The Irish Times – Tuesday, November 17, 2009
ALISON HEALY
THE IRISH Government should follow the example of the Australian prime minister by singling out the forgotten Irish victims of abuse and giving them an apology, the Templemore Forgotten Victims group said yesterday.
Dr Rosaleen Rogers, chairwoman of the support group, said the Ryan report had focused on children in residential institutions but did not consider the fate of those who were detained in psychiatric institutions, Magdalene laundries or had been sent abroad.
She said these children were truly the forgotten victims and deserved an apology from the Government.
Dr Rogers, originally from Co Tipperary, was detained in a psychiatric institution when she was 16 and sent to Britain three years later. She set up the support group to help others in a similar situation.
“There are probably thousands like me,” she said. “I’m speaking for not only those who are alive.”
She said many cases were never heard about because people died on the streets abroad or spent their lives in psychiatric institutions.
Christine Buckley of the Aislinn support group said it was difficult to put a figure on the number of Irish children sent to care institutions or for adoption to countries such as Britain, the US, Canada and Australia. “But after the news in Australia, our phone will probably start ringing with people wanting to tell their stories,” she said.
The Department of Education said it had no information on the number of Irish children sent abroad.
One in Four chief executive Maeve Lewis said it was also not clear how many of the thousands of children sent from Britain to Australia had Irish parents.
She welcomed Mr Rudd’s intervention and said such apologies “mean an awful lot to people who have experienced trauma”.
It was important that their pain was acknowledged in a public way, Ms Lewis added.
Former taoiseach Bertie Ahern and Taoiseach Brian Cowen have both apologised on behalf of the State for the abuse suffered by children in residential institutions.
FACT: Many children who were placed into Residential Institutes were never heard of again, they never came home. It was as if they had been spirited away, vanished from the face of the earth & this indeed is most odd as it states in the “KENNEDY REPORT” published in 1970 that 238 children absconded from these hell-holes over a period of 19 years & were never traced or found at all, this is in itself most strange as the majority of these Residential Institutes were so remote that it beggars belief how small children could escape, remain at large & ultimately never be discovered.
People have tried to obtain the exact amount of children that absconded from each individual Institute, but to no avail, no answers forthcoming – WHY?
Please read this quote from the Kennedy Report 1970 below to show why it is so strange that there are no records kept anywhere for these missing children.
KENNEDY REPORT 1970
Reformatory & Industrial Schools
Part of the Children’s Act 1908 – 1947 states:
“Any child that absconds & is still at large for six days, means a report must be made to the local Garda station, Education Department, School Inspectorate & a copy of this report must be kept by each of the above mentioned. The Institute where the child has absconded from must also keep a record”.
Below is a table of figures that account for the release of those discharged from Industrial Schools between 1949 – 1969.
Now my questions about this table are as follows:
* Immigration: Where are the individual figures for each Institute? Research has yet to come across one single person who fits into this category. Where are the records?
* Medical: Where are the individual figures for each Institute? We find this term “medical” unacceptable because it covers such a wide area. Why were they taken out exactly? Where were they taken to? Where are the records?
* Adopted: Where are the individual figures for each Institute? To our knowledge adoption in Ireland did not become a legal practice until 1952, yet many people have since come forward asking the question
“how did they get from an Institute in Ireland to live in far away country’s such as America, Australia etc?”
What was the procedure for moving children out of Ireland at that time? In the 1940’s Eamon de Valera stated that Irish children were not to become boat children sent to foreign countries, so again how was this practice still possible? Where are the records?
* Taken Out: Where are the individual figures for each Institute? Where were the children taken to? Where are the records?
* Fostered: Where are the individual figures for each Institute? Where are the records?
* Etc: But the most bizarre comes under the heading of Etc. Can you imagine children coming under the category of etc!?!
Some children became ill & died in the Institutes, many people want to know what happened, Why was it so many children never came home, why families & school friends are still to this day asking what happened to their loved ones?
Kathleen,
Since I stopped running from my past and began to confront it, I feel like many people must have felt like I now feel. It’s easy to see why so many found it better to end their lives.
In my case everything appears to have come at once late in life. Firstly my wife was suffering with Alzheimer’s when I learned from the TV news of the public apology by the then Irish PM.
In 2000 I learned of the Commission set up to Inquire into Child Abuse. My urge to attend the Inquiry was so strong, I asked our daughter to care for her Mother while traveled to Dublin for a night’s stay-over to attend the Commission.
By early 2003 I removed my wife from a Nursing Home because I could no longer watch see her suffer. In spite of being told in June of that year that she was about to die, I still refused to accept any ‘help’. I’ve always tried to keep control of my life, not trusting anyone. She regained physical health and I recorded her progress on DVD and photos plus I retain her medical records. My evidence shows that when one gives of their best the impossible becomes possible. Denied love and nurturing as a child, once I found it I was not about to let go.
I had the great privilege of caring for the love of my life for a further four and a half years!
During this time I had two major distractions. One; I decided to write about my early life; no easy matter when I lacked a basic education. I snatched moments while my wife slept. The book ‘Lonesome Stray’ was published four months before my wife died in December 2007.
The second distraction came in 2006 when I decided to have my case brought before the Redress Board from my home here in the UK. The whole episode proved stressful and upsetting with so many lies and denials. The whole business dragged on during the final days of my wife’s life and on after her death. I could fight no more and gave in.
Somehow I believe I’m getting better at writing and hope it shows in my recent book.
If only to prove what a ‘nobody’ can do I intend to write one other book. There is a wealth of information in my possession relating to my dealing with the Redress Board. In addition there is documentary evidence from research to reveal hidden lies of the Church State. Add to that, my personal experiences in St. Patrick’s and Artane from 1934 to 1947 should make a revealing story.
