David Quinn
Issue 391, vol.98, Autumn 2009. Dublin Jesuits Journal.
The story of the Ryan Report does not begin in 1999 with Mary Raftery’s television documentary States of Fear. It begins three years before, with Louis Lentin’s documentary Dear Daughter, which told the story of Christine Buckley, who had been brought up by the Sisters of Mercy at Goldenbridge Orphanage.
Before this there had been books, such as The God Squad (1993) by Paddy Doyle, but it was Dear Daughter that really drew public attention in a major way to the issue of child abuse in institutions run by eighteen Catholic religious orders. This means that the issue of institutional abuse has now been part of the public consciousness for thirteen years.
The importance of Mary Raftery’s States of Fear is that it led to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s apology to victims of institutional abuse and also to the setting up of the Ryan Commission, which was originally headed by Justice Mary Laffoy. She later resigned, citing disagreements with the Department of Education. When Judge Sean Ryan became head of the Commission, he decided not to hear every single former resident who wished to be heard. Instead he would hear from a sample of 1,090 people. This would allow the Commission to finish its work within a fairly reasonable timeframe.
Public Hearings
I reported on the vast majority of public sittings of the Ryan Commission, while employed by the Irish Independent as its religious affairs correspondent. Ryan cut an impressive figure. He had the cool authoritative manner of an old-fashioned country GP. When former residents would become angry at what they were hearing, especially when the heads of the orders were giving testimony, he could almost always calm them down. When hearing evidence from the heads of the religious orders, Judge Ryan would always have about him an air of objectivity, without ever seeming to be detached from proceedings. In other words, he acted as a judge should act.
The public hearings were almost entirely dominated by the evidence of the religious orders. This is because the former residents were frequently naming names to the Commission. However, the vast majority of those being named had never been charged with an offence, let alone convicted of one. The former residents, therefore, had to be heard in private. The testimony of the religious orders was mostly very uniform. Each representative described conditions in which resources – both human and financial – were scarce. Generally, there were about thirty children for every adult. Nuns would sometimes go to bed with up to six babies in their room. There was very little time off. The regimes were based on discipline first and foremost. The institutions were run on military lines. The system was mostly impersonal.
Listening to the accounts of the various religious, I was reminded of the time I saw an old black and white film version of Jane Eyre. Eyre, of course, spends part of her childhood in an institution and in one scene we see her and the other girls being woken to the whistle, washing to the whistle, getting dressed to the whistle and marching down to breakfast to the whistle. Each child, as I recall, was also assigned a number.
The accounts also reminded me of a more recent film, Les Choristes (2004). It is set in France, just after World War II, and in an institution for boys run by lay people. The place is casually cruel and uncaring. It is assumed that the boys will overrun the school, given the slightest chance, and the emphasis is all on discipline. In one scene a teacher assumes another teacher is trying to abuse one of the boys. Nothing much is thought of this. It is only mildly frowned upon. In this school some of the teachers are more caring than others and the hero is obviously the one who founds the choir, which gives some of the boys a creative outlet that transforms them.
The total contrast between Les Choristes and films about institutional life in Ireland should be noted. Unlike those Irish films, it avoids sentimentality and is never melodramatic. Also, the sound of axes grinding cannot be heard.
The reports of Dr Anna McCabe were frequently mentioned in the testimony to the Ryan Commission. Dr McCabe was the person, in the middle of the last century, appointed by the Department of Education to inspect the schools. Some of her reports were critical. For example, one of them criticised serious shortcomings at Newtownforbes, an institution run by the Mercy Sisters, but a later report gave it a relatively clean bill of health.
The orders almost invariably expressed sorrow at some of the things that happened in their institutions. Also invariably, they reported a big increase in the number of abuse allegations they received following Bertie Ahern’s apology and the announcement that he was setting up a Redress Board, in addition to what become the Ryan Commission.
Why ‘Industrial’ Schools?The industrial school system was a legacy of the 19th century. It originated in Sweden, Switzerland and Germany and came to Ireland via Britain. In Britain such schools were often run by religious societies. Britain enjoyed a Protestant religious revival in the 19th century and Evangelicals were behind numerous legal reforms.
Some of those reforms were aimed at the care of children. Organisations like Barnardos and the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children were founded in this era. The industrial schools were aimed specifically at ‘solving’ the problem of street children. Reports from the time say that some cities in England had hundreds, if not thousands, of vagrant children. Cities like London were growing rapidly and were often very overcrowded; tenements frequently had many large families living in one or two room flats.
Many city children quickly turned to crime as the only way they could find of keeping body and soul together (think the Artful Dodger in Oliver Twist) and the common remedy was to put them in adult prisons. The industrial schools offered an alternative to this, a terrible alternative as it turns out. But the intent was to keep such children out of prison and off the streets, to feed and house them and train them for work when they left the schools – hence the name ‘industrial’ schools.
In Ireland, the religious orders ended up running the vast majority of industrial schools and orphanages. Irish Catholics feared the schools would otherwise be used to convert the children to Protestantism, and the religious offered a cheap alternative to lay staff, however poorly they might be paid.
Unfortunately, we now know that, even if the industrial schools were well run, they still would not have been fit places for children. Institutions never are, especially when they are under-staffed and under-funded. An institution can never provide a substitute for a loving family and that is an unavoidable and unalterable fact.
However, in many cases the institutions were appallingly run and physical, sexual and emotional abuses, as well as neglect, were commonplace. This is made abundantly clear by the Ryan Report.
