Personal Stories/Opinions
Last Updated:
An Open Letter to Florence Horsman-Hogan - L.O.V.E.
Dear Ms. Horsman Hogan.
Thank you for writing.
It would of course be arrogance in the extreme for me to suggest that you should know anything about me but as you've told me something about yourself perhaps I might be allowed to tell you something about me.
I was a Luddite at one time, just like you claim to be now. Like you I am a parent - three children. Unlike you, I don't keep on trumpeting that fact every chance I get. Could it be the case that you are trying to prove something by repeating time and time again "I am a mother and a nurse"
Briefly then:
I am the author of a book which you obviously haven't read or perhaps even heard of entitled:
The God Squad it deals with the institutional abuse of children by religious orders and also deals with how the medical profession took part in what has been deemed to have been experimental brain surgery on me when I was just 9 years of age. My writing has sold over one million copies world wide and not one person has ever disputed a single line or word of what I've written or "said". On the contrary, it has received praise from your own profession and also from religious orders around the world. As you, for reasons best known to yourself, quote Nora wall - perhaps you will allow me to do the same. In a letter written to my (then) doctor she refers to me as
"a fine young lad but constantly kept talking of his father and how he found him hanging - it was his one and only topic of conversation" (I should add that every time I mentioned my father to the nuns, I was beaten and often starved). Sister Dominic Wall continues in the same letter...
"When he was 8 years old they noticed he was developing a limp". She continued, naming the doctor. "Doctor "X" said that his limp was the result of a childhood shock". She then goes on to quote a nun to whom she had spoken to about me. "Sister (the nun is named) believes that Pat did have a lot of un-necessary operations". As a nurse, and in particular a children's nurse, you will appreciate the value a child attaches to having a visitor while he/she is in hospital. Here is an irrefutable fact: Not once in the ten years I spent in various hospitals undergoing experimental brain surgery as well as surgery to both my legs, did ONE SINGLE NUN from St. Michael's Industrial School, Cappoquin, Co. Waterford, or the Mercy Order come to visit me. Indeed, to this day, I haven't heard a single word form the people in whose care I was put by the courts of the land. Many eminent doctors around the world believe that the experimental brain surgery I underwent is a major contributory factor to the severity of the disability I now have. Allow me to quote one prominent Irish doctor:
"I wonder how different things would have been for you if, as a four year old child, just one nun had put you sitting on her knee and said - Tell me about your Daddy"?
No doubt you will come up with a good reason for the way in which I was treated - a cliché like: "Those were hard times" or "That wouldn't happen today". Some people would say that I have the ultimate "scar", a chronic physical disability that requires me to use a wheelchair. Invisible "scars" don't move about in wheelchairs. Neither L.O.V.E. (Let Our Voices Emerge) or the B.F.M.S. (British False Memory Society) are in the slightest bit interested in that of course. Statements issued by L.O.V.E and the B.F.M.S, have alleged that people like me are "liars" - both organisations have also been all too willing to issue the most offensive comments regarding our parents and even to say that we are "genetically disposed" to becoming addicted to drugs and alcohol. You've also alleged that we who have had our childhoods defiled and ripped away from us are likely to end with depressive illnesses. I presume it is your qualification as a nurse that leads you to believe these things.
I'm not suggesting that any of the 80 people you refer to in your organisation - L.O.V.E. - are telling lies. What I would love to know is this: Why are you and your "friends" in the B.F.M.S so adamant that ALL of the people you claim to represent are actually telling the truth when they say they have never abused a person, physically, sexually, psychologically or emotionally?
Let me finish with further quote from a letter signed by Sister Dominic Wall - Nora Wall:
"Really, there is great credit due to Pat in the efforts he has made to overcome so much ....life seems to be so unfair to so many who deserve what we would term a better deal from human nature". I respectfully suggest that L.O.V.E. bear this in mind when making reference to ALL people who were abused while in the care of religious orders.
You say you are a Luddite when it comes to computers!. Funny how it didn't prevent you asking me to put your praise of Patsy McGarry on my site. As someone who claims not to be able to use a computer I presume you are more than able to find your way around your own organisations website - or is it the case that Luddites are selective in what they read and selective in the interpretation of that reading.
Please don't patronise me with comments such as "And the truth matters Paddy, the full truth, yours and theirs" I presume the L.O.V.E. have the words dignity and respect, in their vocabulary.
Yours sincerely,
Paddy Doyle
