DATE: 1962>>>>> Hard to know what time my day started at but as it was the Farmer priest who was calling me to serve mass I guess it was very early. Being able to tell the time in these gulags wasn't given any priority. We kind of went through our day too the sounds of bells. There were bells for every f**king activity.
A bell to rouse you, a bell to tell you to line up for washing, a bell to tell you to line up to receive your bit of toothpaste - two lines for the toothpaste as some of them were being tested with colgate while the other line got the gulags own brand.
A bell to tell you that washing yourself was over and a bell to tell you to get dressed. A bell to tell you to make your bed. A bell to tell you to line up for inspection. If you had a "tide-line" on your face you were put on the list for the Office. If your bed was not made properly your name went on the list for the Office.
Being put on the list meant you were going to be punished. A bell to tell you to line up for leaving the dorm, you were marched down the stairs into the yard where another bell told you to line up in ranks. You had to stand to attention in the yard whether it was raining, snowing or whatever.
The black garbs would then issue the instructions "Attention, Right Turn, Go Ahead " and rank by rank we would troop into the the "Ref", that's what we called the refectory. Once inside you had to stand to attention with your hands joind and one of the black garbs would begin to say the "Grace Before Meals"..."Bless Us Oh Lord, For These Thy Gifts..." where we all had to join in and finish saying the grace.
I could never understand why we had to thank God for what we were about to eat: lumpy, salty, foul tasting porridge and a skinner (thick slice of bread) with dripping, also a dishwater called tea, or was it cocoa, or maybe oxtail soup; it could also have been epson salts or that other stuff, very oily but it gave you the runs too. Jesus Christ Almighty it was f**king slop, to give this fare to pigs would be illegal and insulting to them.
Imagine that! Thanking God for THAT. Oh, We each had our own aluminium mug, plate and some of us even had weird shaped thingys. After saying the Grace a bell went telling us to start eating.
THE KNITTER
Monday, September 06, 2004
Saturday, June 26, 2004
Nine-year Garda inquiry
Nine-year Garda inquiry into abuse at boys' home
Two Brothers of Charity who worked at Lota have now been jailed for abuse, writes Barry Roche .
The investigation which led to yesterday's conviction and sentencing of Brother Eunan for sexual abuse at Lota in Cork began in 1995. At that time a 47-year-old man walked into Glanmire Garda station and made a complaint to Insp Senan Ryan that he had been sexually abused while in the care of the Brothers of Charity. Lota was established by the Brothers of Charity in 1938 to care for boys with learning difficulties. More than 600 stayed there. The man's complaint led to a nine-year Garda inquiry, and media reports prompted more former residents to come forward. Gardaí took statements from more than 50 former residents of Lota, which were sent to the DPP. Some 15 of these made it to court, with the first five complaints leading to the conviction of Brother Eunan at Cork Circuit Criminal Court in 1997 when Judge Patrick Moran gave him a four-year jail term with three years suspended.
Two years later, in November 1999, James Kelly (74) - known as Brother Ambrose - was sentenced to 36 years by Judge A.G. Murphy at Cork Circuit Criminal Court. He had pleaded guilty to 18 counts of sexual assault on former Lota residents Mr John Barrett, Mr Alan Carroll and Mr Joe O'Driscoll between 1956 and 1968. Judge Murphy said the abuse inflicted by Brother Ambrose had rendered his victims' lives "little short of a permanent crucifixion", but he fixed a review date of 18 months on his record sentence. However, when that date came around, Brother Ambrose was serving a three-year jail term for sexually assaulting 10 boys at the Brothers of Charity home at Renmore, Galway.
Extensive media coverage of Brother Ambrose's case led to further complaints against the retired brother. In March 2002 Judge Patrick Moran sentenced him to five years in jail with four suspended after he pleaded guilty to sexually assaulting a further five boys in Lota in the 1950s and 1960s. The DPP appealed the leniency of both Judge Murphy's and Judge Moran's sentences of Brother Ambrose, but the Court of Criminal Appeal rejected both appeals and Brother Ambrose was released in November 2002. He had served a total of three years for sexually assaulting eight boys in Lota and 10 boys at Renmore in Co Galway.
Many of the former residents have also taken civil cases against the Brothers of Charity. In July 2002 a 47-year-old former resident at Lota was awarded more than €100,000 in damages for sexual abuse. Following yesterday's conviction of Brother Eunan, the Brothers of Charity issued a statement apologising to his two victims and expressing the hope "that the conclusion of the court process will help to create some healing for the hurt caused in their lives".
However, Mr John Barrett, of the Right of Place Group - he was abused in Lota - expressed disappointment that Brother Eunan had not been jailed. "It was what I expected, but if he had been given even a token sentence it would have been something," he said.
