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TAOISEACH SIMON HARRIS has described the testimony given by people who were victims of violence in school in an RTÉ documentary that aired last night as “harrowing”.
Harris commended “all of those who told their stories” and said he is expecting an update on the establishment of a commission of investigation into historical clerical sex abuse.
As well as featuring interviews with victims, the documentary also addressed the lack of documented reports of abuse allegations kept by the Department of Education.
“The publication of the scoping report, and the painful stories that have been told since, have exposed a culture of violence, of calculated cruelty and the abuse of power that victimised and terrorised generations of Irish children who still bear the wounds and have for all of their lives,” the Taoiseach said.
“It is an unbearable burden which we must help lift,” he said.
Harris said he would also “reflect” on a request from survivors that the inquiry be expanded.
“Their voices cannot, and must not, be ignored or unheard,” he said, adding that “this process cannot be rushed because it has to be right, and it has to respect the wishes of the victims who came forward”.
“Their voices which were silenced as defenceless children, even those whose parents tried to stand up against the barrage of brutality, are being heard and their bravery in reliving such terrible memories is testament to a national trauma which must be acknowledged.”
During the documentary, one victim, Peter Kane, said that when he was 12, “every day, there was an element of fear going in.
“He could kick off for the simplest of reasons…on this particular morning, the Brother called me up, ‘get up here’ he says, and the first thing I got was a couple of clatters around the head, my face, I think maybe six or 12 slaps I got off him with a leather strap.”
Poet and author Theo Dorgan described his experience as a student in Cork.
“When the door closes, and you are in a confined environment, it’s predator and prey – if you looked at a teacher the wrong way, you would get a slap. We had a gradation of soft slaps, to vicious slaps…”
His lifelong friend and schoolmate, film festival co-director Mick Hannigan said: “It was not so much a daily occurrence, but an hourly occurrence, class after class. If you got a sum wrong, if you got some difficult Irish poem wrong, then you were punished.”
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I experienced it in primary school in the 80s. The trauma lasts a life time. After getting a punch in the ear one time from a teacher that left my ear ringing for a couple of days I ran into the garda station just down the road in tears. When I told the guard what had happened he told me to get out or “he’d hit me another box”. Physical child abuse in day schools was just as rampant back then but until last night’s programme it was never discussed. Despite the fact that it ruined my early education and others in my class who got it must worse than me it is accepted that “corporal punishment” was good and many think it should be brought back. It was legalised child abuse with no restrictions or guidelines.
@Gearoid MacEachaidh: I’m from a different generation so please excuse my ignorance but, why didn’t fathers at the time go in and knock the teachers the F out? That’s certainly what I’d do if someone hit my kids. It was just accepted behaviour at the time?
@FlipBip: Corporal punishment of children was legal. Kids were beaten both at home and in school as a means of discipline. Parenting was a different ball game than now. The wooden spoon, the belt, the slaps, and worse were common up until mid 80s to early 90s. Then, the laws started to change.
@FlipBip: yes it was, people who spoke out about it on telly got abused in the streets, one doctor who spoke out lost half his patients. The power of the Church.
@FlipBip: You wouldn’t go home and tell your parents, they would automatically presume that you had done something wrong and you may get another hiding.
@Iano C: I remember those days.
@Dermot Blaine: Spot on. You know you have full control when the people police themselves. That’s the ultimate goal of the power hungry. Create an environment so submissive and fearful that the people do the policing for you; out of fear of being shunned or viewed as the enemy within. The desire to be accepted and part of a community is so strong in humans and this is manipulated by the worst people time and time again.
@SerotoninWars: very astute and incisive comment. The process by which such predation was normalised. To complain was a seen as seen as further disobedience – to be punished.
@Daithi Mc Ghiollamhairtin: Thanks Daithi. Absolutely. Sadly, it’s still the way these things work. Our impressive technology blinds us from the fact that we’re still ruled by so much superstition and a primal fear of being isolated from the pack. It’s such a powerful tool for people who want to take control. Individuals can often be reasoned with. The power of large groups is another matter entirely.
@Iano C: It was made illegal, I believe, in 1981 or 1982.