The Ryan Report, of course, dominated the news headlines here for several weeks after its publication. The imprisonment of Frank Dunlop, the revelation of huge debts at Anglo-Irish Bank, and even the local and European elections only slightly distracted media and public attention from it. It also made headlines overseas: Al Jazeera covered it; a German newspaper reported that Ireland had run a series of ‘terror camps’ for children for years. No mention was made of the fact the Germany also had its industrial schools.
The Numbers
As mentioned, a total of 1,090 former residents of the institutions reported to the Ryan Commission. Between them, they named 800 alleged abusers in over 200 institutions. But there was very wide variation from institution to institution in terms of the amount of abuse taking place in each of them, something that the executive summary of the Ryan Report, which is what most journalists will have read, did not make clear. For example, fully 50 per cent of physical abuse reports and 64 per cent of the sex abuse reports heard by the Commission that involved boys, related to four of the boys institutions. The same applies to the girls’ institutions. Three schools account for almost 40 per cent of the physical abuse reports, or 48 reports each, while 19 schools had an average of 2.5 reports each.
Sexual abuse was also far worse in the boys’ institution than in the girls’, which is probably to be expected. In the girls’ institutions, sex abuse was normally perpetrated by outside workmen, or by visiting priests or religious, or by foster families, with whom the girls occasionally stayed.
A relative handful of individuals accounted for a disproportionate share of the complaints. For example: a total of 241 female religious were named as physical abusers. However, four of these were named by 125 witnesses, and 156 Sisters were named by one witness each. In total, of the 800 religious and others named as abusers, half were named by only one person.
It is also worth noting that an institution only received a special chapter in the Ryan Report if it was the subject of more than 20 complaints of abuse. Sixteen institutions, out of the dozens run by the orders, had more than 20 complaints made against them.
When I first reported the above figures in the Irish Catholic and the Irish Independent, I was accused by a handful of people (fewer than I had expected) of ‘playing the numbers game’. But surely numbers matter immensely? If they do not, then why did numbers feature so heavily in the Ryan Report and in the subsequent media coverage of it, and in the debates about it? In the North, for example, it is not immaterial whether 300 or 3,000 people died in the ‘Troubles’.
If I were a member of an order that ran those institutions that were relatively better run than some of the others, I would want people to know this. I would regard it as particularly unfair and unjust if every institution was universally regarded as being as terrible as the very worst of the institutions.
A Gulag?
It may seem a rather strange analogy to use at this point, but I think here of Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s novel First Circle (1968). The industrial schools have been compared with the extermination camps of Hitler’s Germany. I will merely compare them with the Gulag, though I think even this is over-the-top. First Circle derives its name from Dante’s Inferno, in which Dante famously divides Hell into nine circles, with the ninth circle being reserved for the very worst of the damned and the first circle for the virtuous pagans who did not know Christ. Within the Gulag, there were camps that endeavoured to treat their inmates relatively humanely. Scientists and others useful to the Soviet Union were kept in these. The inmates referred to their camps as the First Circle. They knew other camps were much, much worse.
The industrial school system contained intrinsic flaws, described above, which meant that even the best of them were not fit places for children. But within this desperately flawed system there was a great deal of variation, and some schools were relatively humane. The comparison with the Gulag is flawed, ultimately because, even in theory, the Gulag was never intended for the betterment of anyone and many people were placed in the system in the full knowledge that they would die there.
In truth, there is nothing with which our industrial school system can properly be compared, except other institutions for children. We know, for example, that the Catholic religious orders ran similar institutions in such places as Australia and Canada and that they were awful as well. We also know that institutions run by other churches in countries like Canada were terrible. In fact, some Anglican dioceses in Canada have been bankrupted because of scandals in homes for children that they ran.
We do not know very much about the industrial school system in England, because it was closed years before the last of our schools shut its doors. It is doubtful whether it was much better.
From much anecdotal evidence, we can assume that English public schools were dreadful places in the past, with peer-on-peer abuse particularly bad. The amazing thing is that parents paid a lot of money to send their children to these schools, even though they know what awaited their offspring there, because it had happened to them in their day. Recently we did hear about a children’s home in Jersey, lay-run, called Haut de la Garenne. Although nobody appears to have been killed there, as early reports seemed to indicate, nonetheless, it was a terrible place. In the 1990s a dreadful child sex abuse scandal involving, among others, care workers, was revealed in Islington borough in London. Initially, it was covered up.
We can assume, given what we know about Romania and Russia, that many children’s homes in non-English speaking countries, were dreadful.
Catholic-run institutions were not worse than institutions run by other organisations. An anti-Catholic sub-text can definitely been woven into the acceptable narrative about these places, something Professor Philip Jenkins makes abundantly clear in his Paedophiles and Priests: Anatomy of a Contemporary Crisis (1996). (Jenkins is not a Catholic). Hierarchy, the rule of celibacy and ‘patriarchy’ have all variously been blamed for the scandals.
Conclusions
In fact, I think that the scandals have revealed what we might almost term two ‘laws’ of human nature.
The first is that, when one group of people are given great power over another group of people, there will invariably be abuses, often of the most extreme kind. We find this again and again and again, in prisons, retirement homes, children’s homes and many other such places besides. The second ‘law’ is that, when scandals come to light in an organisation or profession, the first instinct is to protect itself rather than the victim. Therefore, any organisation that has the care of others among its chief concerns, has to have rules in place to insure against both of these ‘laws’ taking effect. In fact, it must be assumed that, without such safeguards, abuses will take place and there will be a cover-up.