© 2004 The Irish Times
Thursday, February 12, 2004
Meaningful
When I was in those .....Places, (Now I’ve never thought of this before)
They always seemed like passing through places
Somewhere temporary
But now that I think on it
Look back at the days passed I realise I lived there
And I live Here now
This is my home
With people I care about I know they won't hurt me.
In those Places I lost all perspective
On what was truly love or hate
So I just flowed like a river
From day to day
And tried to guide my direction
So I could arrive somewhere
Meaningful
They always seemed like passing through places
Somewhere temporary
But now that I think on it
Look back at the days passed I realise I lived there
And I live Here now
This is my home
With people I care about I know they won't hurt me.
In those Places I lost all perspective
On what was truly love or hate
So I just flowed like a river
From day to day
And tried to guide my direction
So I could arrive somewhere
Meaningful
Who is paying?
Who is paying for the visit of this "false memory" organisation. People can spout out any kind of stuff from their mouths if they want, it is a "free" country, freedom of speech and all that; But why can't this organisation tackle the "religious orders" on THEIR memories?
Why attack ex-detainees? It's obvious why LOVE (and their black-cloaked conductors) is sponsoring this visit. It's to try to make fools and liars of ex-detainees despite the historical evidence.
Are LOVE and this organisation explain to us the findings of the Kennedy Report from 1970, the Department of Health's findings of 1967 on Ferryhouse in Clonmel which called that place a "Social Malaise". This 1967 report was due to the death of a fellow called Bowes who died of meningitis (caused by trauma). Or was all that happened in just Ferryhouse alone just a figment of the imagination?
LOVE's next mission is probably to get posthumous pardon for Brendan Smythe
Why attack ex-detainees? It's obvious why LOVE (and their black-cloaked conductors) is sponsoring this visit. It's to try to make fools and liars of ex-detainees despite the historical evidence.
Are LOVE and this organisation explain to us the findings of the Kennedy Report from 1970, the Department of Health's findings of 1967 on Ferryhouse in Clonmel which called that place a "Social Malaise". This 1967 report was due to the death of a fellow called Bowes who died of meningitis (caused by trauma). Or was all that happened in just Ferryhouse alone just a figment of the imagination?
LOVE's next mission is probably to get posthumous pardon for Brendan Smythe
Saturday, January 11, 2003
Abuse victims deserve far better treatment than this
IN HIS second stage speech to the Dail, introducing the Residential Institutions Redress Act at the beginning of last year, Michael Woods gave a bland and generalised picture of the climate in which abuse developed in the institutions of residential care. He suggested official neglect, with the churches and charities stepping in to help. It was, he said, "difficult and largely unrewarded work", improved a bit by the Children's Act of 1908. As late as 1970, however, "the Kennedy Committee found that the industrial and reformatory schools were housed in old and often unsuitable buildings, the institutions were under staffed by under trained or untrained personnel, the emotional needs of the children were not catered for even though they came from backgrounds of deprivation, an institutional approach prevailed, and financial provision made by public bodies was inadequate as was the system of inspection."
He claimed that this litany of deficiencies was as much the fault of contemporary Irish society and its leaders, as it was the fault of managers of the schools who, in many cases, were making do with the few resources they got. "Should it surprise us then that many children suffered emotional neglect, were hungry and poorly clothed, that corporal punishment was frequent and that the regime in most of the institutions could best be described as harsh?" That was his version, and it was designed to spread the blame over us all, embracing the Church, but identifying no real culprits. Now let me give the true picture. It was not the fault of Irish society, it was the fault of Government, more specifically successive Ministers for Education and the Department of Education.
The managers were not "making do". They were perverting the law and misusing the funding. The financial provisions were adequate, and the feeding and clothing of inmates could have been properly organised, as could their education and training. The system of inspection was a good one, and had previously worked well. The suffering that Michael Woods refers to should surprise us, since it was neither necessary nor ordained. It was imposed deliberately, perversely, wickedly. It did untold damage. No one within the system tried to stop it. Most turned a blind eye or ignored what they knew. The Kennedy Report, praised vastly beyond what it merits, was also wrong in its analysis. The State on its foundation in 1922 inherited an effective piece of legislation, the Children's Act of 1908, controlling institutional care and covering the administration of all institutions for children including industrial schools, orphanages, homes for disabled children and ordinary children's homes. The new Redress Act of 2002 lists 128 institutions, most of which were in existence or came into existence during the early life of the State.
