuse perpetrated against children it their care, isn’t it time that L.O.V.E. (Let Our Voices Emerge) apologised for the very hurtful comments they made against people going to both the Commission on Abuse and the Redress Board. Just as religious orders hurt children so did LOVE and the BFMS (British False Memory Society) with whom LOVE associated itself many years ago.