Of course, the problem that the industrial school system tried to address, that of children who are extremely badly cared for, or are not cared for at all, still exists. There are thousands of children in this country right now who are victims of poverty or, in the age of State welfare which relieves the worst poverty, of badly dysfunctional families. These are the ‘street’ children who are easy prey for the gangs who recruit them into criminal activity, just as their predecessors did in the 19th century, and for long centuries before that.
The best way to honour the many victims of our industrial school system is to help these children today. Does the will truly exist? Perhaps not. Perhaps, like poor, they will always be with us.
David Quinn is a journalist and is Director of the Iona Institute www.ionainstitute.ie
Wolves in sheeps’ clothing – how apt!
Willie walsh, bishop of Killaloe, opines in the latest edition of Irish Catholic that since the Ryan Report ‘blaming only the religious for abuse is a serious injustice’. It would be if it were true. He then suggests that this leads to the exclusion of certain groups of people as a result of this thinking. Coming from an Industrial school I know exactly what he means but then this is where we start to diverge in opinion. Abuse from any quarter is still abuse just the same as racism This does not stop Willie giving us his view on justice while at the same time letting us know a little bit more about Willie. Hang on to your hard hats!
He warns against the prosecution of ‘religious’ only due to their age or infirmity while excluding the wider abuse of children by non religious. He is now guilty of the very charge that he accuses society of. He dilutes what abuse is by separating serious physical punishment as distinct from sexual abuse while the former is termed as the task of disciplining. He then asks if all teachers and parents would be brought up on charges as well if these acts of discipline were brought to light. One can infer at this point that Willie is not able to tell the difference between severe physical abuse and the discipline of children. To me it seems a blessing that he was never a parent [at least not to my knowledge]and a tragedy that he was a teacher, and I have no desire to know what he did for his twenty five years of teaching.
As far as the aging and elderly victims of both physical and sexual abuse in our society are concerned, I am sure they do not agree with your sense of justice for the religious, while your inability to tell the difference between abuse and abusers is nauseating.
This is Willie trying to turn perpetrators into victims themselves.
Barry Clifford
RE: David Quinn article. “European Court of Human Rights is part of an aggressive and belligerent drive towards secularism” dated Friday, Nov. 06, 2009, Irish Independent.
Dear Editor,
With regard to David’s shrill article on the european court ruling about religious relics and crosses on walls. His opinion never accounts for facts. This alone always keeps him a second rate writer rather than a first class journalist. A closer look at the truth overlooks a better understanding of what the ECHR are trying to do and the economic reporting of David laid bare. The ECHR are trying to make european policy all inclusive and not just for Christians. It is there for muslims, jews, atheists, and people of all sexual and cultural orientation as well. Give them time and they will be one policy in Europe and I believe that is a good thing.
As far as the oppression of Jehovah Witnesses goes and the “forced marching” of their children in a parade, I believe they are an ungrateful little lot for they might not have even got to be born if only for the heroism of their grandfathers fighting Hitler and Italy too. Their bravery even prompted Churchill to say ” we will not say that Greeks fight like heroes by that heroes fight like Greeks.” I say let the children march for they do not care or know this little fact, and lets not talk about the blood transfusions those same men would have needed just to stay alive defending their country. The comparison of the banning of religious imagery to Hitlerism is more than over the top and needs no reply due to its hysterical and shrieking overtones, and the Christmas cribs and rosary beads story still leaves me scratching my head and need more research. Due to time and consent constraints on this letter, this is for later. But not so pensioner and nurse story.
Pensioner wrote in her letter to her multi-cultural and sexually inclusive council that homosexuals were to blame for a wide variety of crimes which included being sodomites, the spreading of diseases, and the collapse of empires. They called the police who made the usual enquires by decided afterwards that she was just another homophobic pensioner. Then we come to Florence Nightingale. The nurse asked another pensioner,k probably an atheist, could she pray for her soul. alarmed that this was a hint of impending doom even though the nurse was just changing a band-aid on her foot, this pensioner declined and reported the matter while still wondering how many hours had she left in this world. Her now accelerating heart rate did not help matters. These are the facts not fiction. I look forward to the day when David can tell the difference too.
Yours sincerely,
Barry Clifford
bgclifford@iol.ie or phone 087 7511113
That’s done Barry.
Sorry Paddy but could you take out my phone numbers again and just leave the e.mail
Not ANY Sisters on the radio last weekend: one was Sister Stan !
I dispair.
And for those who cannot distance themselves and break away from the men and women of this cruel Catholic Church and her rituals, they might take up the following prayer:
“Do Lawd, come down here and walk amongst yo people
And tek ’em by the hand and telt ’em
That yo ain’t hex wid ’em
AND DO LAWD COME YOSELF,
DON’T SEND YO SON,
CAUSE DIS AIN’T NO PLACE FOR CHILDREN.”
–PRAYER FOLLOWING EARTHQUAKE OF 1866,
CHARLESTON, SOUTH CAROLINA, COMPOSED BY SLAVES
Ref:David quinn-Dublin Jesuit Article, Autumn 2009 Issue 391 Vol 98
An Open Letter To David Quinn
Dear David,
I see you are at it again,damage control under the guise of reporting that is really just an opinion about the Ryan Report. Though sharing the same shadow as Ronan Mullen of the Irish Examiner, you get off to a good start citing Mary Laffoys resignation from the original investigation as disagreements with the department of education. Try the words ‘cover up’ Dave. Then you get to the numbers game while not being very good at it and by way of omission.
