Children Of The Poor Clares (36 page)
Read Children Of The Poor Clares Online
Authors: Mavis Arnold,Heather Laskey
We arrived in Cavan on a cold bleak March day in 1985. The yard doors of the convent were open and well-dressed young mothers were chatting to a nun and bringing small children out from the national school. The two nuns who came into the parlour to talk to us were teachers. They did not recognise Clare and laughed disbelievingly as, seeking to establish her identity, she told them how she had gone on to the secondary school (now closed) and had sung at the concerts. They spoke of other girls who had married, and of their families. They reminisced about the orphanage children and mentioned how well-behaved they had been—’just like little Protestants’—but they didn’t seem interested in Clare. Perhaps, from experience, they sensed that she was one of those for whom things had gone wrong.
She was particularly anxious to see the orphanage photograph album. When she pointed to a photograph of herself the nuns denied that it was her, until she insisted on them taking it out and reading her name on the back. They seemed to be denying the fact of her very existence.
We asked whether we could look inside the orphanage, but they laughed and said ‘What would you want to go into that cold old place for? It’s all empty and locked up.’ When we went out, we looked in through the key-hole of the door. All we could see was the flight of stairs which Clare and so many others had scrubbed till their young fingers were raw. Then we walked up the steps to the field, Ballykinlar. All the convent property had been put up for sale.
Before leaving Cavan, we went with Clare to Cullies cemetery. The children’s grave had been changed since our first visit. On it lay a faded wreath. A new headstone was in place. All mention of the fire and of the dead children had been removed. The inscription read
‘In
loving
memory
of
the
Little
Ones
of
St.
Clare.
R.I.P.
Children
pray
for
us.’
There were no names, there was no date.
* * *
Commission
to
Inquire
Into
Child
Abuse.
Investigation
Committee.
15
th
July
2004.
Before
Mr.
Justice
Sean
Ryan
of
the
Redress
Board.
Sister
Patricia
Rogers,
Congregational
Leader
of
the
Poor
Clare
Sisters,
(legal
counsel
Ms.
U.
Ni
Raifeartaigh,
B.L.)
appearing
as
a
witness
in
response
to
a
letter
of
inquiry
received
from
the
Board.
Sr. Patricia begins her testimony with an extensive statement on the history of the Order’s arrival in Ireland and involvement with education and with its private orphanage in Harold’s Cross, Dublin, and then with the Industrial School in Cavan. Of the approximately 380 children sent there between 1940 and its closure, only one, she says, had lodged a complaint before the committee.
112
‘I suppose I would feel very strongly and be very aware that when any child is admitted to residential care, it is a very, very distressing experience for them because they are going to have to leave familiar surroundings, move to live with strangers in a strange place and everything about it is strange. Then I think, in addition to that, if they happen to meet with any kind of unkindness from anybody, it must have been an absolutely devastating experience for them. I would be conscious of that dimension to the whole question that we are exploring here today.
‘In an effort to establish a picture of life in the facilities, I contacted Sisters, who are still alive and who worked in the Industrial School in the orphanage even for brief periods of time. There aren’t many of them around, as you will imagine, most of them are very elderly or have died. I have spoken to Sisters who lived in the communities attached to the institutions. One Sister in her eighties who is still quite active, she would have entered in the 1940s and she gave me a brief account of her memories of what it was like, and she told me about Cavan…
‘The Sisters I spoke to told me that they were unaware of any serious physical, emotional or psychological abuse of children. The buildings that were in use at the time, they were old and they would at times have been cold. They certainly were not what one would describe as homely, and the food for both the Sisters and the children would have been plain but adequate. They agreed that the Sisters helped with the housework and in some cases they themselves worked alongside the children in these different tasks. Essentially, they described a simple lifestyle with occasional treats, maybe outings and later on holidays and some celebrations.’
Referring to the fire in St. Joseph’s in 1943, for whose consequences, she notes, the sisters had been exonerated, Sister Patricia says: ‘In 1985 a book was written about this tragedy but it also included complaints from some women who had lived in the orphanage more recently, but they had chosen not to reveal their names. So the congregation leader at the time told me that she had employed an archivist to work on the files in 1985, but they had not found any complaints from former residents.’