Every Friday in St. Patrick’s school in Galway city in the late sixties early seventies, we were lined up against the wall in the classroom and asked a question from the catechism. If you answered the question right, then you sat down in your seat. But if you got it wrong then you were whipped with a bamboo stick and you went back to the wall and went around and around until you answered a question! The brother actually enjoyed whipping us 8-9 year olds. There was a boy in the class who was physically impaired and the brother made fun of him in front of the class. I hope the brother is burning in hell.
@Jack Chit: We had a Christian brother who named his stick the board of education.
@johnabc: It’s insane they were so cruel. Got a few slaps across the face myself in my younger years.
I was hit with a cane time and again in 1982 for not understanding maths, the very same teacher that did this to me I would happen upon some 13 years later. I never forgot 1982, he’ll never forget 1995.
I experienced the remnants of it in the early 90s, but NOTHING like the level of physical abuse my father’s generation went through at the hands of so-called religious people. Was it God that told you to physically abuse children?!
@Iano C: It was the same in secular schools.
@thomas molloy: What culture were they part of? What religion was knee deep in all aspects of the Irish state and society? What did a ‘secular’ school even mean back then? Maybe these schools weren’t fully staffed by people from religious orders but that same religion had already traumatised and toxified the culture. The brainwashing had already occurred and the standards were set. We see it play out all the time, just how easily people fall into line with the worst attitudes and ideas if they are accepted by the majority or a large number of people.
It’s playing out before our eyes right now. Extremely ignorant and regressive views have become fashionable. Suspicion and mocking of anyone who shows a bit of empathy is rampant. There aren’t enough people with the self-awareness and critical thinking skills to ask themselves why and how they have arrived at these viewpoints. Propaganda and brainwashing are as alive today as ever. The endless parroting of the slogans and catchphrases of regressive billionaires we read here daily are proof enough of how easily people get swept up in the prevailing culture.
@SerotoninWars: well said
@Dermot Blaine: Thanks Dermot.
Christian Brothers again. How is this cult still legal? Especially as they continue refuse to engage with the courts regarding compensation for their many sex abuse victims.
@Dermot Blaine: it wasn’t only the Christian brothers, it was also the presentation brothers.
@Dave Barrett: true, but in every scandal of this sort, be it schools or industrial schools, there’s one order that pops up more than any other and that’s the Christian Brothers. And as far as I know there the only order refusing to engage with the high court, which a judge requested them to do several years ago now.
@Dave Barrett: ……and secular teachers.
@thomas molloy: secular teachers employed and protected by the Church, yes. But it was mostly religious, just as it is religious still perpetrating the abuse by refusing to apologise, compensate or in some cases even admit it was wrong.
@thomas molloy: I saw it first hand. Both with secular and presentation brothers. I was in the same class a MM but I’m sure if he was asked if he witnessed anything the answer would be no. Here are some examples, a brother threw tables and chairs out of his way to get at a fellow student, caught him, clattered him, kicked him, hit him with closed fist, kicked him down a flight of stairs.
A secular teacher, six foot tall, involved in theatre in Cork, used to what can only be called sexual assault, lift a student off his chair by squeezing his nipples, putting his hand between a students legs and squeezing his balls asking him how his batteries were. A maths teacher absolutely hammering the living daylights out of someone in corridor between prefab. These were horrible people.
@Dave Barrett: and the guards and fianna fail who rounded up any kids who escaped and sent them back to the workhouses etc for more torture.
@Dermot Blaine: Ireland still run by this mob
I don’t know why anyone is appalled or shocked at the revelations in the RTE documentary last night. Corporal punishment was legal and institutions were exemplary in beating children in every school in Ireland. I went to school in St Vincent’s , north strand in the sixties and we were beaten almost every day without exception for any and every reason, not understanding spellings, tables , particularly not getting Irish, maths or forgetting to do homework which was mainly an inability to do sums. But you could also be beaten for anything seen as an infringement of their rules, it was a cruel and harsh time. The lay teachers were equally willing to inflict punishment as well as the nuns. My teacher had a press in the wall in the classroom and when you were going to be slapped , she would say “Teigh go dti an cofra agus faigh an bata”, not only were you going to be beaten but you had to get the “bata” and present it to her to beat you with it. No wonder children grew up with anxiety, depression , lacking confidence and inability to stay in education, most children could not wait to get out of the system and escape the torment. I smile when I hear politicians and teachers say they are shocked at the revelations, the world and it’s mother knew what was going on in our schools, orphanages, mother and baby homes , mental hospitals etc. In any institution where people were held against their will or detained by the state under the control of the religious, nuns, priests and brothers, then these tyrants used their muscle and power and how they enjoyed it. Don’t even get me started on the mental abuse of pupils , that might be for another documentary. The pity is that none of these people will be accountable for their actions and destroying lives, and you could relay in every school the same methods, actions and abuse but because it was state and church sanctioned , there is no justice for yesterdays children.
