On 11th May 1999, an Taoiseach Bertie Ahern issued a statement publicly acknowledging the systemic and endemic abuse and negligence of children which took place within industrial schools and other residential schools. Whilst the address was not recorded into the Dáil debate record, it appeared in all the major newspapers the next day. Ahern stated that a ‘long overdue apology’ was owed to the survivors of such abuse. The statement was broadly met with approval.[1] However, subsequent to this Bruce Arnold later characterised the statement as ‘a master-stroke’. Insofar as it completely deflected from a key element in the industrial school structure; that being ‘any wrongdoing on the part of the State’.[2] Arnold forthrightly argued:
The State was empowered to check and regulate. This was a legal requirement and a civic duty. It was not done.[3]
While Religious Orders evidently failed, and ultimately betrayed, their duty of care and responsibility entrusted to them. This cannot be permitted to offload culpability from the State itself. As shall be demonstrated, successive Irish governments failed to monitor and hold to account institutions under their authority.
Responsibility of the State towards Industrial School Structure
The Ryan Report (or the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Report) is unambiguous about the Department of Education’s ‘overall responsibility for the Reformatory and Industrial School System and for Marlborough House detention centre’.[4] Whilst day-to-day management was carried out by Religious Congregations and Orders, it was the Department of Education’s duty to oversee the overall system and provide finance. This oversight responsibility included ensuring that all ‘rules and regulations were observed’.[5] The legislative basis for the industrial schools was the 1908 Children Act, alongside several other pieces of truancy legislation. For most incarcerated children the schools were punitive, cruel and absent of any care. As Arnold says, if what was meted out can be considered care it must have been ‘a parody of the term.’[6] The State dependency on Religious Orders to run the schools, and in many instances actually purchase the land for the building of schools, led to a hesitancy to encroach into school management. As the Minister for Justice, Gerry Boland, wrote in 1947, the State had to rely on Religious Orders because:
Lay staff would simply refuse to live in such a place without schools, without picture houses, without shops, without even a public house.[7]
Following the establishment of the Free State, the 1920s saw a noticeable increase in reliance on industrial schools. As Ferriter highlights, by 1924 more children were dwelling in industrial schools in the Irish Free State than the total combined number of industrial school residents in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland.[8] Ferriter suggests that, in practice, the system provided an ‘abrogation of the state’s responsibility towards ‘problem’ children’.[9] Whilst industrial schools had fallen into disfavour throughout Europe, having been completely abolished in Britain by 1933, Irish politicians continued to cling onto this ‘outdated’ system.[10] Ferriter, attributes this phenomena to an obsessive concern that Ireland be seen as: ‘more chaste, pious and respectable than people elsewhere.’[11] The State was far from a bystander in the perpetuation and endorsement of the industrial school system. Organs of the State, and bodies compliant with the State’s law, had their fingerprints all over the industrial school system. This would have included ‘the courts, the police, the judiciary, organisations like the NSPCC, whose operations were regulate[d] by law’.[12] Both structurally and legislatively, the State clearly held final responsibility for the residential schools. Such responsibility would naturally extend to the standard of their operation.
Awareness of abuse in Industrial Schools
On 13 May 1999, two days after the Taoiseach’s statement of apology, the Minister for Education, Micheál Martin, stated that when the industrial schools where in operation Irish society was ignorant to the rights of children. He stated that: ‘The concept of the child as a separate individual with rights came late to this country.’ Arnold branded such a notion as ‘complete nonsense’.[13] The State, and Irish society as a whole, was well aware that the schools were desperate places for the children sent to them. As Maguire articulates:
Far from being ignorant of the vulnerability of children to sexual abuse in the first half of the twentieth century, lawmakers, jurists, and the public of the period were in general well aware of the problem.[14]
There are numerous reports, memos and statements which prove that there was definitely a general awareness of allegations of child abuse. Whether these allegations were accepted or not is a separate matter.
