THE COMMISSION commended the Rosminian Institute of Charity, which ran industrial schools at Upton and Ferryhouse, for its attitude to the investigation committee. “They sought to understand abuse, in contrast to other congregations who sought to explain it,” the report stated. “They accepted that abuse had occurred in their institutions, that the institutions in themselves were abusive and that the order itself must bear responsibility for what occurred.”
St Patrick’s Industrial School
Upton, Co Cork
Opened: 1889
Status: Closed 1966
Management: Rosminians
SOME 3,000 boys were admitted to St Patrick’s Industrial School up to it closure in 1966. Its population fluctuated during the period studied by the commission, from a peak of 217 in 1943 to 83 in 1966.
Sexual abuse was a “chronic problem” at Upton.
For more than half the period studied, there was at least one abuser working there and, for periods in the 1950s, there were at least three abusers.
But while the succession of cases that confronted the authorities “must have alerted them to the scale of the problem” and to the need for a thorough investigation, this did not happen.
“Instead, each case was dealt with individually, as if no other case had occurred.”
The order did not expel members for sexual abuse and, although aware of the criminal nature of the conduct, did not report it as a crime. Instead, abusers were transferred to other institutions.
The report notes the “secretive way” in which abusers could be removed to other institutions, and the “vague and coded language” in which sexual abuse was discussed.
One Brother with a history of sexual abuse was transferred to a school for blind children, a decision the commission found “reckless and inexplicable”.
“Sexual abuse was dealt with in a manner that put the interests of the order, the institution and even the abuser ahead of the protection of the child.”
The use of corporal punishment as a disciplinary measure for absconding, bed-wetting and other often minor infractions “produced an all-pervasive climate of fear”.
Among the documents provided to the commission were two “punishment books”, one of which contained evidence of the brutal regime at Upton.
The commission concluded that physical abuse was “widespread and systemic”, noting that “excessive punishment was an everyday occurrence”.
Evidence of sexual abuse emerged most strikingly through material that came to the commission’s attention following a search by the Rosminians of their archive, which disclosed 68 documents, dating from 1936 to 1968, dealing with seven sexual abusers who worked in Upton.
In contrast to the vague and generally positive reviews from Department of Education inspectors, the lord mayor of Cork, after a visit in January 1965, described conditions that “would not be tolerated in a workhouse of bygone days”. At times, food, clothing and accommodation fell below acceptable standards, “for which lack of resources was not an excuse”.
St Joseph’s Industrial School
Ferryhouse, Clonmel,
Co Tipperary
Opened: 1885
Status: Closed 1999
Management: Rosminians
SEXUAL ABUSE was a “chronic problem” at Ferryhouse industrial school. “Sexual abuse was systemic. When it was uncovered, it was not seen as a crime but as a moral lapse and weakness,” the report said. “The policy of furtively removing the abuser and keeping his offences secret led to a culture of institutional amnesia, in which neither boys nor staff could learn from the experience.”
Two religious members of the Rosminians and one layman were convicted of sexual abuse of boys in Ferryhouse, while another religious who served there was convicted of a crime committed elsewhere on a boy who had previously been resident in Ferryhouse.
The commission cited the case of a Brother arrested in 1996 and charged with buggery, indecent assault and assault occasioning actual bodily harm in respect of four people who had been in his care at Ferryhouse between 1975 and 1979. His case showed how easy it was for an abuser to gain access to the boys. His activities went undiscovered for four years, despite the fact that many boys were raped and a “much greater number” were fondled and groomed in his “selection process”.
“In Ferryhouse the system allowed individuals to gain absolute control over large groups of children so that they could do what they liked with little risk of detection,” the report stated.
When the Rosminian authorities initially discovered that some members of their order had been abusing children, their response was “wholly inadequate”. The order sought to cover it up by transferring the perpetrators, and the impact of the abuse on the boys was not a consideration.
The Department of Education “did not act responsibly” when an allegation of sexual abuse was made to it in 1980. Instead, it distanced itself from the allegations, “seeking to minimise the publicity and scandal which might arise”.
Young and inexperienced staff used fear and violence to assert authority, and corporal punishment was “pervasive, excessive, unpredictable and without regulation or supervision, and for these reasons became physically abusive”. The commission also noted that the boys were poorly fed and their health was put in danger by poor hygiene and overcrowding.
A senior member of the Rosminians told the committee: “It’s my belief that every child that was ever in this situation was abused in some way, emotionally, physically or whatever the case may be, and you would say that we were part of that because we didn’t stand up at the time and probably say so.”
“This statement goes further than simply to admit that abuse occurred,” the commission observed.
“It states that the kind of institutional life that was made available in Ferryhouse until the late 1970s was in itself abusive.”
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