@Eileen Kelly: Great post Eileen. I’m so sorry about what you went through. You are so right that people knew what was happening. It’s such a sad feature of human behaviour that it often aligns with the prevailing culture, whether it’s healthy and justified or not. People are made to feel powerless and sometimes they truly are. Going up against the state and society is hard. It’s easier to keep your head down. Respect to all who stood up in whatever way they could over the years. Change rarely happens overnight and it’s lots of little actions that lead to progress. Unfortunately this works the other way too, as we’re seeing playing out before our eyes right now.
@Eileen Kelly: Sorry Eileen for what you went through. Hope Karma has caught up with them.
@Eileen Kelly: You have captured it…..it was a norm, adult cruelty in the guise of education was standard and in Presentation College Bray primary school to be slapped three and four times a day was standard…And not for being bold but unable to spell a word correctly or parrot like a prayer correctly……ah, but the Irish and Brother Rayfield that was the worst….even Loyola had to protect us from him……the memories of fear and what suffering you witnessed you never forget…..
It wasn’t just religious orders that were guilty…in the 80s I had a primary school principal who took particular delight in hitting us small kids with a thick leather strap on both sides on our hands.
@Sean: my mother marched up to my brothers school one day to confront my brothers teacher when my brother came home with a red hand and had been verbally abused in front of the class…not only the religious orders as you quite rightly pointed out
@Sean: no, but it mostly was.
@Dermot Blaine: because we were not 98% secular, Hindu or atheist or anything else. This is not excuse for the HUMAN bullies.
@thomas molloy: That’s the most blatant and feeble attempt at deflection. The facts are that up until the early 90s 98% of schools were run by religious orders. Therefore it was the religious orders that committed the abuse. You can’t deny that. If you do then you are insulting all those that were abused.
@thomas molloy: Oh come on Thomas. You can’t separate the religious aspect and the power it wielded over the state and people’s minds. It was a very simple answer for anyone who stood up to them. ‘Punishing children physically is in the bible’. When people are terrified of going to hell and believe an all seeing entity is watching their every move, it’s easy to get them to fall into line and accept the most atrocious behaviour. Point to the ‘holy book’, pick your lines and away you go.
Thankfully we’ve mostly broken the shackles in this country. Not enough for my liking but it’s much better than it was. Meanwhile, the same playbook is used all around the world. From the Evangelicals in the US to the Taliban. Religion is such a handy way of enforcing and promoting the worst human ideas and behaviours.
@Sean: Same, I was regularly assaulted by the principal and teachers in primary school.
One bullied and abused so badly that my mother came to the school and clattered him, said he’d nit hit me again for no reason.
@Pat Corr: All I am saying is the same extreme hurtful behaviour was happening in non catholic societies and countries. “The Victorian teacher would use a cane to punish naughty children. The cane was given on the hand or the bottom, or sometimes given across the back of the legs. In public schools even prefects would carry and use a cane. All sorts of things might be punished: being rude, answering back, speaking out of turn, poor work, in fact anything that displeased the teacher. Children who had been caned usually kept quiet about it because if their parents found out they would probably be punished again. In Scotland a leather strap called a tawse was used in place of the cane.”
The nuns were ever bit as bad we were hammered in school, the evil in their eyes and faces haunt me especially whenever I see a nun in dark clothing
I had to switch to another channel was too difficult to watch those poor children .and to see a grown man still so badly affected he was.so emotional he could hardly speak. The man who took his son out of the school did he ever get a reply after his complaint
If you couldn’t rattle off say 9 times tables you got “socked”.