Kathleen, as you can see I was at Artane when Fr. Flanagan visited ‘School’. If he thought it bad; I can tell you it was ‘spruced’ up for his visit. All I recall of the visit, were the wonderful descriptions of ‘Boystown’ in the US. It sounded like haven, one could only dream.
Padraig
Padraig.
Good Luck with your Book.
How familiar yor story is. I am so sorry , in fact words fail me to say what I feel for your great loss.
I personally know two people who were denied their Fathers, being told by the Nuns that they wanted nothing to do with them. Like you on their death bed were asked to visit and in deep hurt and anger refused only to find out to late how different the situation really was.
In 1946 Father Flannery on route back to the U.S.A from Nuremberg stopped in Dublin having visited some of the Industrial Schools saying they were a disgrace. He also declared Artane should be condemmed structurally. The Government turned a deaf ear and howled him out of Parlament .
How many lives have been damaged by the Irish Government and Religious Orders. We were exposed to “DOMESTIC VIOLENCE” We should be very proud of ourselves to have survived what we did.
Kathleen O’Malley.
An apology is of little use to me. Having finished my book I decided to use the services that were set up to trace relatives. There are now times I wish I’d not started.
For people to understand how I was capable of caring for my wife 24/7 on my own for years on end, it was necessary to give a brief look into my background.
The information I’ve received so far is deeply disturbing. Just to take two examples. I’ve related in my book of receiving a phone call from the one sister I’d gotten to know. It was around 1970. She informed me that our Father lay dying in hospital and he’d requested to see me. At the time I was newly posted to a unit and awaited my wife and family joining me. I answered her thus; “I’m sorry but I have a family to take care of. It would be a mockery for me to turn up for a man I never knew.” I was not bitter, just lacking emotion; he had been a stranger.
I’ve also wrote of the meeting I arranged at our home around 1987 with my two sisters for the first time since 1934.
Because neither of them were prepared to divulge even a clue as to why no one visited me during my ‘stay’ in two Institutions from age two, I stormed from the room in a rage.
Now I live with the fact that I added to their pain. More that that I’ve learned our Father fought to keep his children.
The family I’ve discovered lost two boys. There are birth certificates, but no death certificates!
As if a grieving Mother and Father had not suffered enough they were put through further pain by having their 7yr old daughter and only remaining son removed. It’s hardly surprising the marriage broke down.
It is easy for ‘them’ to say they were a poor family. The records show that the Father was a vehicle mechanic; that was in the 1920s!
They like to plunge the knife in with the following: “Your Mother was ‘a woman very degraded in her acts”. I can imagine laughter; who was degraded here? Where was the compassion? Some of the text is missing! The record goes on to reveal that the Mother ‘gave birth to a baby boy; father unknown’. Strange that there is no birth certificate.
I’m also told that none of my records are available at either of the schools! Seems they have details when it suits them. My number was 11,536.
If ever I feel I got a raw deal, I now realise it is as nothing to what these evil people visited on my Mother. The final straw must have been when she met me after my years of incarceration only for me to run from her.
I hurt so, for all the family that took what they considered their shame to the grave. It was not their, nor my shame but the Church State’s.
My story will be available in all major book store outlets in the next few weeks. It is available now on line; Authorhouse.com Dare to Dream, with my name in Irish: Padraig De Ris.
The Abuse and Torture of Children and Family life in Ireland, instigated by the Church was not down to a few bad apples. It was a culture and systematic through out Ireland. The arrogance within the Church will eventually be its downfall.
The Irish Government and Catholic Church should take a page out of the Australian Prime Ministers Book. A sincere apology has not been delivered by either of the above. There is none so BLIND as those who cannot and will not see.
Paddy, after 12yrs in that prison I was forced to get on a train (bear in mind I had never set foot outside the place,ever!) and was told to wait for a couple who would meet me at the other end-Dublin, where I was literally forced to look after a Doctors 3 children. I was 14 Paddy, very frightened and alone and I had to look after these very young children aged 3-8.
I worked from morning to night and my only outlet was a Sunday of to go to the Church with these strangers! I had no choice and was that messed up I didn’t realise I could leave I thought I had to stay forever. It was only after a few years later my sister had tracked me down and literally had to fight to take me away.
I spent a few years cooking, cleaning,and looking after children that did not belong to me. I was a slave for a “profesional” family, a G.P and his wife!
There is so much damage Paddy, so much deeper than abuse.
Anne
No doubt they will claim it was a few bad apples. When you add up the few bad apples here and the few bad apples there and the ones in this century and that century you soon realise the Roman Church is rotten to the core.
There has been a demand for an inquiry into abuse in Catholic run homes in Northern Ireland in the Assembly at Stormont. No doubt this issiue of child deportation will reveal a sordid saga once again from within the Roman Catholic Church.
Paddy, The apology given by the prime minister in Australia to the migrant children could very well open a can of worms in Ireland. Yes children were shipped out to Australia from Northern Ireland from Catholic run homes in Londonderry by Catholic nuns.This is admitted by the Australien gvernment, but when the Dep of education says it has no information on the NUMBERS of Irish children who were shipped out then one should read that sentence again. These were not UK children but children from the Republic and who made that decision?. You got it! The department of Education.Who managed the transit camps in the Republic used to hold the children from the Republic and the UK before their Deportation.You got it! Catholic nuns. Were children put up for adoption to American couples in exchange for money?. The rot is litteraly dripping out of this can and the worms are very ugly.
As you know Paddy, it is only a few years ago that HSE were sending abused children to psychiatric institutions for ECT.
All done in secret still.
So there is still too much secrecy re this notion of “best interest of the the child”
the children were sent abroad too in their best interest.
Just get rid of children out of sight.