The administration was the responsibility of the Department of Education. The Children's Act of 1908 was a dedicated legislative instrument, laying down standards for clothing, food, education, training and discipline. There was a countrywide inspectorate. This group of public servants was required to carry out annual inspections and file reports. The institutions had to have a manager who was answerable to the State. Those reports are still in the department. They are a record of the total collapse of the system that was required by law under the 1908 Act, many provisions of which are still in force. The inspectors, and the State, intimidated by the Church, failed totally to carry out their assignment designed to ensure the proper upbringing of the inmates, boys and girls.
Instead, they allowed the almost complete abrogation of control and protection. This led to a climate of cruelty, neglect, indifference, brutality, sexual exploitation, and the maiming and deaths of children. For years the majority of these children were underfed, and suffered disablement as a result. There was adequate money to feed them, provided by the State, sequestered and used for other things by the managers. The disciplinary regimes were appalling. The institutions were far worse than the most brutal of prisons, and lacked any of the restrictive controls that the State exercises within its prison system.
When the issue of child abuse became a major shame faced by the country, it was realised by many people, that there was some benefit to the State - and in a sense to the Church - if the burden of blame were somehow to be shared, blurred and diluted. It was always seen that the Church had compensating factors in its favour. It could claim good works, and it could rely on the faith of many of its supporters. But whatever may have been the problems facing the Church, it was recognised from an early stage that the Department of Education had no such sympathy in its favour. As a consequence, the appalling neglect and indifference of the Department, and of generations of its inspectors, have been kept in the background.
So, too, have the reports. These whitewash documents, a disgrace to the civil service men and women, including doctors and trained personnel, who wrote them, are virtually impossible to obtain, and have not been made the subject of the supposedly redemptive Residential Institutions Redress Act. The Department, as a culpable institution, does not figure at all. Nor does the Act provide for the inspectorate and its reports to be part of the process. It is essential to recognise that, while the widespread abuse was taking place in Artane and the legion of other notorious institutions, year after year reports went to the Department which gave no expression at all of unease over what was happening. It was known that things were seriously wrong. And it was known, not just occasionally, but year on year and decade on decade. And nothing was done. The law, represented by a sound administrative weapon, the Children's Act, was ignored.
It had worked in the early years of the last century. It worked tolerably well in the 1920s, for which I have seen early assessments and reports, and then it broke down. Far from the State wishing to deal openly and fairly with the enormous problem of abuse throughout the Irish institutional world for children from 1930 until the 1970s, the opposite is happening. The institutional reports, which still exist, as they should in law, are the key to the monstrous offence that was done to so many children over so many years. What actually happened is covered in a vast unwritten catalogue of every known abuse. This was spread across the whole State. What the State itself chose to see of this was nothing at all. No action was taken on foot of any report. No prosecutions were pursued. No managers were rebuked, removed or imprisoned.
The numbers of abused are estimated modestly at 2,500 or thereabouts. And the global figure for compensation is frequently expressed as €50,000. The real figure for abused men and women, if they felt more trusting of the climate in which to present themselves, would be around 20,000, and the range of payments, by any standard, should rise from a minimum figure of €50,000 to an average, for the destruction of a life, of €300,000. We have short-changed the abused. We have solved their problem with a totally inadequate scheme, badly cobbled together, unfair, containing seriously threatening elements, and backed by a secret deal parts of which were published yesterday, further parts of which are published by this paper today.
Michael Woods was in charge during much of the work of setting up this falsely persuasive answer to abuse. He joined the Cabinet sub-committee on Abuse when he was Minister - of all things - of the Marine. He took overall charge of legislation and negotiations from 2000 until the passage of the Act in 2002. After the election he went to the back benches where he is now. Noel Dempsey is unlikely to be happy with many of the provisions of the Act, some of which are extreme and inexplicable. Nor will he be happy with the secret deal. Whether he will act or not remains to be seen.
Whatever he does, abuse victims throughout the country and in the United Kingdom, where many of them went in flight from their experiences here, will be looking at the present situation with new perceptions now, emphatically more critical and more suspicious than they were.
Bruce Arnold Saturday January 11th 2003
He claimed that this litany of deficiencies was as much the fault of contemporary Irish society and its leaders, as it was the fault of managers of the schools who, in many cases, were making do with the few resources they got. "Should it surprise us then that many children suffered emotional neglect, were hungry and poorly clothed, that corporal punishment was frequent and that the regime in most of the institutions could best be described as harsh?" That was his version, and it was designed to spread the blame over us all, embracing the Church, but identifying no real culprits. Now let me give the true picture. It was not the fault of Irish society, it was the fault of Government, more specifically successive Ministers for Education and the Department of Education.