1090 victims would be heard and any institution with less than 20 abuse charges would not be heard at all. This was because of a time preference rather than preferred justice muting thousands of victims in its wake.
The defendants of course sang from the same hymn sheet and chorus: Lack of funds, resources, climate of the times and so on, and almost entirely dominated the hearings. Then David you list some of your favourite movies starting with Jane Eyre.
This Victorian fiction morphs into another movie called Les cheristes with its hero finding sainthood by finding a school choir that saves everybody’s soul. Abuse here was apparently no big deal anyway. You then contrast these movies with Irish movies of similar ilk and suggests they have an axe to grind. I can help you here Dave. Try ‘The Boys Of Saint Vincent’s’, a Canadian and American offering along many more too numerous to mention. Come to think of it they might have an axe to grind as well. But let that not get in the way of a good story here as you rumbled on wheeling in our dear departed, Ann Mc Cabe.
Citing some of her reports as critical of some institutions with one report going as far to be call ‘damming’, you tell us that she came back later giving them a clean bill of health. Well, that’s alright then except just about here I think you need those words again called, ‘cover up’. Then you tell us about the religious expressed apology.
Their apology of course was quickly contradicted in the same breath when they stated that abuse allegations increased with the redress board platform even though this was the only platform victims ever got. Then Dave you give us your very own historical analysis of the industrial ‘prison’ system, and I do choose my words here very carefully.
You feed again the false belief that the children of these prisons were criminals or impoverished while underscoring again lack of funds, resources, and so forth. Even the dog on the street knows now that the opposite was true. Then you go back to the numbers again. Here are some of mine instead.
You start with the number 130,000 and go upward then form an arc and work outward. These are the victims that came through the Industrial prisons in Ireland followed by their dependants and loved ones. It is broken down something like this David: If you are a witness to abuse then you are abused, if you are torn from your mother and father you are abused as are they. If your children’s rights are stripped away then you are abused, if you are governed by laws that allows you to be stripped, beaten and locked in a cell on bread and water then you are abused. If you are denied a proper education or used as child labor then you are abused. Many of these victims found peace in the only place they could, in the cemetery. This is lost in your translation Dave and I do not wonder why any more. You dig deep to defend the indefensible as you pollute the waters even more. At this point I was not sure what report you were actually reviewing.
The real reason only a small number of people complained about your crunching of the numbers David is this: Intelligently aware people do not take you serious or that rag of a paper you used to opine for, The Irish Catholic. As far as the Irish Independent goes, I like it, it is just unfortunate that you happen to be in it now and again. You simply come with the print. But I digress and apologise for I had a flash of Dante’s inferno just now.
The Industrials prisons had one thing in common with the Gulags in that they too were never intended for the betterment of anyone. But then again the Gulags never imprisoned children as Ireland did, or on the scale and breath of time relative to it’s population. This was too much even for Stalin. Then Dave on your race to the bottom of the sewer you deliver your final homily.
Lumping the Industrial prisons with other institutions and even old folks homes is intended to diminish and mitigate the Ryan Report, but you do not stop there. You then try to mute other critical voices by their historical or geographic location while still telling us that these Industrial prisons at least intended to care for for children. Even the fish in the sea were on to this one Dave. The bottom line with these children’s prisons was greed, all the rest was a perverse sideshow in getting there. Then you finish with a flourish telling anyone that was left reading your rubbish how to honour the children of institutional abuse. That choice thankfully is not yours. It can only be decided by the victims themselves and how they see it. You end with some musings about the poor as if they were a species apart, and of course they will always be with us just as much as the corrupt. In that you can bet your very suspect journalistic credentials.
Finally, in my closing I wish to reveal perhaps a little bit of you to your self David. You too are complicit in the cover up of the catholic church by your tactful retreats and attacks of everything you write in defending the indefensible. Your poisonous deference to a corrupt church insults the good that many of them do and encourages the climate of corruption that still very much exists. A church long since bereft of truth is now cold in open sores of soiled ambition and greed and needs truth itself to heal. You are not helping them but in a perverse way helping to write their epitaph. This along with your own own perverted belief system that non- christians, atheists. agnostics, and others, are somehow tainted and less worthy of your respect evidenced in other articles that you have written will help seal their tomb.
In conclusion my own belief in life and people after spending ten years in the Industrial prison is simple: A good man has nothing to fear in this life or the next one and God has got nothing to do with it.
Strive to be better David for I know you are and time runs out for us all.
Yours Sincerely,
Barry Clifford
e mail: bgclifford@iol.ie
Mr. Quinn is the front man for the Iona Institute. Iona is a front organisation for the Catholic Church Limited. Among others on the board are a Mr’s Kelleher, described as a mother of six. Her husband is mega wealthy Garrett Kelleher, arch Catholic and Irish head of Legatus.
Legatus is a CCL organisation for mega wealthy Catholics.
Outside the US there are only three international chapters of Legatus; Ireland, Poland and Canada.
They must smirk when they see victims of their child raping, priests,nuns and christian brothers fighting among themselves.
I can only handle so many comments Rob and with respect, your comments tend to be very long. Can you see if it’s possible to keep them shorter. Best wishes. Paddy.
QUINN SAYS he reported on the vast majority of public sittings of the Ryan Commission – QUINN OBSERVES: “””The testimony of the religious orders was mostly very uniform. Each representative described conditions in which resources – both human and financial – were scarce. …. Generally, there were about thirty children for every adult.”””