Went through school in rural Ireland in the sixties. I suppose in hindsight compared to many other places we were “ lucky “ to “ only “ be beaten on the hand by a twelve inch timber ruler.
What I find strange is that so few of those badly abused by teachers of any hue never went back as adults and had their revenge on the perpetrators of this horrific cruelty.
Perhaps they were too badly traumatised to do so.
I know that even to this day if I met the teacher who beat us as children ( he’s probably dead now) I would have to be restrained from grabbing him by the neck.
On a more happy note it’s fantastic to see the changes that have happened over the intervening years and we can only smile to watch our grandchildren happily dancing into school without a worry in the world.
Give them compensation now!
@Buster Lawless: Take your idiotic and childish trolling elsewhere. This is a very serious subject, and many Journal readers and commenters would have direct experience of this abuse. Cue the pile on from your many accounts
@Kevin Kerr: you better back off king troll. I was beaten with brooms, were you?
@Buster Lawless: why do you crack jimmy saville jokes then?
@Alan: you are one lying troll bag. Show some respect
In my lay primary school, the most vicious teacher was also the most pious and religious. To this day, I get anxious and flustered if asked to do mental arithmetic.
This idiot thought he could beat knowledge into kids. It did the opposite for me!
@Soundy Sound: I went to a lay primary school, but it was still run by the parish priest, who personally chose and appointed all the teachers, who were actually mostly from his home parish in Kerry. I was lucky though, I had the same teacher for 6 years and he was brilliant. But even he used corporal punishment occasionally. A few times over the years, the headmaster would come in and test us on Irish, spelling or sums. If you got the answer wrong you got the cane across the fingers. This was AFTER that same headmaster had been reported for excessive beating of a student.
@Dermot Blaine: Your first 6 lines still describe most primary schools in the country.
There is a book, Founded on Fear by Peter Tyndal. As a very young child Peter was removed from his family, basically because he was poor. On arrival at Letterfrack, on day 1, his new clothes were taken and he was physically assaukted. The abuse continued for years, by the Christian Brothers. He spent his childhood in a continuous state of terror, being beaten or watching others being beaten. Later in life he was taken as a POW by the Germans, he said it was better than Letterfrack in the pow camp.
He tried for years, in many ways, to raise awareness and was in regular contact by Senator Sheehy-Skeffington, (who advocated against corporal punishment) The senator asked Peter to write everything down, which he did in a number of letters to the senator. These letters became the basis of the book. Frustrated by the lack of progress on the issue, and obviously still traumatised by his treatment at the hands (and feet) of the brothers, he set himself alight on Hampstead Heath, he wasn’t identified for months but eventually was, when the charred remnants postcard address to Senator Sheehy Skeffington, found with Peter was deciphered.
@Dermot Blaine: This is absolutely harrowing and so tragic. I’m lost for words. What can you say, or how do you even get your head around this kind of behaviour…
@SerotoninWars: the book is worth reading, tho’ it is harrowing, like you say and ultimately tragic. I don’t know if it’s still in print. You might find it in the library. Peter Tyrrell went on to live a remarkable life, but the trauma of his childhood continued to haunt him. His voice comes thro the book loud and clear. Pity nobody listened to him. Founded on Fear, by Peter Tyrrell, edited by Dermot Whelan, published by Irish Academic Press. 2006.
@Dermot Blaine: Thanks Dermot. I’ll try and track it down.
There are a lot of comments about it being lay teachers too and that’s fair enough. But you still have to think about the environment and culture that made this seem acceptable. That points back to the deeply oppressive religion that had its tentacles around every aspect of society. It’s very easy to justify all sorts of horrible behaviour when it’s accepted that one magical book is the source of all wisdom and is unerringly true. It’s not hard to pick out lines in the bible or any ‘holy book’ that justify the worst kind of behaviour and attitudes. Freeing a large part of the country from colonial rule and then handing over that same level of power to the church, is one of the most tragic and infuriating aspects of Irish history.