In 1931, the Carrigan Committee presented a report on “sexual immorality” in the Irish Free State.[15] Although, in general, it reported favourably towards the operation industrial schools, reserving most of its concern and attention to the supervision of girls leaving them, it nonetheless did note an ‘alarming amount’ of sexual abuse against children. The Report was swiftly supressed by the Government. The opinion of the Minister for Justice of that time, James Geoghan, was that he held ‘grave doubts as to the validity of evidence heard from children’.[16] The State was shown to be principally concerned about ‘“containing” sexual immorality after independence’.[17]
A voice that could not be so easily silenced was that of, the famous Irish-American, Monsignor Edward Flanagan, who had received world-wide renowned for his progressive ‘Boys Town’ in Omaha. On a trip to Ireland in 1946 he visited several industrial schools and spoke to the children living in them. He subsequently publicly branded the institutions ‘a disgrace to the nation’ and stated that their true nature was being covered up.[18] Once again, the State’s primary concern for international reputation was evident. Indeed, the Irish government only responded to Flanagan’s criticisms when he repeated the accusation ‘outside the country’.[19] Unsurprisingly, his claims were rubbished by government ministers and officials.
Another case study demonstrating acute State awareness, and reaction to, claims of abuse came during a Dáil debate in 1954. The Independent TD, Peadar Cowan, publicly raised concerns about a constituent’s son who was an inmate of Artane Industrial School. The boy was in a hospital ward following a beating by a Christian Brother. In response to Deputy Cowan’s question, the Minister for Education, Seán Moylan, replied:
I cannot conceive of any deliberate ill treatment of boys by a community motivated by the ideals of its founder. I cannot conceive of any sadism emanating from men who were trained to have devotion to a very high purpose. The point is that accidents happen in the best-regulated families and in this family there are about 800 boys.[20]
There was also a 1955 Department of Education memorandum which reported, in relation to St Conleth’s Industrial School in Daingean, that ‘cattle were being better looked after’.[21]
The impression given by such memorandums and Dáil debates might lead one to assume that perhaps it was the case that government ministers were simply too distant from the coalface to take the accusations seriously. However, it must be noted that ministers did routinely visit industrial schools. Indeed, in 1968, the Minister for Education, Brian Lenihan, visited Artane industrial school. At the end of his inspection, he is reported to have turned to his driver and barked ‘Get me out of this fucking place’.[22] As Ferriter says, this ‘said much about what a government and society wanted and did not want to see, acknowledge and act on’.[23]
As late as 1981 a review into child care provision, ‘the Task Force on Child Care services Final Report’, recorded an:
alarming complacency and indifference of both the general public and the various government departments and statutory bodies responsible for the welfare of children in care.[24]
As has been shown there was an awareness of the nature of these institutions. Whether people believed it or did not want to believe it is beside the point, it is undeniable that few could claim to be wholly ignorant of the reputations of and allegations against industrial schools.
Checks and Regulations
In order to ascertain culpability, it is necessary to assess what, if any, adequate checks and regulations were conducted by the State in order to fulfil its responsibility of care. There were three types of inspection of industrial schools: the educational inspection, the medial inspection and the general inspection.[25] There was a statutory requirement that each school be inspected annually.[26] However, in practice, the frequency of inspections varied from ‘school to school and from year to year’. For example, Baltimore industrial school received three inspection in 1947 alone, while Artane did not have any from 1950–1952.[27] In 1963, Turlough McDevitt, the Inspector of Industrial Schools, told an Inter-Departmental Committee on Crime Prevention that there were some schools he had never visited.[28] As Ferriter observes, ‘the paper trail would suggest a cursory inspection of the schools.’[29]
It was only really during Dr Anna McCabe’s appointment as Medical and General Inspector for Industrial Schools, from 1939 onwards, that detailed inspections began to be carried out. However, McCabe’s dedicated inspections waned as she grew older and the Department of Education increasingly became ‘unresponsive to her reports’.[30] Following her retirement in 1965, the post of Medical Inspector would remain vacant for 11 years.[31]