He must have missed the Ferryhouse sittings where the Rosminians actually admitted that the clergy lived high off the hog while the children went hungy – also the Rosminians admitted that there were 100 children to every adult. And in Ferryhouse the the Dept. of Health became involved when one of their charges – a Michael Bowes – died from meningitis due to the overcrowding in Ferryhouse – particularly the dormitories:
In 1967, a local health inspector visited the School, following the death of a boy from cerebro-spinal meningitis. His report to the Department of Health was thorough, beginning with an examination of the living conditions that might have caused the disease. He wrote: Now this disease can be due to overcrowding, so I accordingly caused accurate measurements to be made of the dormitories, school, etc. and what emerged is what we expected: The school holds twice the number of children – there are 192 boys. The floor area and the cubic space available to every bed is 25 sq. ft. instead of 55 sq. ft. which is the normal and 200 cubic ft. instead of 400 c. ft. We introduced every protection for the pupils by way of prophylactics. However we run a serious risk of recurrence. The matter is grave, in fact more than grave, it is unjust, and a hazard to the health of the child … You will note by the detailed report attached that the school structure where the children are taught is also doubly overcrowded. Again a serious hazard is the level of overcrowding. Having found that ‘the dormitory sleeps exactly twice the number of boys recommended’, the two officials drew the Department of Health’s attention to a number of serious matters, namely: Social malaise. There is clear evidence of social malaise in the institution among the younger “denizens”. 43 out of a total of 192 boys are bed-wetters. This matter I have taken up with the M.O. to the institution and also with the Assistant Co. M.O., and will deal with it as well as possible
The Department of Health Boarding-Out Inspector, Ms Fidelma Clandillon, seized on this report and wrote: This shocking report confirms some unofficial information I have had over the years concerning Ferryhouse – yet two smaller and better schools were closed for economic reasons. From what I have heard the ill-treatment of the boys could do with investigation also. One person who spoke with me about this matter was an inspector of the I.S.P.C.C. It is scandalous that only the death of one of the boys has led to the conditions there coming to light … [The Secretary, Tipperary (S.R.)] … informed me that the report had not been sent to the Department of Education but had been sent here as a health matter. I would urge the necessity of this Department’s informing the Department of Education of the findings of this report.
– – – – – – – –
On the radio this weekend were two nuns from the Sisters of Charity and one of them said that the Ryan Report was UNBELIEVABLE and the other nun, affectionately know as “Sister Ollie” said she did not witness any abuse in St. Joseph’s in Kilkenny and she was there most of the time !!!
Seems we have now a two-pronged attack on the Ryan Report. One of the attacks is coming from a person who believes the Church can do no wrong and the other attack is coming from those who say the Church did no wrong !!
Mr, Quinn, I read with interest your statement that The Irish Industrial School System in part derives from Sweden and am keenly interested in your sources for that information.I know nothing about the German part but working on a daily basis in the Juvenile care system here in Sweden I find what you claim worth looking at. I am impressed by your use of relativism as a mode of defence for a regime of terror against Irish children for monetary gain. One question Mr,Quinn, ” how come no one within the Catholic Church broke ranks on this question”?, can you name just one person who had the moral stature to even question the depravity of these orders?. I find the lack of an answer to that question disturbing.
It is ‘reflective’ that ones previous comment has been deleted; never mind..
As Andrew rightly points out, the religious orders were not interested in the children’s welfare, only the money they made from them. And the Catholic Church made helluva LOT of money out of the Irish poor!
Quinn is wrong to say that these institutions were strapped for cash. It is on record that they were paid a per-capita grant for each child in their “care” – which monies would have been better spent (in the vast majority of cases) on the parents of those unfortunate children.
And btw Mr. Quinn, there are no shortage of dysfunctional families amongst Ireland’s middle and upper classes – just look at the “gurriers” we have in power, many of whom “educated” by the Christian Brothers and the Jesuits, which schooling was paid for by their ‘brainwashed’ Roman Catholic parents!
Hierarchy, the rule of celibacy and ‘patriarchy’ have all variously been blamed for the scandals.
Celibacy was created to keep all the property from going to wives and children.
Also to make sure men did not learn what love was from a woman- if he did he was useless- he would not kill on orders would he.?
I agree that the Patriarchal system is entirely to blame- as it exists for the sole purpose of control through fear and abuse.
Patriarchy is a system which feeds off fear and abuse and poverty and war and rape and destruction of all things beautiful- like innocent children.
It was the children years ago and still is today.
Those who control the money, control the power- and that is a very small elite.
There was and is absolutely no reason to have poverty and war on this planet- where children and adults suffer.
All that money wasted on killing and abusing fellow humans day in day out would feed every human child and educate them etc.
As a result of the wars today- guess what- millions of children are being sold in the adoption business and sent to so called villages worldwide.
Many people think this is wonderful- just like Irish people did when the Industrial schools existed for these disposable children.
All traumatised from being torn from loving families.
The question is- who made these children disposable and who is still making them disposable- so that MONEY can be made out of them on every continent on Mother Earth.?
All that has happened is- The Irish Industrial schools were used as an experiment to see how the system worked- just as children during the War were used by Anna Freud- to study the affects of Trauma on children.The American Indian reservations were the first used concentration camps- Not Hitler and Germany.
So it is vital that the world wakes up to the truth re Ireland and it’s Gulags of the past- because every day worldwide I receive the same tales of rape and torture of disposable children in “care” in UK, USA, Canada etc.
