Personal Stories/Opinions
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The year 2004. Letterfrack, a thriving village in the heart of Connemara on the west coast of Ireland. Rugged and picturesque in its beauty. Nature was generous in the quality and quantity of the lakes and fells it bestowed on this piece of Ireland. Its natural beauty and vitality drawing thousands of Irish Emigrants back to a quality of life most people only dream about.
To all intents and purposes unemployment in this region is at an all time low. Abodes reminiscent of those now vacated in the adopted countries of the emigrants spring up one after the other, a hacienda here, a ranch style house there, whilst others reinvigorate the dream carried in the head of the returnee emigrant and build cottages of some illusioned memory. School's in abundance now or so I'm told. Parents content in the knowledge their family is in each case a secure unit. Religious persuasion protected by laws not only of the Irish Republic but also of the European Union.
Enactment of the Constitution a foregone conclusion with all the promises scripted within guaranteed. The knowledge that when one awakens each morning, theirs is a view most people in the Metropolis can only imagine and yearn for. Aye tis said: should one consider visiting the moon then Connemara is the place to go to. Yes: to the uninitiated, Connemara and that little village of Letterfrack might never have known a moment's sadness or cruelty. Unfortunately this is not the case.
Let us turn the clock back a little. Allow me to take you on a journey back through the years, to the Province of Connaught. The year 1940 to 60s come to mind. Letterfrack you see has gone down in history for another reason. One which fills every heart with sorrow and many with shame on hearing the sordid tale of brutality and bestiality practised within the confines of the now infamous Letterfrack Reformatory School.
Cromwell coined the phrase "To Hell or to Connaught". This of course begs the question. Had he some intuitive insight into the future? Did he realise even then, the horrendous future which was to be visited on children of poor families once Ireland became a republic?
Letterfrack Reformatory School was a penal colony at the heart of a Government/Religious pact. Letterfrack in this era was a desolate, barren, remote, fear instilling catalyst reminiscent of the Russian Gulags. In time it would yield up secrets that would equate with atrocities recorded in some of the most brutal regimes throughout the world.
Letterfrack Reformatory was an institution in which even the most minute breaches of the rules merited unacceptable brutality. Letterfrack - a word many parents had only to whisper, to bring a disobedient child to order. A word used to compel children to conform to rules and regulations which even the most hardened prisoner or soldier of today would not accept.
Yes: Mr Rory Connor, Letterfrack was a word which conjured fear in the minds of very young children and was used every day in one of the institutions in which I was detained for six years,
Who managed this barbaric institution I hear you ask? The Christian Brothers did. This cult had an agreement with the Irish Judicial System for a continuous supply of children in order to ensure profitability for the religious. The break-up of families protected by Article 43 of the Constitution meant nothing to the Government or Religious then. Only the Catholic Church was of consequence in those times.
What type of individual could possibly merit being sent here? Indeed what type of crime merited sentence to an institution based on Hell?
Detention sentences, passed not on hardened criminals as you might imagine, but on very young children many of who had "committed crimes" of no significance - they wouldn't even be classified as misdemeanours. Children sentenced to detention in the most depraved penal system within the whole of the then free world. Out of sight, Out of mind and nobody cared.
What on earth would the men who read the Irish Proclamation
Read the Proclaimation of Independence on the steps of the General Post Office (G.P.O.) in Dublin - 1916 - have done if they had foreseen that 16 years later children of this State would be sentenced to be detained by a judicial system which even today refuses to acknowledge the convictions issued, to the vilest places ever devised.
Who dictated discipline within this institution? "The Christian Brothers" Who was responsible for the safety and welfare of the children? The answer my friend. "The Irish Government". The 1908 Act specifies, only the manager or his deputy were responsible for administering punishment. What section of this Act, allows for a child to be stripped naked prior to receiving a beating? Which section of this Act, allows those in charge to defile any of the children in their charge? I can't find it.
What actually happened within this institution? Each and every individual in charge who could wield an instrument to inflict pain or injury on the children did so. No particular thought was given to the sort of implement used. Whatever came to hand would do to inflict pain.
Recently in a written article penned to this site. Mr Rory Connor outlined the above assertions as being grossly untrue and he even cast aspersions on evidence related by Mannix Flynn. I don't know Mr. Flynn but I know who I believe - Mannix Flynn spent time in Letterfrack Reformatory as outlined in his book
"Nothing to Say"
Conversations with a number of past detainee's of this institution justify everything Mr. Mannix Flynn has said. Indeed, if the whole truth be told, it is likely that he deliberately refrained from revealing the complete picture in order to protect minds, body's and souls that could and would be easily hurt - even tortured.
Your recent Autobiography Mr. Connor, also on this site indicates an upbringing and youth of a different nature. Many of the survivors of the Irish Institutional Industrial and Reformatory School system would in later life have given everything they own to have had your opportunities, but because of the lack of a proper education, and in many cases mental health problems brought about as a result of the sexual, physical, mental, emotional and spiritual abuses inflicted upon them as children found that to attain any quality of life was going to be difficult, if not impossible.
Ronald Mc Cartan
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Justice is never given freely. It has to be fought for.
