The charity ‘Let Our Voices Emerge’ held an AGM last night. While we have always voiced our support for the Religious Congregations through the years, on foot of what we see are unprecedented revelations of records that the Catholic Church covered up and the Leaderships did not reveal to us over the years of our support, while we still stand by the individual managers who were let down by the system,we now withdraw our support of the Religious Congregations.
Through our own experience in the Industrial Schools we came forward in good faith to support the Congregations, we have now discovered our good faith was betrayed.While we still support the individual managers of the schools who struggled against the system. We now call on C.O.R.I. (Conference of Religious Ireland) to revisit their approach to the repayment deal for the R.I.R.B (Residential Institutions Redress Board).
We feel the Catholic Church in Ireland have betrayed not only us, their supporters from the Industrial Schools, but also our fellow inmates. The payments from the R.I.R.B have been decreased from lack of funding. We understand the legal difficulties of the Church increasing it’s payment from the agreed sum on the basis that their responsibility was only as workers in an already evolved system, but we have now discovered that they were guilty of cover up and duplicity in our fellow inmates care.
The Catholic Church holds it’s assets in trust for all of the followers of the Catholic religion. We feel if the Catholic people of Ireland want to make true reparation they should now contact their local bishops and voice their support for the Church increasing the R.I.R.B contribution.
Florence Horsman Hogan.
Paddy. I read the Sunday Independent for 24 Feb, Today and find it so cruel and upsetting someone called Kathleen Corrigan {probably a false name} wrote abusibe hurtful stuff about an Ex inmate who was in Goldenbridge throught the whole of the 1950’s ,how could anyone be so cruel it is all over the Internet and the survivor and her family is suffering from Cancer having to read this ,the evil Nasty person who wrote this to the newspapers cannot have been in Goldenbridge in those years and cannot be a survivor just someone full of Hate for survivors. I will try to upload the newspaper cutting. , otherwise it is on The Independent .ie 24th today sunday.
If you tell the truth ,you don’t have to have a good memory. especially about dates as every day in the Reformatory Child prisons every day was the same 6 AM BEATEN OUT OF BED IN THE FREEZING COLD ,MARCH in a straight line to the freezing basement washroom with the fearful shouting of the STAFF and NUN’S> SHOUTING left right as we marched as they lashed out with their sticks beating us ,>The only way we knew it was sunday we went to Mass twice sometimes three times ,cold and starving and frightenned , we didn’t have birthdays ,or Names just known by numbers So how are expected to KNOW what date so and so happened, even what year it was , WE WERE CHILDREN you > DIPHEAD INTARROGATORS
thank you barry i couldnt or wouldnt have put it better myself .what is there latest stance on this subject ? what has she done to put her wrongs right ……… of todays date wensday the 9th of june 2010 . more than likely sloped off into the backround never to be heard of again . for years she defended the nuns and priests and brothers lay staff etc etc . we were all liers looking for a free ride of the backs of the religious orders ! the ryan report revealed the truth but has changed f**k all . redress board to me was another abuse ! i spent my childhood in those places the effects of which will stay with me till im buried ! ( cos im already DEAD )
Dear Barry Clifford,
I agree with you, that the Redress Board is but a rubber stamp with an excess of red tape. More so the so called victims support groups, whom I believe that most of them, merely sit on the fence, with their ears to the ground. Talking about, the millions, some of the victims received, and some say, why accept a token amount. I say a little of something is better than, a lot of nothing. Great site
Regards to you and Paddy
Twisted Oliver
Would the person who phoned me last week please phone again and leave me a contact number.
Barry
Thank you Paddy for publishing my letters on your website. I have sent more than a few to the newspapers over the years with regard to Florence Hogan with just one being published against the tripe she has written. At least now there is a chance of a more balanced platform on your web. My own story was well covered by the media several years ago after the Redress Board refused to see my brother at his bedside when he had only days to live. I became a reluctant public witness to his suffering but at least the Redress Board was given exposure to the lie it really was. A cog in the wheel of more injustice dished out to to industrial school victims.
Since that time I have written a manuscript about the first part of my life and have no idea what to do with it. Titled ‘Twenty One Years’, it charts the journey from childhood to my twenty first birthday. I believe it is an uplifting story driven by a positive nature with a sense of fun that probably best describes me! If you like I can e mail you a copy. I would more than welcome your comments and advise.
At any rate, thanks again for everything.
Barry.
A half truth is always a complete lie. I made two phone calls to ms hogan in expectation of a more contrite and humbled woman in the wake of the ryan report. Instead I was met with a hostile attitude with her accusing me of being a very sick man among other things and promptly put the phone down on me, twice. This is her idea of openness and dialogue.