A huge money making business and the world’s children are the commodity.
It is the very same legal system which sent children to the Industrial schools in Ireland, which now sends children in 2009 to so called care homes and foster care.
It is the same SECRET KANGAROO COURTS INVOLVED- all serving the one Corporation.
The abuse of all those years ago has not stopped at all, and it is kept alive through secrecy and children suffering Stockholm Syndrome and too scared to speak out.
Just like the Victims of ireland- who will listen to them?
Every avenue is blocked, just as it was in the past by those strategically placed to make sure no child slips through and gets the truth out.
I am dealing with a case in UK- of children deliberately placed inside a pedo ring- the Judge knew as did all social workers, Guardian, lawyers, Barristers, Lord Justices-with free access to the children by their so called protectors.
I hope you see the similarities.
Beware of wolves in sheep’s clothing.
Hi:
The article by David Quinn, Issue 391, vol.98, Autumn 2009. Dublin Jesuits Journal.
provides an interesting insight into some of the thinking from catholic Church supporters.
Indeed this thinking, to my mind it clearly displays many of arguments that have, and are being put forward for reasons to be excused from many of the impacts these generated and the ongoing social and economic costs of their actions over many years.
Industrial school resources are quoted as being “both human and financial – were scarce with about thirty children for every adult.”
While this is undoubably true, is this the measure that should be applied in these cases?
The obvious question to me is why then did the Church, or the various institutions acting on its behalf, support and continue to support a system which by their own admission, see that it was not just inadequate by putting at risk the children subjected to such regimes but also demeaning the staff who were required to participate in the running of such institutions.
The “cure” was worse than the disease. So why did no one think of withdrawing their active support for such a damaging “solution”.
Yes it is true that most countries had a similar system at one time, but were these not subject to review and reorgansiation?
Did the review process applied to these not lead to overhauling these systems in other countries and/or their abandonment of their then current forms?
So why was there no single voice from the religious organisations in Ireland – or indeed any one of these organisaitions?
The writer of this article provides an historical overview with references to the Dickenian period and its approach to child care and its mangement or lack of same. However it does not seem to be apparent from this presentation that the effect of the writing of Charles Dickens, amongst others about this and other social centred subjects was one of the main reasons for a reexamination of the processes and procedures used by society at this time. It is obviously a pity that Dickens was not more widely read by the Irish religious organsations in the intervening period of over a centuty.
Yes it is correct that many religious organisations were similarly at fault.
Yes Ireland was subjected to English law for part of the period covered in the article.
So what was the postion?
Timeline of child protection in Law:
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The earliest provision in Britain and Ireland for destitute children is the Act for the Relief of the Poor,1598.
Provided for the appointment in every parish of ‘overseers of the poor’ with, among other specific duties, those of ‘setting to work the children of all such whose parents shall not be thought able to keep and maintain their children’.
In 1771, legislation was enacted, under which overseers were appointed to arrange for the maintenance and education of orphaned or deserted children out of money raised by the parish. It was envisaged, too, that work-houses were to be built, financed by voluntary contribution or by official grants.
By the late 18th / early 19th both Ireland and Britain saw a rapid growth of populations and the parish was no longer a viable administrative unit for this purpose.
Destitute children roamed the countryside as well as city streets, foraging for food and pilfering for a livelihood.
In Ireland, the Famine (1845–49) made a bad situation immeasurably worse, leading to the desertion of children by parents.
The official response to this was the Poor Relief (Ireland) Act, 1838 establishing or confirming a system of workhouses throughout the country, under the Irish Poor Law Commissioners, later the Local Government Board for Ireland). By 1853, 77,000 children below 15 years of age (one in three orphans), 6.5% of their age group, were living in workhouses, while an unknown number of ‘street urchins’ remained “living wild in towns”.
Workhouse system rules meant families were split, children seeing their parents only once a week, if at all. The children mixed with all types of adult giving rise to the real possibility of abuse while no effective education was provided. So a stigma attached to workhouses meant residents were perceived as idle and the shiftless.
By 1889, the first Act of Parliament for the prevention of cruelty to children, commonly known as the “children’s charter” was passed.
This empowered the state to intervene, for the first time, in relations between parents and children.
Police could arrest anyone found ill-treating a child, and enter a home if a child was thought to be in danger.
The act included guidelines on the employment of children and outlawed begging.
1894 The above act was amended and extended to allow children to:
-give evidence in court,
-mental cruelty was recognised and
-it became an offence to deny a sick child medical attention.
1908 The Children’s Act 1908 established juvenile courts and introduced the registration of foster parents. The
Punishment of Incest Act made sexual abuse within families a matter for state jurisdiction rather than intervention by the clergy.
After this point in the hitory of children’s legislation, the Irish State became the responsible authority.
These act had been subsumed into Irish Law and later able to be challenged under the 1937 Consitution.
The UK went on to pass a succession of laws:
1932 Children and Young Persons Act 1932
Broader powers of juvenile courts and introduction of supervision orders for children at risk.
1933 further act brought together all existing child protection law into a single piece of legislation.
1948 The Children Act established a children’s committee and a children’s officer in each local authority.
It followed the creation of the Parliamentary care of children committee, 1945 following the death of 13-year-old Dennis O’Neill by his foster parents.
1968 Social Work (Scotland) Act, local authority social work departments replaced children, welfare, health and probation committees.
Local authorities became responsible for investigating child abuse.
1970 Local Authority Social Services Act councils’ social work services and social care provisions, including those for children all amalgamated into social services departments.
