The Girl Nobody Wants: A Shocking True Story of Child Abuse in Ireland (8 page)

We walked in and we all looked up at them as we walked past, thinking that something bad was about to happen to us; but as we got further into the room, we could see a huge table covered in food, ‘It’s all for you lot’, he said. ‘Now go over to the table and eat something.’ We all ran up to the table and we looked at the food, there were cakes, drinks and food that we had never seen or tasted before and then one of the police officers poured me a drink of coke and he handed me a cake to eat. I was very excited about the food and I just couldn’t believe my eyes; we shouted at each other and then we jumped up and down with excitement. I grabbed at the food and I began to eat, but it didn’t take long before I started to feel sick and I wanted to vomit; I hadn’t eaten so much food for such a long time that my belly couldn’t cope with it.

I drank some coke, then I sat down and began to cry, and I told the police officer that I didn’t want the food anymore and that I wanted to go home with my daddy; then my brothers and sisters began to cry and I shouted at the police to let us all go. So, they opened the door of the room, they allowed us to walk back down the stairs and they gave us the freedom of the police station, letting us play around with everything, just to keep us happy; but it didn’t last long and soon they had run out of ideas to keep us quiet.

Then I noticed an old man sitting in the corner of the room and as I walked over to him, he shook his keys; I asked him what he was doing with the keys and he told me that the keys opened all the cell doors and that I could have them if I wanted. Without speaking, I grabbed the keys out of his hands and I ran over to one of the cell doors, I looked over at him and reached for the lock on the cell door and I put the key into the lock and I shouted to the prisoner inside that he could go home if he wanted to. But a police officer was standing right behind me and he was shaking his head from side to side, then one of the prisoners looked through the hatch at me and he told me that he didn’t want to go home and that I should keep the door locked.

Then my brother Ted grabbed the keys from me and, one by one, he opened all of the cell doors, while telling everyone inside the cells that he was now in charge and they could all go home; but none of the prisoners came out of the cells. As some police officers were standing behind Ted and they were shaking their heads from side to side and indicating to the prisoners that they had to stay put. Then Ted moved along to an empty cell and we all followed him, and as he opened the door, we all stepped inside and we told Ted to lock the door behind us, and he did. Once Ted had locked the cell door, he told us all that he was going to run off with the keys and we began to shout and scream at him to let us out; but instead of opening the cell door, he went back to the other cells and he told all the prisoners to get out. And he told them all to swap places with each other and the police officers let him do it, and they were all smiling as he made all the prisoners swap cells with each other and then he locked them in again.

After Ted had finished messing around, he let us all out of the cell and one of the police officers came over to us and he said that he was very sorry but we had to leave the police station and go with him; and then he told us that he was taking us to see our dad. We all shouted and screamed at each other with excitement and we all ran over to the door to get out. We just wanted to get out and go back home with daddy, but instead they put us all into a couple of police cars and drove us to the courthouse where daddy was waiting for us.

Once we got to the courthouse, we were taken into a small room and sitting in the corner was daddy, and we were so happy to see him that we all ran over to him and we hugged and kissed him. We acted as if we had not seen him for years, and he began to cry and he gave us all a big hug back, while telling us that he was very sorry and that he loved us so much. Then a woman entered the room, she asked us all to follow her and she took us into the courtroom, where many people were sitting and waiting for us. They told us all to sit down, but Simon and I just hung on to daddy’s legs and we wouldn’t let go, so they let us stay with him while they talked to each other about us.

Then everyone in the courtroom went very quiet and a member of the court staff began to read out our names and our ages, starting with the girls first. Lily age five, Daisy age six, Karen age ten, Jenny age eleven; and then the boys, Simon age four, Chris age nine, Ted age fourteen. Then the judge told everyone that daddy was not a fit and proper person to look after us and that all seven of his children would have to go into care. Daddy began to cry, so did Simon and then I began to cry, so I climbed up onto daddy’s lap and cuddled him, while some of the representatives from the social services gave evidence against daddy and the reasons why they should take us all away from him. They said they needed to put us into a children’s home so that we could be well looked after.

The judge looked over at daddy and he asked daddy if he could think of any reason why they should not take us all away from him; but daddy just cried and, shaking his head from side to side, he told us that he loved us and that he was so very sorry for not looking after us better. Then the court staff all stood up and left the room, leaving the police and social service staff to sort things out with us. They told us they were very sorry, but it was time for us to go with them and that daddy could not come with us.

Then the social service staff escorted us all out of the building and, at that moment, we all began to cry and we shouted at them that we didn’t want to go and to leave us all alone, as we wanted to go home with our daddy. But they just looked down at us and I could see that they were struggling no to cry, but they just couldn’t help themselves and soon everyone was crying and sobbing and the people said that they were sorry, but they had to do their job. And the police officer who knew daddy began to cry, but he still had to take us away.

And once everyone was outside, the police had to take daddy to one side and hold him back while the social service staff put us girls into one car and the boys into another. Daddy then broke down and collapsed to the ground, he was shouting and begging them to stop and the police had to hold him up and comfort him, while we were all driven away, screaming and shouting at him from the cars’ windows, and then we were gone. Leaving daddy standing at the side of the road emotionally devastated and he had to be taken to hospital. Sometime later, some people told us that daddy had suffered a mental break down and he needed professional help to recover, so they put him into a mental home for three months, until he was able to cope with losing us all and he was able to go home and look after himself again.

CHAPTER 4

The Convent Home

After leaving the courthouse, the police drove us around in the cars for hours. I think it was more to do with trying to wear us out rather than us having to travel very far, and by the time we pulled into a drive it had worked. Because all we wanted to do was to get out of the cars and be with each other; but as we drove up the drive, we went through a big set of iron gates and up towards a very large building. ‘It’s a convent’, the driver said.

