The Irish Times – Saturday, November 7, 2009
CULTURE SHOCK: A FORTNIGHT AGO, the Minister for Education Batt O’Keeffe announced the formation of a committee to consider what is surely the most difficult public art commission in the history of the State. The Ryan report into institutional child abuse recommended, among other things, the erection of “a memorial to the victims as a permanent public acknowledgement of their experiences”, writes FINTAN O’TOOLE
Beyond suggesting that it contain the key words of the Taoiseach’s public apology, issued in 1999, the commission, reasonably enough, did not go into detail. It will thus be up to the new committee to consult with survivors, work out the appropriate form of the memorial and “oversee the commissioning and delivery by the Office for Public Works (through competition) of the design and building of the memorial”.
The people chosen for this task are formidable and well qualified, with the former chairman of the OPW, Sean Benton, leading the effort and Bernadette Fahy and Paddy Doyle representing survivors. Yet it is an undertaking of extraordinary difficulty. The psychic wound inflicted by decades of systematic violence against children is very deep. It cuts most profoundly, of course, into those who experienced that violence at first hand, but it also leaves an ugly scar on those who inflicted it – the whole apparatus of Church and State and, more broadly, the collective culture of independent Ireland.
In this respect, whatever is created has to be less like an official war monument and more like a Holocaust memorial. It has to serve two distinct functions – to remember the victims and to remind the society. It has to speak both to those who could never forget because they wake up in the night screaming, and those who would prefer to forget. And it has to be both an official statement by the State and an angry rebuke of the State. It has to be dignified and angry, beautiful and raw, defiant and ashamed.
The difficulty is enhanced by the fact that the responses of the artistic community to the Ryan report have, on the whole, been meagre. The need for cultural institutions to help the public absorb and process the new and infinitely painful reality contained within its pages is obvious. But that need has not been met. One might have expected the major theatres to mount readings of witness statements or the major galleries to commission images, however raw and immediate, that would crystallise some kind of physical response. One might think someone would have done a show on, for example, ideas for a monument, even as a way of thinking about how Irish art might play a role.
Yet not only has there been very little active response, the most prominent event has been a debacle. In July, Gerard Mannix Flynn’s exhibition Padded Cell and Other Stories was withdrawn from the Dunamaise Arts Centre in Portlaoise when the director, Louise Donlon, with the subsequent support of the Arts Council, objected to the display in the foyer of a part of the exhibition which included, in a statement by a victim, the words “orally raped” and “anal rape”. Flynn was accused of putting children at risk by seeking to display documents which contained such phrases in an open public space. (His reply was that “child protection is about protecting children from harm, not from truth”.)
This cancellation was, to put it mildly, unfortunate. Flynn’s book Nothing to Say was (along with Paddy Doyle’s The God Squad and Mavis Arnold and Heather Laskey’s Children of the Poor Clares ) one of the key moments in the breaking of the silence around the regime of terror. His work since then as a visual artist, performer and cultural guerrilla has been a brilliant and brave exploration of the cultures of institutionalised violence in Ireland. The documents and statements that were included in the aborted Portlaoise show have been displayed on the streets of Dublin in the works State Meant and Trespass and Forgiveness – without, so far as I know, corrupting the minds of the young.
With typical resilience, Flynn has re-mounted the intended Portlaoise show in Dublin, at a space called adifferentkettleoffishaltogether on Ormond Quay. The centrepiece is a reconstruction of the padded cells used in Irish prisons for emotionally disturbed inmates until Michael McDowell ended this barbaric practice. In front of it is a set of church-like pews, and the whole arrangement evokes both the religious and political dimensions of institutionalised violence. The documents that have been used in various forms in Flynn’s installations and performances are on the walls. Upstairs are his powerfully evocative meditations on cultures of violence and processes of “letting go”, including his boldly imaginative re-creation of the process of IRA decommissioning. None of the work is offensive. All of it is thoughtful, sober, honest and ultimately reaching for the idea that genuine engagement with a hidden reality creates the possibility of transcendence.
There’s something badly awry when this work cannot be presented in a public arts centre and has to exist at an angle to the official culture. And this awkwardness surrounds the whole question of how that same culture can conceive an artistic monument adequate to the task of both remembering and reminding.
For many survivors, for example, the words of Bertie Ahern’s official apology that are to be inscribed on the monument simply do not ring true.