These people deserved exactly zero control and power to be handed over to them and their ignorance. Nobodies and bullies with an old book as their excuse. They should have been told to indulge their fantasies in their own time, not handed the keys to the state.
I experienced a lot of this – it was cultural, “normal” in society from lay teacher to brother to priest. Parents weren’t told half of what happened because it was so normal, horrible way to teach. The best teachers i ever had never lifted a finger to us.
@Ben dover: and our parents had probably been subject to the same treatment themselves. Its absolutely no excuse but the teachers would probably have been battered themselves. Ironic if that was the case. Surely they would have known themselves just how cruel, wrong and counterproductive it all was.
@Alan: my aunt was dyslexic and went to school probably late 1930s, thro the 40s. She was beaten every single day at school.
The nuns were as bad…
They took some sick pleasure out of b8′n kids.
Their must be more than the school principal involved in this what about minister for justice and minister for education of the .Time
@John Boyle: they publically denied it was happening even after British newspapers and American TV channels exposed the truth. Just like the church child abuse scandals in Ireland were first exposed on Channel 4. There was an omerta in this country around the goings on of the Church, with state collusion.
All these stories are shocking and your heart would go out to all the victims however if you value your mental health then avoid watching RTE as they seem to have a fixation on making programs and documentaries like this about sexual or physical abuse or about families who have suffered some sort of serious tragedy or persons who are terminally ill
Watching RTE should always be preceded by a mental health warning and helpline numbers to cope with the trauma of watching RTE
@Chaotic State: so, let’s bury our history?
@Chaotic State: were you a teacher?
@Chaotic State: that has to rate as the most ignorant comment i have ever read.
@Ben dover: He’s right tho They thrive on the miz
There were no creches or playschools before we started school at age 4 in the 1950′s, we were all slapped on the hands from about age 5 with heavy, 18″ long wooden slats, manufactured for that purpose. I would say very few children escaped beatings of one type or another. I’m sure everyone remembers this.
It was widespread I went to the North Mon in Cork for the entire 70s primary we had sadists as teachers, both lay and religious, my best friend sat next to me , he had a stutter when asked a question especially by one sadist the stutter would get worse, as did the beating I tried to stop it one day and I got the same 2 cracked ribs. We had lads in class who were probably dyslexic or had other learning issues who had dusters and other objects thrown at them everyday and berated. I often wonder what became of them.
Got into post primary there same stuff , I wanted to stay due to the fact I could hurl a bit eventually moved, less physical stuff , but more emotional stuff especially a geography teacher who kept telling us we had no future this was early 80s.
Plenty of teachers were just as bad. nuns were equally as vile and abusive.
still have the scars to prove it.
@Colette Byrne: secular school. Routine caning. Worst was a crack across the back of the head when a particular teacher would move from the back to the front of the class. You couldn’t see it coming. We accepted all of this as normal.
I was in primary school in the 80′s. For me, it was female lay teachers. There was no escape. At 6yrs of age, you couldn’t even try to get out of those wooden bench/desks. It was everyday but one beating in particular will never leave me. It was in 1st class, and I was a tiny 6yr old.
It involved holding my ponytail and whacking my head/face off the desk. It was horrendous.
She was a red roaring alcoholic and I was as quite as a mouse, an easy target for her daily hangover.
Fast forward to 5th and 6th class, it was daily thumpings with an engagement ring into my shoulder blade.
It was constant but not as malicious.
All these years later (35yrs on) I have to get regular injections into that same shoulder blade. I’m convinced it’s because of that stupid ring.
Caine……WAVIN PIPE was the weapon of choice in St Jarlaths tuam by both collared and the Lay enforcers.
Ok, maybe harrowing but can not be allowed to take over from the alleged Sexual abuse evidenced in the scoping report. Worst of all being in our schools for the Intellectually Disabled where there Must be accountability
@RIP: Investigating that stuff has been going on for over 20 years and I knew a detective who was involved, he’d never say what went on but he would say the amount of information that wasn’t given by various schools was huge, and it took forever to get it legally. Some schools, including my post primary, used excuses like the person is dead and they wouldn’t cooperate .