1974 Inquiry into the death of Maria Cowell by her stepfather highlighted a serious lack of coordination among services responsible for child welfare. Led to development of area child protection committees (ACPCs) in England and Wales, coordinating local efforts to safeguard children at risk.
The Children Act 1989 gave every child:
-right to protection from abuse and exploitation and
-right to inquiries to safeguard their welfare.
Central tenet was – children are usually best looked after within their family.
Became law in England and Wales in 1991 and – with some differences – in N.Ireland, 1996.
1991 Staff guidance on working together under the Children Act required ACPCs to conduct investigations to establish whether child protection procedures were followed when child abuse is suspected or confirmed to be the cause of a child’s death.
Later updated, 1999.
1995 The Children (Scotland) Act incorporated three key principles of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child into Scottish law:
-Protection from discrimination,
-ensuring that child welfare is a primary concern and
-listening to children’s views.
1999 The Protection of Children Act.
Aimed to prevent paedophiles from working with children. Requires childcare organisations in England and Wales to inform the Department of Health about anyone known to them who is suspected of harming children or putting them at risk.
Similar act passed in Scotland in 2003.
2001 Scottish education minister ordered review of child protection in Scotland following the inquiry into the murder of three-year-old Kennedy McFarlane. An audit published the following year found that half of all children at risk of abuse and neglect in the country fail to receive adequate protection.
Two years later, the Scottish executive published a children’s charter, setting out how carers and professionals should protect and respect their rights.
2003 Lord Laming published his report into the death of child abuse victim Victoria Climbié, which found that health, police and social services missed 12 opportunities to save her. Margaret Hodge is appointed the first children’s minister in June.
Government green paper, Every Child Matters, proposed an electronic tracking system for England’s children; 150 children’s trusts to be set up by 2006, amalgamating health, education and social services; a children’s director to oversee local services; statutory local safeguarding children boards to replace ACPCs; and a children’s commissioner for England.
Children Act 2004, pushed forward main proposals of green paper
– electronic children’s files;
children’s directors; and
a children’s commissioner – passed by parliament.
Allowed local authorities more flexibility in organising children’s services.
Councils given additional 2 years to set up children’s trusts.
2005 Prof. Al Aynsley Green appointed as England’s first children’s commissioner. Former education secretary Estelle Morris appointed to oversee government reform of the children’s services workforce.
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In Ireland
Reformatory system established by the Reformatory Schools (Ireland) Act, 1858.
10 years later, the industrial schools by way of a Private Member’s Bill introduced by The O’Connor Don, becoming law
Industrial Schools (Ireland) Act, 1868.
Reformatories were for those guilty of offences; industrial schools for those neglected,orphaned or abandoned; in other words, not criminal children, but those potentially exposed to crime.
This was in line with a fairly well established distinction between a penal school for youthful offenders and a ‘ragged school’ for the poor or vagrant.
In Ireland, the initial result of the 1858 and 1868 Acts was a number of existing voluntary schools and homes applied for and were granted certificates as reformatories or industrial schools.
These were for the reception of children committed by courts, and became eligible for grants from public funds for the maintenance of such children.
The next few decades saw extensive new buildings and institutions. Although reformatory schools were established first, industrial schools soon surpassed them in numbers of schools and pupils.
7 years after 1858, 10 reformatories (five for females) were certified.
By the end of the 19th century, only seven of the 10 original reformatories survived, some former reformatories were re-certified as industrial schools; and, by 1922, only five remained (one was a reformatory for boys in N.Ireland). The reformatory school population, nearly 800 immediately after the passing of the 1858 Act, fell to 300 in 1882, and to 150 in 1900.
By 1875, there were 50 industrial schools, rising to 71 schools, of which 61 (56 schools for Catholics and five for Protestants) 1898, were in the 26 counties. At its height, in 1898 the population of industrial schools rose to 7,998 residents, compared with 6,000 children in workhouses.
Social and economic conditions in Ireland were such at this time, that many children were refused places in the schools.
1882, over 70% of committals to industrial schools were for begging.
Late 19th early 20th centuries, social reformers noticed children as individuals susceptible to neglect and ill-treatment. In England, Charles Booth and Sebohm Rowntree attempted to quantify poverty, analysing causes and characteristics.
One outcome was all the 19th century legislation was replaced by the Children Act, 1908, popularly known as the Children’s Charter. This Act applied a unified system of law to both types of schools in England, Wales and Ireland. The Children Act, 1908 dealt with various topics, eg
the prevention of cruelty to children, protection of infant life, and
provision for juvenile offence.
Important provisions provided the constitutional basis for reformatories and industrial schools.
This continued to be the primary legislation for vulnerable children in Ireland until it was amended by the Child Care Act, 1991 which was not fully operational until 1996.
The 1991 Act was replaced by the Children Act, 2001 which was signed into law in July 2001.
Other measures were the Probation of Offenders Act, 1907 and the Prevention of Crime Act, 1908, which established borstals.
Another reform in a slightly earlier period was that the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) was first established in 1875 in the United States, and then in Britain in 1884, and later Ireland in 1889.
Section 44 of the Children Act, 1908 stated:
The expression “industrial school” means a school for the industrial training of children, in which children are lodged, clothed and fed, as well as taught.
The definition of a ‘reformatory school’ is defined in the same terms, but, with the substitution of ‘youthful offenders’ for ‘children’.
Were there no calls for reform in Ireland since independence?