113
Commenting upon the virtual absence of any instructions on protocol from the government she had found in the Convent’s files, she says ‘I suppose as the issue of child abuse didn’t become publicly known until the late 1970s, 1980s, it is unlikely that Cavan, as an Industrial School, would have had any procedures at all dealing with that.’
There are no questions from the Redress Board Committee on the crucial matters of financial records or accounting practices, dietary scale or punishment book. Nor of the illegal transfers to an uncertified laundry-reformatory. There are no interruptions from the public. Sister Rogers’ calm, measured and well prepared statements are not queried; the questions put to her are respectful, minimal and reminiscent of that tribunal of inquiry sixty-one years earlier.
* * *
In 1993 a new and imposing memorial to the children was erected by the Poor Clare order on the fiftieth anniversary of the fire. The inscription reads:
IN
LOVING
MEMORY
OF
THE
CHILDREN
WHO
DIED
TRAGICALLY
BY
FIRE
IN
THE
POOR
CLARE
ORPHANAGE,
CAVAN
ON
FEBRUARY
23
1943.
THIS
MEMORIAL
IS
ERECTED
BY
THE
CONGREGATION
OF
THE
SISTERS
OF
ST
CLARE
(POOR
CLARES)
AS
AN
EXPRESSION
OF
SORROW
FOR
THE
TRAGIC
LOSS
OF
THE
CHILDREN
.
FEBRUARY
23
1993.
The names of the children are now engraved on the coping stone surrounding the grave.
In April 2010, a group of young people in Cavan held a formal meeting at which they decided to organise themselves to raise funds for the creation of what they wish to be a fitting memorial on the orphanage grounds to the children who died in the fire. They intend it to be in place by the 70
th
anniversary, in 2013, an event, they said, of which they knew nothing until one of them happened to read
The
Children
of
the
Poor
Clares
.
Clare has told us that when she dies she wishes to be cremated and to have her ashes scattered on the orphans’ grave. We have promised to see that this is done.
* * *
1
See Chapter Six
2
No files can be found on the deaths of children in Industrial Schools, although an official inquiry was mandatory following the death of any child. Figures and causes of death were published in the Department of Education annual reports. The numbers shown were small and the given causes were usually the result of illness.
3
In the early eighteenth century, the composer Antonio Vivaldi was violin master at Santa Maria della Pieta, instituted in 1346-48 as a foundling hospital for girls by the Franciscan Fra Pietro di Assisi. It was run by the Fransiscan Order of the Poor Clares and became famous for the singing of the girls under Vivaldi’s direction.
4
Irish for Prime Minister
5
Abstaining from alcohol
6
The Department responsible for fire brigade organisation
7
Irish for Senate
8
This architect had also designed the new cathedral in Cavan.
9
Because of their wartime needs, the British were refusing licences for the export of equipment for use in peace-time fire-fighting
10
We were never able to find any criticism in the press.
11
A woman who had been a pupil in the 1930s told us that in her day the doors were locked. A woman who had survived the fire, however, told us that they were unlocked when she was there.
12
Ireland’s equivalent of the House of Commons
13
Described in the newspapers as a cook employed in the institution.
14
A porringer is a small metal bowl. The bowls used in the orphanage were made locally.
15
A pudding made out of grated raw potatoes cooked in a bastaple pot over an open fire.
16
In
The Poor Clares in Ireland
by Senator Helena Concannon, published in 1927, the author wrote that the Order lived frugally, ate no meat and fasted frequently. Senator Concannon wrote many books on religious subjects.
18
4. The Act permitted children to be taken out under licence before the age of sixteen to live with ‘respectable persons’ or to serve an apprenticeship. The manager could issue the licence but had to inform the schools’ inspector.
19
While we accept Sister Constance’s recollections in good faith, we are also aware that adults who have suffered in childhood may choose to deny this reality, by idealising their experience.
20
It was at this Magdalen home that women had their heads shaved to ensure that they would not run away.
21
Matt McKiernan, the brother of Mary Elizabeth and Susan McKiernan, two of the girls who died in the tragedy, told a TV documentary-maker decades later, that they had been sent to St. Joseph’s six months before the fire, following their mother’s death, because the local parish priest didn’t want them to be raised by a Protestant neighbour, or, he said, even by their own father.