One of the key phrases is an apology for the State’s “failure to detect their pain”, the suggestion being that governments were simply ignorant of the abuse. The fact is that the State knew all about the pain and allowed it to continue. There is genuine fear among survivors that a monument conceived in a spirit of tidying up the past will, as one of them put it in a post on Paddy Doyle’s excellent website, “just be a cold soulless thing the same as what abused us”. And if it is not to be cold and soulless, the monument will have to have the kind of awkward and discomfiting presence that would not sit too easily in an official arts centre.
Padded Cell and Other Stories is at anotherkettleoffishaltogether, 18 Ormond Quay, Dublin 1
My personal Comment
I ask myself the question if Church or state should be involved in any way with this project as they are the perpetrators and if anything they should only give fund and provide the site. The perpetrators could clearly be identified exactly as such in the monument so that the 88 year lie cannot be come watered down.
RB
Charles,
I agree with you, there must be some musicians who can compose fitting music to capture all the pain and havoc wrought on so many families and children by a Church State.
The sounds and smells of so many hell-holes that remain alive in the minds of survivors require to be captured for posterity.
The day I was transferred to Artane as a young man of 10 in 1941 to begin my working life will stay with me till I die. There was an eerie silence in spite of there being over 800 inmates. I could feel the thick cloud of fear that dampened the spirit. The hunger, combined with the filth of the inmates and stench of latrines, with buckets as toilets and no toilet paper was the setting in which appalling abuses took place.
In the name of the lines of thousands of victims that went to their graves too a shamed and fearful to speak out, we owe them a lasting memory in music, song or other lasting form of art.
Anne,
Your remark about me being a great teacher made me smile. I just know you will be surprised and I hope get a laugh reading ‘Dare to Dream’. It’s coming soon, and in case anyone thinks I’ll make money, I won’t, make a penny. I’ve written it in response to many requests, even experts in Alzheimer’s.
To-date it has cost me over £2,000 to publish
but I’ll be thrilled to learn I’ve helped.
My unconventional upbringing left me with an unconventional perspective of the world. That in turn allowed me help others.
Thank you for your kind words. I wish you well.
Patrick
Patrick, I have just sat in my chair looking out at the calm sky and the birds,just staring,and in deep thought thinking of all you have said. Your words resonate so much with me and also move me deeply.
What a great man you are,a real man,heart and soul.
I hope you realise you are a great teacher. It’s the old ripple affect! you have reached out and touched somebody and that somebody is me..today, you might also reach out and open somebody’s eyes, mind, soul!!…for everything you say or write from deep within connects with the spirit in us all and is so much more than education for them with their eyes open, hearts closed!
May your day’s be filled with love and peace.
Take care Patrick
Anne
I,m not sure how a memorial should look but I,m sure I don,t want a stone or anything dead. No why not something living, a garden or park. The artist community should be invited to come with ideas. Art is a tool which many countries who have experienced a Trauma use.You just have to listen to Henrik Gorezski,s 3 symphony to see that music can describe Auswhich or Artane or Goldenbridge.The Irish theatre is world famous, where are the dramatists?. Irish music is world famous, where are the composers.Irish writers are world famous, where are the writers.What we are not famous for is taking good care of our children. Sadly we are world famous for that.
Anne,
The reason I titled the story ‘Lonesome Stray’ was, that is just how I felt/feel from my earliest memory, and still do.
So many thousands of survivors feel the same. It is my belief that those children wrenched from families at age five and upwards suffered worse than I.
As a two year old I knew no different life outside of the walls of the Institutions. That was until 2006 when the legal team representing the Sisters of Charity in trying to make the point that I had not been in what I understood an orphanage from birth, but an Industrial School. Insensitively they produced documentary evidence that I had been charged with Receiving Alms at Dublin DC and sentenced by Judge Cussen to be detained till age 16. Note; the name Cussen and year 1934. This same man had something to say on the Industrial School system.
They inferred that I should have known! Of course I apologised: “Sorry for not being able to recall my court appearance. I was obviously not paying much attention to the proceedings as I failed to defend myself properly. If I arrived late at the ‘school’ I’m also sorry; must have forgotten my watch.”
I’m going to have fun writing about the manner the religious orders defended them selves against my writings. These bunch should be in a Month Python sketch.
With reference to being a Stray, like so many others I’ve been unable to trust people and thus never made a friend other than my wife. She was my salvation. It is because of her that I have responded to many requests from carers of loved ones throughout the US and UK to write our story; ‘Dear to Dream’ about Alzheimer’s.
I removed her from a Nursing Home when she could no longer speak or move and was just skin and bone. No longer did I trust anyone to care for her and decided to care for her on my own to the end. That was April 2003. By June I was advised one evening not to expect her to survive the night.
It was four and a half years later she died 12/12/07. Though I never got her to speak (except the one word) or to use her limbs, I managed to return her to almost 9st from just over 5st.