Were there no reformers in Ireland?
Was the availability and support from the religious organisations and their ongoing support the major reason for the continuation of these Victorian – both in design as model systems in Ireland, not the main reasons for both their ability to continue as is?
Models and approaches develop and proceed form international developments as well as reactions to shortcomings in national systems.
So was there an effective lack of these in Ireland?
Were legislators operating in a vacuum – and if so – why and how?
Where and what were the opinions of the various childcare champions embodied in the various agencies and why was there no reaction?
As the writer of the article says “the religious orders ended up running the vast majority of industrial schools and orphanages”.
They for their reasons made this choice however laudable.
Was this due to the fact that during this period, the numbers applying to religious orders and their intake increased dramatically at this time (post famine) to a factor of in certain cases 8x, leaving a surplus of staff that could be successfully exported to underwrite their “social enterprise” with cheap and available staff?
However, they did remain satisfied to retain then current systems and models without much attempt at reform, despite I would assume, the benefit of first hand management experience as well as having the necessary social and political contacts and position in society to have at least the ability to attempt having remedies and updates applied or at least appealed for.
This however did not happen as it had in other open European societies.
Had the solution become an opportunity to exploit in other forms, and, had the lack of interest by legislators become as criminal in action as these de facto management processes and related oversights to staff activities that allowed abuse in its various forms to continue apparently to the point of “insitutionalised” processes and until recently lasting for the duration of the existance of the State.
I have to note that welfare seemed to take a permanent “back seat” position as part of actively pursued government legislation until the advent of Ireland’s EU membership and the raft of social and equality legislation that followed in the years following membership, to catch up with EU norms.
The comments made about the numbers of complaint against specific individuals ( from religious organsiations) are I feel completely misplaced.
Should the Irish Consitution been a document with its focus more on childrens welfare rather than their rights, then the potential for identifying abuse, the possibility of taking the necessary definitive action to positively protect children and indeed the reputations of carers, should this be the case, would have helped provide the necessary conditions within a more appropriate timeframe, while reducing the potential for further inappropriate actions.
MM
Quinn states: “Sexual abuse was also far worse in the boys’ institution than in the girls’, which is probably to be expected. In the girls’ institutions, sex abuse was normally perpetrated by outside workmen, or by visiting priests or religious, or by foster families, with whom the girls occasionally stayed.”
I am a bit sceptical of this comment since survivors of the Magdalene Laundries were completely omitted from the Redress Act. Anecdotal evidence at this point suggests that sexual abuse by female (religious) perpetrators did occur, and perhaps in larger numbers than the industrial schools.
Until Magdalene survivors’ cases are allowed to be heard, it would be imprudent to suggest that male abuse outweighed female abuse.
Quinn of course fails to address the question in the second last paragraph: What should be done for children who are found in an infirmary, with bruises, lice, and obviously malnourished ? That’s what Dr. McCabe found in Newtownforbes Industrial School – managed by a Religious Order.
After all these same Religious Orders love to churn out the lines: ‘Who else would care For these children ?” and “Society didn’t want these children so they were dumped on us” yet fail to admit that the Religious Orders didn’t want the children either – only the money each child would bring in!
Now it’s payback time and the Religious Orders are claiming poverty – claiming they’re too poor …. WELL WELL !
And how do we treat POOR PEOPLE !
David, I take issue with you on the point where you say; if one institution was better run than another you would want it out there. Speaking for myself, if I had had anything to do with institutions as a nun, priest, lay person, teacher etc., I would not want to be associated with them in any way shape or form! They were unsuitable places (mentioned on two occasions in your article) and remain unsuitable places for children.
We have individuals gracing the airwaves with denials they knew anything went on in their establishments. To have been a resident in these institutions one knows that nothing escaped the nuns or brothers and I mean nothing!
Nobody, no church, organisation, community, health board, social workers, politicians, TD’s can look back at their servitude for their country with pride, when they were in full knowledge of what barbaric tortures were carried out in the name of the church in this country.
I beg to differ with you on the term GULAG. It sums up precisely what we suffered. We entered these institutions as innocent children and exited as soulless, cynical, twisted human beings (speaking for myself). One doesn’t ‘live’ having survived (physically) an incarceration in a Gulag, as is evidenced by the many survivors of today. My very soul was taken by these brutes that represented God on this earth!
Might I suggest The Irish Gulag by Bruce Arnold; a more insightful knowledge of our existences you will not have read to date?
Dear Paddy,
Thank you so much for sending me your review of the Ryan Report. Given the awful abuses that occured in these institutions, I think your review was quite kind, indeed. Did anyone ever go to jail over any of this? Are the functional equivalents of these places still found in Ireland? As in this country, are there segragated “schools” for “the disabled” where it is virtually impossible to find out anything because of “confidentiality” rules?
Your point about the exercise of “power over others” is quite well taken, especially in light of the research on this subject (see Millgram et al.). One of early points we used to teach in “normalization” workshops was that with the exception of some of the self-segregation of the very rich, the presence of segregation -no matter what the beneficent excuses offered- is a sign of social devaluation. And, of course, the massive segregation of “devaued” people leads to -at best- negligence, and -at worst- violence and even killing.
Thank you for keeping this issue alive. We ourselves have fostered teenagers in our home rather than have then wind up or stay in “juvenile detention centers.” We never got paid for this. We just couldn’t see these kids either getting smarter at crime or being led into useless adulthoods.
Hope you and yours are well!
All the best,
Ed Burke
Warrenton, VA USA