The managers were not "making do". They were perverting the law and misusing the funding. The financial provisions were adequate, and the feeding and clothing of inmates could have been properly organised, as could their education and training. The system of inspection was a good one, and had previously worked well. The suffering that Michael Woods refers to should surprise us, since it was neither necessary nor ordained. It was imposed deliberately, perversely, wickedly. It did untold damage. No one within the system tried to stop it. Most turned a blind eye or ignored what they knew. The Kennedy Report, praised vastly beyond what it merits, was also wrong in its analysis. The State on its foundation in 1922 inherited an effective piece of legislation, the Children's Act of 1908, controlling institutional care and covering the administration of all institutions for children including industrial schools, orphanages, homes for disabled children and ordinary children's homes. The new Redress Act of 2002 lists 128 institutions, most of which were in existence or came into existence during the early life of the State.
The administration was the responsibility of the Department of Education. The Children's Act of 1908 was a dedicated legislative instrument, laying down standards for clothing, food, education, training and discipline. There was a countrywide inspectorate. This group of public servants was required to carry out annual inspections and file reports. The institutions had to have a manager who was answerable to the State. Those reports are still in the department. They are a record of the total collapse of the system that was required by law under the 1908 Act, many provisions of which are still in force. The inspectors, and the State, intimidated by the Church, failed totally to carry out their assignment designed to ensure the proper upbringing of the inmates, boys and girls.
Instead, they allowed the almost complete abrogation of control and protection. This led to a climate of cruelty, neglect, indifference, brutality, sexual exploitation, and the maiming and deaths of children. For years the majority of these children were underfed, and suffered disablement as a result. There was adequate money to feed them, provided by the State, sequestered and used for other things by the managers. The disciplinary regimes were appalling. The institutions were far worse than the most brutal of prisons, and lacked any of the restrictive controls that the State exercises within its prison system.
When the issue of child abuse became a major shame faced by the country, it was realised by many people, that there was some benefit to the State - and in a sense to the Church - if the burden of blame were somehow to be shared, blurred and diluted. It was always seen that the Church had compensating factors in its favour. It could claim good works, and it could rely on the faith of many of its supporters. But whatever may have been the problems facing the Church, it was recognised from an early stage that the Department of Education had no such sympathy in its favour. As a consequence, the appalling neglect and indifference of the Department, and of generations of its inspectors, have been kept in the background.
So, too, have the reports. These whitewash documents, a disgrace to the civil service men and women, including doctors and trained personnel, who wrote them, are virtually impossible to obtain, and have not been made the subject of the supposedly redemptive Residential Institutions Redress Act. The Department, as a culpable institution, does not figure at all. Nor does the Act provide for the inspectorate and its reports to be part of the process. It is essential to recognise that, while the widespread abuse was taking place in Artane and the legion of other notorious institutions, year after year reports went to the Department which gave no expression at all of unease over what was happening. It was known that things were seriously wrong. And it was known, not just occasionally, but year on year and decade on decade. And nothing was done. The law, represented by a sound administrative weapon, the Children's Act, was ignored.
It had worked in the early years of the last century. It worked tolerably well in the 1920s, for which I have seen early assessments and reports, and then it broke down. Far from the State wishing to deal openly and fairly with the enormous problem of abuse throughout the Irish institutional world for children from 1930 until the 1970s, the opposite is happening. The institutional reports, which still exist, as they should in law, are the key to the monstrous offence that was done to so many children over so many years. What actually happened is covered in a vast unwritten catalogue of every known abuse. This was spread across the whole State. What the State itself chose to see of this was nothing at all. No action was taken on foot of any report. No prosecutions were pursued. No managers were rebuked, removed or imprisoned.
The numbers of abused are estimated modestly at 2,500 or thereabouts. And the global figure for compensation is frequently expressed as €50,000. The real figure for abused men and women, if they felt more trusting of the climate in which to present themselves, would be around 20,000, and the range of payments, by any standard, should rise from a minimum figure of €50,000 to an average, for the destruction of a life, of €300,000. We have short-changed the abused. We have solved their problem with a totally inadequate scheme, badly cobbled together, unfair, containing seriously threatening elements, and backed by a secret deal parts of which were published yesterday, further parts of which are published by this paper today.
Michael Woods was in charge during much of the work of setting up this falsely persuasive answer to abuse. He joined the Cabinet sub-committee on Abuse when he was Minister - of all things - of the Marine. He took overall charge of legislation and negotiations from 2000 until the passage of the Act in 2002. After the election he went to the back benches where he is now. Noel Dempsey is unlikely to be happy with many of the provisions of the Act, some of which are extreme and inexplicable. Nor will he be happy with the secret deal. Whether he will act or not remains to be seen.
Whatever he does, abuse victims throughout the country and in the United Kingdom, where many of them went in flight from their experiences here, will be looking at the present situation with new perceptions now, emphatically more critical and more suspicious than they were.
Bruce Arnold Saturday January 11th 2003
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