There are many things I’ve achieved in life but caring 24/7 365 days alone has been the most wonderful. It’s a wonderful feeling to be able to prove to all the experts what they said ‘was impossible’ I proved possible.
What has this to do with survivors you ask? The answer, there is no way that I could have done the shopping, ironing, cleaning,cooking and caring etc. had I not experienced a loveless childhood in both those child prisons. To be shown unconditional love was a powerful motivator. I was lucky to have met a beautiful young factory girl from Co. Durham in my travels. We were married 52 years and by the time I was 54 and retired, all the promises I made her were fulfilled.
Anne, we all put up a front to hide the gap of a missing childhood. In my case that tough front crumpled when suddenly our young 15 year old daughter was killed by a speeding motorist. Our remaining two children, young married daughter and son were shocked to find me a total wreck. A remark by our son was deeply hurtful. I’d fallen apart in front of them and my wife. That was the first time in my life I was to experience emotional pain and the first time I truly cried.
The sad fact is that in spite of being surrounded by some of the toughest males in my extended family, they see me as one of them. During the long early caring years, and the latter ones I had the added worry of our eldest grandson. He completed two tours in Iraq and two in Afghanistan. Another member is due back from there in a couple of weeks time.
Just because some of the regiment boys pass me on my early morn seven mile run as they run in the opposite direction to camp, our grand daughters tell me they talk about the ‘tough old guy’ they see!
If they only knew, I’m just,and always will be inside, a cared little child still running from a troubled past.
Still; I always try to look on the bright side of life.
May your troubles always be little ones.
Patrick.
Patrick, “lonesome stray” is how I have always felt. I have never felt like I belong anywhere, as if I am a fraud who doesn’t belong??…the thought of so many of us feeling this way is heartbreaking.
I shall read your book. And good on you.
Take care,
Anne
Patrick, It was moving to read your writing and please speak out as their greatest weapon is others fear to speak. Once that wall of silence falls the fear turns on them where it rightly belongs.One of the most effective weapons used by STAZI in the DDR was the threat of taking the children of dissidents or any free thinking people and placing them in Juvenile detention centres for state upbringing (uppfosteringsanstalt). I Ireland and the DDR have striking similarities. Patrick when you start speaking walls fall down just like they did in Berlin 20 years ago today.
At age 78 all I want to know is who my family were. I understand funds were made available for tracing family members. After a number of months I’m told there are no records of my 8 year ‘stay’ in Kilkenny, nor my 6 years in Artane!
I did however learn of the shocking evil the Church State inflicted on the whole family. I’m now in no doubt as to why none of the family I met for the first time on my release refused to talk about the whole affair.
Sadly I had nothing to do with any member of the family, except the one remaining relative, a sister. Now in her mid eighties she lives in Ireland and still can’t talk, and I respect that. The problem is since I left Ireland at age 17 there was never a home or country to return to.
Research is providing more questions than answers. It appears I had three brothers. Two birth certificates are available but only one name. No death certificate to match the births or to show cause of death. Because the third boy was born out of wedlock there is no record except a date of birth which shows he was/is five years younger than I. The woman that was my Mother was considered a ‘fallen woman’ and therefor lost all of her six children. I was shipped away from Dublin and became known by a different name.
Unlike the rest of the family who took their secret to the grave, I intend to speak out. To say they have no records of my time in these places I say without fear, I know they are lying. These religious orders came up with plenty of information when accused of wrong doings. The nuns challenged me on statements I made in my book ‘Lonesome Stray’. I’m sure they were surprised that I was able to name nuns and lay staff that worked there. In addition I was able to describe the whole layout of the place, after 70 years.
If these people think they are going to shut me up then they are mistaken. The first chapter in my new book ‘Dare to Dream’ is titled the Battery Children, it’s about these child prisons. They never educated me but like many things in my life I’ve never let those evil people win.
Patrick
I totally agree Kathleen. We want action. No more words.
There are so many survivors that need help in many different ways, my God we should have been compensated for just having to go through all this in the last decade, let alone the abuse!
Anne
When the Criminal Convictions are expunged then the Survivors will begin to accept that the Government is genunine in its statement of apology and not before. So lets see what action is taken. We do not want words, action speaks louder than Words.
building a Monument is a start however other issues must first be addressed.
The monument should be permanent and annual. Just as the Holocaust memorials are supposed to ensure the human race never forgets what happened to the Jews the memorial should make sure this Holocaust against innocent children is never forgotten. The monument should send a message not just to Rome but across the world and it should do so from now on. A campaign should be started now to designate the third Monday in March as an annual holiday for all Irish people and it should send a message of tolerance, fairness and inclusion.