On the overall scheme of things her opinions have been well versed by the media and some dubious propaganda rag papers of the the catholic church which left me wondering who really is ms hogan and how many more of her kind are out there. To me she represents a part of Irelands recent love affair with the church in that she is a victim herself. Her own past and lack of love in it has made her craving for something that never was resulting in a condition called ‘attention deficit disorder’ or otherwise known as ‘to be loved at any cost disorder’. For me this is a sympton of her character but not who she is. In a perfect world we could have been buddies and not embrace an adverse nature that does not describe what we are really about. But she has crossed that line over and over again leaving many of to have little choice in defending ourselves, the memory of those who passed before us, and give title to the mass graves of children who never got to speak at all. As florence is the founder of the L.O.V.E. organization, at last too our voices are starting to emerge, leaving their voices quite muted for now. There lies a warning.
Florence is marinating for now for a severe blow has been dealt to her handlers. The question is can she pull away from them and be that person I know she can be and give put ink on the headstones of those forgotten children and dignity to those still standing on their knees. I wish her well for there is much to think about and much to be remembered.
yours sincerely, Barry Clifford
Thanks for that Paddy. I have a wee bit of a problem commenting on any emails from this person.As Mr Clifford has had a habit in the past of making very aggressive and inappropriate phone calls to my home, I would be very reluctant to engage in any dialogue with him. I’m not quite sure what point he’s trying to make here?.
The article (Sunday Independent June 14th) was making the point that although the HSE state they want to protect children, they still leave those of us working in the medical profession short staffed. This means that while best practice would be that a child is always taken care of by two staff together, thus protecting the child – this is impossible. The child is then open to the possibility of abuse, and the staff are open to the possibility of allegations of abuse that they ( usually) have no hope of disproving.
With regard to Florence Horsman Hogan’s letter to the Irish Independent soapbox page dated 14 June, 2009, I wish to make comment on Ms Hogans attempt to re- invent herself as the voice of the wrongly accused. In earlier times she charged inmates of industrial schools with suffering from false memory syndrome while not levelling the same charge against convicted abusers, except perhaps for those who actually admitted abuse. And now it seems that this pestilence may have even reached her.
Her latest story is that she was wrongly accused many years ago of sexual abuse by a boy of unknown years when in fact he did not accuse her, and then went on to say she knew personally of three members of the medical profession also charged with similar crimes. While not waiting around to find if these people were guilty or not, which I believe was the most important point, she then laments the great danger posed to her reputation and career had this imaginary charge of abuse, that only lay in her head, had been levelled against her.
This is perhaps where fact and fiction merge or perhaps it is all just a symptom of false memory syndrome again. Given what we know now of Ireland’s history with regard to abuse back then, chances are that Florence would have got promoted after everything was covered up, the eye witness would have been found legally blind, and years later if it surfaced again, all sides were suffering from false memory syndrome anyway. There lies the paradox.
Is now the Ryan Report undermined by this disease and gives the guilty their innocence and the innocent their guilt. Perhaps too I imagined that I was in an industrial school for ten years with my brother, with him been sent to a mental asylum because he could not take it any more after a decade of abuse in that hell hole.
Florence has not gone away but just re-inventing herself after the Ryan Report. That was her last hope for vindication but became her Waterloo instead. For most survivors of institutional abuse it became perhaps for us at last the end of the beginning.
For Florence, finally, there are three sides to every story: He said, she said, and the truth underscored by the facts. In this case the Ryan report.
Yours sincerely, Barry Clifford.
I’ve no record of an e-mail from you having searched the website thoroughly. If you’d like to resend your e-mail then perhaps it can be posted.
Did you receive my e- mail sent a few days ago?
Some of those who have been found guilty of making false allegations have themselves claimed ‘false memory’ as a reason for doing so.This has also caused ‘deep hurt and anger’, especially as conviction of the abuse would have led to prison sentencing. We have distanced ourselves from the Congregational leaderships, and voiced to them our deep sense of anger and betrayal. The members of LOVE who started out supporting the individual school managers have a right to continue to support them, the Commission report has vindicated that support on the individuals in question.
Florence
“We now call on C.O.R.I. (Conference of Religious Ireland) to revisit their approach to the repayment deal for the R.I.R.B (Residential Institutions Redress Board)”. This statement from L.O.V.E (Let Our Voices Emerge) is to be welcomed. Now is the time for the religious orders to act on the what L.O.V.E. is suggesting.
While other aspects of the apology from L.O.V.E are to be welcomed also it would be preferable if they totally disassociate themselves from the religious orders they supported for so long.
The hurt caused to people who had been abused by comments made by L.O.V.E. in the past in conjunction with the British False Memory Society (BFMS) caused deep hurt to very many people. That hurt will linger.