The 1936 Cussen Report represented the ‘first comprehensive assessment of the industrial school and reformatory system’. Although largely supportive of continuing the industrial schools, it nonetheless highlighted inadequate treatment of residents with disabilities.[32] Press coverage of Cussen was ‘slight’ and it received only six Dáil questions, spread out over several years, on its recommendations.[33] Curiously, every single shred of material and evidence gathered related to the Cussen Committee and its report in 1936 has vanished. So much so, that Raftery and O’Sullivan have suggested that based on Department of Education documentary evidence alone ‘one would not even be aware that such a statutory Committee had existed.’[34]
During the early 1960s, an attempt was made to establish regular visiting committees for residential schools, emulating Prison visiting committees. A memorandum by Inter-Departmental Committee on Crime Prevention curiously noted concerns that:
[committees] could very easily constitute a grave nuisance unless the personnel of the committees were chosen with the greatest care.[35]
The next major Report into the reformatory and industrial schools was the Kennedy Report of 1970. Established in 1967, by the Department of Education, the Kennedy Committee visited all 34 remaining institutions.[36] Raftery and O’Sullivan have called its final report and recommendations ‘one of the most damning indictments of the operation of any State system ever produced in this country.’[37] The report criticised the total inadequacy of inspection and branded the Department of Education totally ineffective.[38] Although, perhaps most significantly, the report was never debated in the Dáil. Indeed, it was not until November 1973, three years later, that it received a debate in the Seanad.[39] Once again, the Department of Education’s files on the Kennedy Committee appear to have ‘disappeared’.[40] Following the report there was an ‘extraordinary delay in introducing child protection legislation’ which had been recommended. This legislation was not passed until 1991 and not fully implemented until 1996.[41] The overall outcome of the Kennedy Report was that in its wake the industrial schools were incrementally closed and replaced with ‘family group homes’.[42] It can thus be concluded that there were numerous inspections and checks carried out. However, in every instance, the State dragged its feet when it came to implementing proposals and following up accusations. In many cases, it even went so far as to deliberately suppress the findings of reports it had commissioned.
A curious feature of the State’s duty to monitor industrial schools lies in the observation that one government department, the Department of Health, appears to have at least held these institutions to a better standard than the department with ultimate responsibility, the Department of Education. The Ryan Report highlights this ‘noteworthy’ difference in approach.[43] Raftery and O’Sullivan also cite it as ‘one of the most remarkable aspects’ of the State’s approach to child care.[44] The two departments most often clashed over the placing of children into care. The Department of Health sought to keep children with their families, and if this were not viable, it typically preferred foster care to the industrial schools.[45] While, the Department of Education firmly pushed the benefits of the industrial school system and, particularly during the 1940s, opposed even the tacit boarding-out of child inmates.[46] Department of Health industrial school inspections were also deemed to have been more vigorous. In 1940, the Department of Health reported that an industrial school in Ennis was ‘overcrowded’; its water supply ‘unsatisfactory’; its sanitation ‘inadequate’ and bathing facilities ‘inadequate’. Consequently, the Department refused to certify it as acceptable for local authority children. During this same period, the Department of Education had the same school registered as a fully-fit industrial school and continued to house 100 children in it.[47] In 1951, the Department of Health reported overcrowding in St Dominick’s Industrial School in Waterford. Despite Department of Education requests to take ‘favourable consideration’, Health ‘refused to budge on this issue’.[48] It would therefore appear that not all Departments subscribed to the same culture of subservience towards the management of these institutions. However, although it primarily lay within the remit of Education’s portfolio, Department of Health officials should have taken greater steps to publicly highlight the inadequacy, and deliberate mismanagement, of the industrial schools. Unfortunately, even with these positive examples of due diligence from the Department of Health, the institutions were still able to continue to operate for decades.