The third Monday in every March could be called Paddy’s day in honour of the victims and we should leave “St” Patrick in the past where he belongs.
Dermot McCabes suggestion is an excellent one, do take note.
The Nuns and Priests who are still alive should come forward and be made to show themselves publicly. They are CRIMINALS. I am frequently reminded of those sub humans when I sit in Court and deal with Cases of “Assault”. In most Cases these are Adults. We were CHILDREN, where is the Justice. Ireland has not and does want to learn it is still in denial. What we are hearing is FLANNEL.
Kathleen O’Malley.
Survivors, unlawfully imprisoned and tortured in these evil institutions want to be heard. They want to tell their stories. I think the most appropriate monument to these victims is the telling of these stories. I would suggest that a live archive of every single story, told by the survivors themselves or actors on their behalf should form the hub of the monument. This audio archive should also have a visual element. The archive should be accessible on the Internet and I also think some consideration should be given to a short daily radio and/or TV programme consisting solely of the survivors words should be considered. Maybe before, after or ideally in liu of the Angelus. This is not an impossible task. I would offer my services/advice free on the setting up of such an archive, an area in which I have some expertise.
A very thoughtful piece from Fintan O’Toole – in 1996 he wrote this:
“” Sorrowful mysteries etched into bleeding fingers – Strangely enough, of all the images in Louis Lentin’s superb documentary film on Goldenbridge orphanage, the most disturbing for me was not one of the violent ones – a child deliberately scalded with boiling water or beaten with a club until her whole leg from ankle to hip burst open. We see so much brutality on the screen that most of us, I suppose, have learned how to shield ourselves from it. The really searing image was more mundane and less dramatic. It was the group of middle aged women sitting at their desks in the classroom, re enacting the endless hours they spent from the age of four onwards making rosary beads. It was terrible because, after 30 years, they could still do it apparently without having to think. They could look into the camera and talk powerfully and coherently, and all the while their hands were working away on their own, the wire strung over one forefinger, a kind of pliers held in the palm, the beads in the other hand. They had to do 60 lots a day after school, stringing together 600 beads, 60 decades of the rosary uttered not with the lips or in the head but in the flesh and bone of raw, trembling fingers. The prayer’s sorrowful mysteries and ascendant sighs, the mourning and weeping in this valley of tears, were, literally, etched into these women’s bodies.””
What kind of monument/memorial could capture THAT kind of sub-human cruelty?
I remember in Ferryhouse a group of ‘visitors’ were being shown around the place – this was late 62 or early 63 – and they came into the Knitting Shop were about 30 of us were ‘beavering away’ with our needles, threads and bobbins. It was as plain as day that we were under sever pressure to darn the holes in the socks, it was as plain as day that we were cold and weak: most of us had runny noses, purple and blotchety skin and bruises on our arms and legs.
Yet these ‘visitors’ only marvelled at the speed with which we darned the socks and the high quality of our work! How could there have been a failure to ‘detect’ our suffering?
What kind of monument/memorial could capture THAT kind of fear?
One thing I know for sure is that these people – whether they are Government or ‘visitor’ is that they don’t care about us now, they didn’t care about us then and they would be happy to be rid of us once and for all. They would be quiet happy to draw a veil over all this and not have it displayed to the public.
Just my opinion as a survivor of catholic abuse.
It did not happen in Ireland, but the States.
I don’t think I’d want a monument to remind me of the pain and shame I felt during the daily, almost hourly beatings, but I would go to see a monument of the nuns and priests being defrocked and hurled down into catholic hell, and watch their suffering for eternity. Might do the clergy some good to be reminded of what awaits them in the end. The survivors know all too well what it was like. They had their Hell right here on earth, daily.
Just a thought.
apology for the State’s “failure to detect their pain”
Oh they felt the pain all right- THEY THRIVED ON IT- as that is how evil survives- it feeds off the pain and suffering and trauma of human souls.
It has tenticles everywhere- church and state etc.
Now this same evil tries to use deceptive intelligence to try and trick the Irish Collective Conscience that it did not notice.
This is The shame of Eire who allowed the Roman Catholic Cult to destroy our loving way of life and replace it with fear, poverty,guilt and all negative emotions- so it could live off us like parasites.
This parasite fed off the innocent children and women mostly- the weak and vulnerable.
That evil parasite still lives well in Eire- and it is the duty of every Irish human to unite in LOVE and sit back and observe the parasite wither and die.
Paddy, you know how this operates and can use far better words than I can.