22
Before the fire, St. Joseph’s was certified for up to 120 children. In 1941 the Annual Report of the Department of Education gave a figure of seventy-six in detention there. After the fire losses, the numbers gradually increased again until they peaked at eighty-six in 1954 and thereafter declined.
23
She was referring to the Miss O’Reilly of the previous chapters.
24
We have called both Mother Carmel and Mother Dymphna by their real names because we know they are both dead.
25
In the Kennedy Report on Industrial Schools and Reformatories published in 1970 it states: ‘There is a Diploma Course in Child Care … but for some years now not enough applications have been received to enable the course to be held.’ Accompanying statistics showed that the majority of those working in the institutions had not received training.
26
A Poor Clares convent.
27
When Connie finally managed to get a copy of her birth certificate, it showed a different date of birth from the one she had been given by the nuns.
28
An interesting resonance, over the centuries, of the girls playing string instruments in the Poor Clares Sisters’ foundling home in Venice.
29
Until 1968 secondary education in Ireland was not compulsory and was mostly fee-paying.
30
Sections 69 (2) ( c ), 71 (2) and 72 (2) of the 1908 Act.
31
This was in breach of the regulations governing Industrial School.
32
St. Anne’s Industrial School for Girls, Booterstown, Dublin.
33
Tuarim
34
Physicians have suggested to the authors that this may have been due to kidney damage rather than menstruation. When she was in her early twenties she had to have a kidney removed.
35
Two forms of shorthand script.
36
A British TV series.
37
Like most people, he referred to Industrial Schools as orphanages.
38
A half-crown was 2s. 6d. There were eight in a pound.
39
Ten shillings.
40
Ally - a voluntary agency set up to place unmarried mothers-to-be in people’s homes until their babies are born.
41
We did not originally know about the fire. It was brought to our attention by the late writer, Liam Lynch.
42
Run by the Daughters of Charity
43
A quite different picture for the period 1950-66, which is more in accordance with the Cavan stories, is given by a woman quoted in ‘Suffer the Little Children’ by Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan. In the same book, a man who was at St. Philomena’s from 1937-mid-1940’s also told stories of harsh treatment by the lay staff there.
44
Later a member of the Seanad from Dublin University.
45
See chapter 8 for comment on this situation in the Kennedy report, 1970.
46
Her name wast changed at her request.
47
He later became President of Ireland.
48
In the mid 1940s the young boys at this institution were described in departmental records as all underweight, and looking pinched, wizened and wretched. (See Suffer the Little Children by Mary Raftery & Eoin O’Sullivan.)
49
See Chapter Eight for the Tuarim report.
50
‘Founded on Fear: Letterfrack Industrial School, War & Exile’
an unforgettable book based on letters he wrote to Senator Owen Sheehy Skeffington, and found by chance in the late Senator’s archived papers, was published by Irish Academic Press in 2006.
‘Nothing To Say’
, a book about Letterfrack was written by Mannix Flynn (Dublin, Ward River Press, 1983). In 2003 he performed a one-man show based on his experiences in the Project Theatre in Dublin.
51
In November 2003, 71- year old Christian Brother Maurice Tobin was given a 12-year jail sentence for sexually abusing 25 boys at Letterfrack Industrial School between 1959 and 1974. Sixteen of his victims gave evidence in court. They described how they had become involved in alcohol and drug abuse, had attempted to commit suicide and found it almost impossible to lead normal lives.
52
This may not have been the case: earlier in the century it had been part of the Westminster- regulated Industrial Schools system. But as this was abolished in 1934, we have been unable to establish its administrative and financial status by the time Laurence Greene was there.
53
In 2008 “Suffer the Little Children” by Frances Reilly was published, a harrowing account of her childhood at the girls’ equivalent institution, Nazareth House Convent, where she and her sisters were sent in 1956.
54
In 1925/6 42 children had died, and 28 in 1926/27.
55
The practice of sending boys away at the age of ten to a senior school continued into the 1970s. We spoke to a very open, warm and impressive nun in a Boys’ School in Passage West who had ‘won permission from Bishop Lucey of Cork’ against the implementation of this rule. ‘Ten’, she said, was ‘too tender an age’ for them to go to ‘those places.’