Legacy
The Ryan Report made several recommendations and observations regarding the prevention of any repetition of the failure of inspection and regulation of Industrial Schools. The Department of Education received specific attention and criticism. Most notably for its ‘deferential and submissive attitude to religious congregations and its failure to carry out meaningful inspections’.[49] Ryan was clear in stating that ‘primary responsibility for child protection must rest with the State’ and that no outside organisations, such as the Church, could be considered ‘equal partners with the state institutions’.[50] The Department of Education was found to be ineffective in its oversight role. Inspectors were not supported by ‘a regulatory authority with the power to insist on changes being made.’ Nor was there any established ‘uniform, objective standards of care […] on which the inspections could be based.’ There was a lack of independence of Inspectors from the Department and the statutory obligation to inspect more than 50 industrial schools was deemed too high for one individual. When Inspections did take place they were announced beforehand.[51] Thereby affording abusive members of staff advanced notice. Survivor testimony tells of how abusers set about:
concealing the children’s bruises […] They also deliberately gave the children nice food and created the false impression of adequate care.[52]
No consideration was given for Inspectors to assess the emotional, as well as physical, needs of children and Inspectors rarely spoke directly to the children.[53]
The Ryan Report recommendations also made the important point that having codified rules alone would not be enough. As was demonstrated, even where there were rules and inspections throughout the period, the problem was often that ‘superiors did not enforce the rules or impose any disciplinary measures for breaches’.[54] Therefore Ryan further recommended that:
‘A culture of respecting and implementing rules and regulations and of observing codes of conduct should be developed.[55]
The fact remains that, at any time, the Department of Education could have exercised its ‘ample legal powers over the schools in the interests of the children’.[56] The Ryan commission also stated that the ‘Children First: The National Guidelines for the Protection and Welfare of Children’ should be ingrained throughout State bodies in relation to allegations of child abuse.[57] The first key principle of which is that: ‘The welfare of children is of paramount importance’, tragically for too many such sentiment was absent from the Irish State for the duration of this period of neglect and abuse.[58]
Conclusion
The supposed ‘transfer of guilt’ away from the State and solely onto the Religious Orders cannot be accepted or tolerated.[59] Both Church and State must be compelled to face up to their failings, mishandlings, and outright exploitation in relation to residential schools. Ferriter concludes that there was a ‘deliberate abdication of state responsibility’.[60] This is indeed accurate. It could not be considered anything but deliberate. As has been explored, at each available turn the State either buried inconvenient truths or refused to take necessary action. Ferguson is probably most damning, suggesting that ‘it is indisputable that the State was guilty of criminal negligence’.[61] This is also a conclusion that is hard to refute. The State was not kept in the dark by Religious Orders. It had both the knowledge and crucially the legal ability to step in and prevent the horrific crimes that were taking place. It is shameful that the self-governing Irish State, which emerged from the idealist notions of a national liberation struggle, focussed so forcefully on maintaining a façade of model Catholic sexual morality to the cost of the most vulnerable of its citizens. Children deliberately left to endure horrendous levels of abuse and suffering. Ultimately, the State failed in its legal requirement to adequately and fully inspect the industrial schools. Perhaps because it was already fully aware of what such diligence would reveal to the world.
Bibliography:
Journals
Ferguson, H. (2007) ‘Abused and Looked After Children as ‘Moral Dirt’: Child Abuse and Institutional Care in Historical Perspective’ Journal of Social Policy Vol. 36, №1, pp. 123–139
Maguire, M. J. (2007) ‘The Carrigan Committee and Child Sex Abuse in Twentieth-century Ireland’ New Hibernia Review, Volume 11, Number 2, Samhradh/Summer 2007, pp. 79–100
Kennedy, F. (2000) ‘The Suppression of the Carrigan Report: A Historical Perspective on Child Abuse’ Studies: An Irish Quarterly Review, Vol. 89, №356 (Winter, 2000), pp. 354–363
Books
Arnold, B. (2009) ‘The Irish Gulag: How the State Betrayed its Innocent Children’ Dublin. Gill & Macmillan
Brennan, C. (2008) ‘Facing what cannot be changed; the Irish experience of confronting Institutional child abuse. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law. Vol. 29, №3–4, pp. 245–263
Ferriter, D. (2005) ‘The Transformation of Ireland: 1900–2000’ London. Profile Books
Ferriter, D. (2009) ‘Occasions of Sin: Sex and Society in Modern Ireland’ London. Profile Books
Raftery, M. & O’Sullivan, E. (1999) ‘Suffer the Little Children’ Dublin: New Island Books
Online Sources
Children First: National Guidance for the Protection and Welfare of Children (2011) Dublin, Minister for Children and Youth Affairs. [Copy available at: http://www.dcya.gov.ie/documents/Publications/ChildrenFirst.pdf]
Murphy, Y. (2009) Commission of Investigation Report into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin. Part 1: Sections 1.1–1.113. Dublin. Department of Justice. [Copy available at: http://www.justice.ie/en/JELR/DACOI%20Part%201.pdf/Files/DACOI%20Part%201.pdf]
Ryan, S. (2009) Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Report Vol. 4. Dublin: The Commission To Inquire Into Child Abuse. [Copy available at: http://www.childabusecommission.com/rpt/]
Dáil Debates. Houses of the Oireachtas, Leinster House, Dublin. [Available at: http://debates.oireachtas.ie/dail/]
[1] Brennan, C. (2008) ‘Facing what cannot be changed; the Irish experience of confronting Institutional child abuse. Journal of Social Welfare and Family Law. Vol. 29, №3–4, pp. 245–263 — pp. 245–246
[2] Arnold, B. (2009) ‘The Irish Gulag: How the State Betrayed its Innocent Children’ Dublin. Gill & Macmillan p. 16
[3] Ibid p. 27
[4] Ryan, S. (2009) Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Report Vol. 4. Dublin: The Commission To Inquire Into Child Abuse., Vol. IV, 1.01
[5] Ibid.