But as we pulled up, only our car stopped at the front of the building and the other car with the boys inside carried on past us and around to the back of the building and out of sight. It was very quiet and, as I looked through the car window, I noticed some nuns coming out of the convent and they were heading towards the car. As they approached the car, one of the nuns opened the car door and in a strange but soft voice she said, ‘Welcome to St Joseph’s convent. Please get out of the car.’ I looked around and it was now getting dark and a misty fog had begun to surround the nuns and the building; the atmosphere surrounding the place was creepy and I felt like I wanted to stay in the car. But one of the nuns grabbed me by the arm and she began to pull at me, but I held onto my sisters tightly so she could not easily separate us. But the nun kept pulling at me until I was out of the car, then she did the same to the others and once we were all out of the car the nuns gathered around us and they led us up towards the building. While at the same time, they told us that everything was going to be ok and that they were going to look after us for a little while.

We all looked at each other and I asked the nuns what was going to happen to our brothers, and one of the nuns said that they had to go to another part of the building to stay with other boys the same as them. Then we all walked through the front door of the building and into a hallway; and once inside, the nuns shut the front door behind us and they led us through a large room and into a bathroom. They said that they had to give us a bath and that we had to take off all our clothes, but we didn’t want to; the room was cold and I was shaking with fear, but they didn’t mess around and they just pulled at our clothes until we were all naked and then I began to cry.

We all huddled together to keep warm, but the nuns soon pulled us apart, telling us that we had bugs crawling around in our hair and that we had to have all our hair cut off. I was frightened and I was shaking from the cold of the room. I tried to run over to my sister Daisy, but as I ran towards her one of the nuns grabbed me from behind and, within a couple of seconds, she had pushed me on to a chair; and as she stood behind me, she commented that I had lovely long hair. Then, just as she had finished stroking my hair, my head was pushed back and held tight while another nun cut all my hair off. Then they did the same to Daisy, Jenny and Karen.

After that, the nun told me to get into the bath, but I was freezing cold and I was crying as bits of my hair had fallen into my eyes, making it difficult for me to see. So, I put out my arms and I shouted to Daisy and Karen, hoping that one of them would grab me and pull me towards them. But they never did and all I could do was listen as Daisy and Karen shouted for each other and me, while the nuns told them to shut up.

Then suddenly, one of the nuns lifted me up and dumped me into a freezing bath of cold water, then she covered me in soap and immediately my skin began to sting and it hurt so bad that I felt like I wanted to be sick from the pain. I shouted to the nun for help, but she didn’t listen to me and she pushed my head under the bath tap to wash the soap off my head. But I had my mouth open and I almost choked and I went dizzy from swallowing some of the water from the tap. She quickly pulled me out of the bath and stood me up, and then she patted me on my back while telling me that I would be ok.

She then dried me off and told me to stand next to the wall and then she walked away. I thought it was all over, but she soon came back and she covered me in medicated oil, making my skin hurt again. I was now bleeding and the blood was running down my skin from where she had rubbed scabs away from my body, because she had rubbed me so hard. I turned around and, as I looked over at my sisters, Jenny was being slapped around the head and told to shut up, while Daisy and Karen had medicated oil vigorously rubbed all over them that was making them cry from the pain.

Once the nuns had finished covering us with the oil, they told us all to go into the next room while they cleaned up, but we were only in the room for a few seconds when one of the nuns came back and put pyjamas on us. ‘Come on’, she said. ‘Now follow me.’ So we all walked behind her. She led us back through the convent, out of the front door and into the cold night air; it was freezing and I pulled Karen close to me to keep me warm, and Daisy and Jenny did the same. Then the nun said, ‘Quickly, quickly, hurry up. I haven’t got all night’, and she ran behind us, pushing us along, while telling us that she had things to do. I turned to her and I asked her where are we going. ‘To your new home’, she said. ‘We call it Willows house, and you’re going to live in it for a while.’ I turned back around and I could see the house in the distance. ‘Walk quicker, she said. ‘Quickly.’ And I ended up having to run the rest of the way until I reached the front door of the house.

She opened the front door and switched on the light, and we all walked in, not knowing what to expect. It was very quiet and I could see a staircase leading up to the top of the house. Shoes and a few coats lay scattered around the floor, but no one was around. Then the nun said, ‘This way’, she began walking up the stairs and we followed her. I can remember walking past large rooms, with rows and rows of beds on each side of the rooms, but there were no people around at all. The nun said, ‘This way’, and she led us up to the top of the house and into a bedroom in the attic. ‘This is your room’, she said ‘and you better keep it tidy and make no noise or you will be in a lot of trouble. You all have a bed each, but you all have to share the wardrobe and the chest of drawers. I will be back later’, she said. And then she left the room, closing the door behind her.

But as I went over to open the door and to follow her, she quickly locked the door from the outside and it wouldn’t open. I shouted and kicked at the door, but Karen said, ‘Stop or she might come back and kill us.’ I looked over at her and said ok, but I put my ear next to the door instead, and I could hear the nun as she walked down the stairs. I tried the door again, but it still wouldn’t open. ‘Now what do we do?’ I said. ‘Nothing’, said Jenny. ‘Nothing but wait.’ So we all looked around the room, we sat on the beds and we told each other what we were going to do when she comes back and opens the door. After a while, I looked up at the ceiling and above me was a small window. I hadn’t noticed it at first because the top of the room was so dark, but the window was too high for me to reach, so I just sat on the bed and looked around the room again. I could see a chair, a small table and a cupboard that was painted white, the same as the walls, so it was difficult to notice. I got off the bed and walked over to the table.