56
An interesting fact that emerged was that the mothers of illegitimate children, as well as other parents, were, where possible, ordered by the courts at the Committal proceedings to contribute to their children’s upkeep. Theoretically, though not in practice, this rule was still in operation in 1985, although it was still applied in the early 1960s because a later report (Tuarim, see below) quoted an annual figure of £9,960 raised from this source.
57
Part of the Tuairim research was into case histories of Irish boys then in English Borstals (reformatories). They found that of 124 boys born in Ireland, 23 had spent some of their childhood in Industrial Schools in the Republic.
58
In 1965, the state was contributing £l 15s. a week per child, and the local authorities, who were notoriously tardy, £1. 12s. 6d. Thus a total of £3. 7s. 6d. per child.
59
The committee stated that involvement in prostitution was the principal form of unacceptable social behaviour which had led to admission to these non-certified institutions. However, a Sister working in the Gloucester Street institution told us that the majority there had been unmarried mothers. See chapter nine.
60
The sample was found to highlight a number of factors. ‘The first is the generally depressed scores obtained by children in Industrial Schools, indicating that 11.9% are mentally handicapped compared with approximately 2.4% in the population, and that 36.6% are borderline mentally handicapped compared with approximately 12% in the population in general … the extent of backwardness (50.3%) on the perceptual abilities tested… must be viewed against the figure of 15% in the School Studies from which our norms are derived …. That these are largely independent of verbal ability indicates the poor development of observation and clear thinking in Industrial and Reformatory Schools.’
61
Had Donough O’Malley lived, maybe he would have insisted on presenting it to the Dail, but he died 1968, still in his forties, before the report’s publication.
62
Bruce Arnold, in his book ‘The Irish Gulag’ describes the Kennedy Report as an ‘entirely fraudulent document’, points out that its composition was stacked—i.e. Kennedy herself as District Justice would have been responsible for illegal committals to Industrial Schools; also that it excised the paragraph on punishment—which were permitted and when and how they were to be applied.
63
When Mary Raftery and Eoin O’Sullivan gained access to departmental records in the 1990s they discovered that when a Mr.P O Muircheartaigh was made Inspector, and Dr. Anna McCabe became Medical Inspector of the Schools in 1939, they were outspokenly critical of the care, condition and treatment of the children in several of the schools and of their Managers. In 1944 Mr. Ó Muircheartaigh reported that ‘the children are not properly fed..a serious indictment of the system of industrial schools run by nuns - a state of affairs that shouldn’t be tolerated in a Christian community’, and that there was ‘semi-starvation and lack of proper care and attention’. But, after O Muircheartaigh left the job - for unknown reasons - in 1945, Dr. McCabe’s reports became subdued. Nothing further is known of Mr. O Muircheartaigh. Raftery and O’Sullivan also found evidence of frustrated efforts over the years of attempts by the Department of Finance to get financial accountability from the Schools’ Managers.
64
See Chapter 7
65
The most famous example of this was when the social activist politician, Dr. Noel Browne was made Minister of Health in 1948 and attempted to bring in the Mother and Child Scheme, for state-funded pre- and post-natal care and for children up to the age of 16. It was defeated after pressure was brought to bear on TDs by both the medical establishment and the Church, in effect bringing down the government in 1951.
66
This statement was contrary to all the contemporary evidence, including the Report of the Inquiry. The probable explanation is that Louis Blessing was openly critical of the nuns after the fire.
67
Following our newspaper request for information about St. Joseph’s, Cavan, we received a call from a woman who said that in the late 1960s, wanting to adopt a child, she contacted this Home, and without any formalities she was handed a baby. Some months later the Home told her that the mother wanted it back. She returned the infant only to be contacted again some months later because the mother had rejected it. At no stage had an outside agency or adoption society been involved, nor had she been instructed to approach one.
68
It did not materialise.
69
The following are examples of the 25 questions and her answers: Was there adequate state finance to maintain the children? A. No; Q. Who did the cooking? A. Lay cook. The first answer may be arguable, but the girls told us that they did all the cooking.
70
We do not know whether or not the Stamullen baby Home was one of those involved in the scandal of babies sold for adoption in the United States -a situation which led to legislation being passed in 1959 banning babies being sent for adoption out of Ireland.