[6] Arnold. (2009) p. 3
[7] Raftery, M. & O’Sullivan, E. (1999) ‘Suffer the Little Children’ Dublin: New Island Books p. 338
[8] Ferriter. (2005) p. 324
[9] Ibid. p. 511
[10] Ibid. 512
[11] Ferriter. (2009) p. 333
[12] Arnold. (2009) p. 81
[13] Ibid. p. 16
[14] Maguire, M. J. (2007) ‘The Carrigan Committee and Child Sex Abuse in Twentieth-century Ireland’ New Hibernia Review [Volume 11, Number 2, Samhradh/Summer 2007, pp. 79–100.] p. 80
[15] Ibid.
[16] Ferriter. (2005) p. 325
[17] Maguire. (2007) p. 80
[18] Raftery & O’Sullivan. (1999) p. 190 & Ferriter. (2005) p. 513
[19] Raftery & O’Sullivan. (1999) p.190
[20] Dáil debates, Vol. 145, №7, 23 April 1954
[21] Ferriter. (2009) p. 327
[22] Raftery & O’Sullivan. (1999) p. 380
[23] Ferriter. (2005) p. 6
[24] Ferguson, H. (2007) ‘Abused and Looked After Children as ‘Moral Dirt’: Child Abuse and Institutional Care in Historical Perspective’ Journal of Social Policy [Vol. 36, №1, pp. 123–139.] p. 137
[25] Ryan, 2009, Vol. IV, 1.111
[26] Raftery & O’Sullivan. (1999) p. 343
[27] Ryan, 2009, Vol. IV, 1.121–1.122
[28] Raftery & O’Sullivan. (1999) p. 343
[29] Ferriter. (2009) p. 327
[30] Brennan. (2008) p. 248
[31] Ryan, 2009, Vol. IV, 1.112
[32] Brennan. (2008) pp. 247–248
[33] Ryan, 2009, Vol. IV, 1.44
[34] Raftery & O’Sullivan. (1999) p. 332
[35] Ibid. p. 341
[36] Brennan. (2008) p. 248
[37] Raftery & O’Sullivan. (1999) p. 378
[38] Ryan, 2009, Vol. IV, 1.137
[39] Raftery & O’Sullivan. (1999) pp. 379–380
[40] Ibid. p. 332
[41] Murphy, Y. (2009) Commission of Investigation Report into the Catholic Archdiocese of Dublin. Part 1: Sections 1.1–1.113. Dublin. Department of Justice. p. 25, 1.99
[42] Ferguson. (2007) p. 137
[43] Ryan, 2009, Vol. IV, 1.31
[44] Raftery & O’Sullivan. (1999) p. 335
[45] Ferriter. (2005) p. 392
[46] Raftery & O’Sullivan. (1999) p. 335
[47] Ibid.
[48] Ibid.
[49] Ferriter. (2009) p. 333
[50] Ryan, 2009, Vol. IV, 1.100
[51] Ryan, 2009, Vol. IV, 6.06
[52] Ferguson. (2007) p. 128
[53] Ryan, 2009, Vol. IV, 6.06
[54] Ryan, 2009, Vol. IV, 7.10
[55] Ryan, 2009, Vol. IV, 7.11
[56] Ryan, 2009, Vol. IV, 1.230
[57] Ryan, 2009, Vol. IV, 7.21
[58] Children First, 2011, 1.1.1, p. 4
[59] Arnold. (2009) p. 180
[60] Ferriter. (2009) p. 333
[61] Ferguson. (2007) p. 127