@RIP: Does it have to be a contest? I think we are capable of looking at both situations with horror, anger and empathy. When you have abuse this severe, it leaves lifelong trauma, whatever form it takes. I understand it’s natural to rank things in the human mind but there’s a line that gets crossed where this kind of approach is unhelpful. Being brutalised in any manner is devastating and every single victim deserves the same amount of consideration and empathy.
I suffered quite bad violence against against myself from a number of teachers although I did suffer as bad as other lads. My biggest issue was the violence at home at the time. It was like living in an alternative universe. Violence in school followed by violence at home. I was diagnosed a number of years ago with ptsd as a child and about 5 months ago with adult adhd. I’m guessing this might be scar tissue from those times.
@Mic JHintl: did not suffer*
As a five year old I was dragged from my desk by a nun who scraped my arm and it bled. My father who was eating his dinner when I came home and saw what happened dropped his knife and fork went straight to the convent to complain and was told by the mother superior that the nun was having her dinner and couldn’t be disturbed!! She ignored me for the rest of the year.
Having been caned many times in primary school I moved on to secondary school where a teacher still was going to use the cane on me, at this time I was a bigger lad and was not for taking this anymore so I stepped up to him and indicated that if he swung the cane I would throw him out the window, that ended the cane use where I was concerned. Just as well as the classroom was on the second floor.
In general good teachers could teach and control a class without corporal punishment. There was definitely excessive use of corporal punishment however there were some good teachers. There was a head brother came to the secondary school I attended, about 1954, and he banned corporal punishment. He previously taught in “ Joey’s “ Fairview.
I went to primary school in 50′s and secondary boarding school in 60′s.
But for all that, when I see another ‘disclosure’ from the past my reaction is, here comes another hypocrite, looking to make a reputation. Corporal punishment in 50′s and 60′s was the same as it was in 1900 and every year afterwards. I heard that from my grandfather and father.
GIrls got a lot less. It seemed that boys needed it to ensure that they did’nt turn into blackguards etc.
@Antony Stack: The concept Tough Love is controversial.
@Antony Stack: Sorry for the brutality you witnessed and experienced.
‘But for all that, when I see another ‘disclosure’ from the past my reaction is, here comes another hypocrite, looking to make a reputation’
Honest question, why is this your reaction? How are they being hypocritical? Is it possible that people are just being honest and sharing their experiences for the greater good? This is one of the ways things change. People speaking up and sharing their experiences. What I saw last night wasn’t people looking for attention or to make a name for themselves. It was people who were deeply traumatised speaking truth to power. It takes a lot of guts to open up and leave yourself in such a vulnerable position in front of a large audience. As oft-stated – If we don’t learn from our mistakes, we just repeat them.
@SerotoninWars:
The times have already changed. What’s the point in in it now?
Every aspect of life was harder back then. I think it was fear that drove the punishment of children . The famine and the world wars were live memories. Large families were destined for hard lives. A tough childhood forced you to do better or prepared you for the worse.
@Antony Stack: It’s not that long ago, Antony. The change in people feeling free to speak up and out, to the extent we see now, is recent, too. Many are still fearful, and there is a major hangover when it comes to expressing ourselves on an emotional level in this country. Me included. There are a lot of people who have taken a long time to even begin to process what happened to them. Feeling free to speak up about it, without shame, even more so. It’s completely right that we address our past honestly. It gives a voice to people who were badly let down, and also teaches us valuable lessons we can take into the present.
While I appreciate that times were different, I don’t think we should let sadists and institutional power off the hook that easily.
Wasn’t it lovely that simple Simon came up with 1 big word. My trauma was never going to be his was it. Parasite
I often wonder where Skinny Brennan and Brendan Mullally are now. A pair of criminal abusing thugs who beat small kids to a pulp with sticks and cables and fists. They stopped beating me when my dear gentle mum arrived at the school and told them if they ever assaulted me again, my older brothers and their friends, all bikers, had promised that they would be waiting for them at the gates. Cowards. But there were some fantastic teachers and Brothers in that De La Salle school in Ballyfermot. Brother Abe and Br Jack Colman. Decent good men.
I’d say the country would go bankrupt if compensation was ever paid to those who were abused given what is coming to light now. A day didn’t go by in my class that someone didn’t get physically abused.
have your say