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In public testimony to the Ryan Commission on Child Abuse a Brother Michael Reynolds of the Irish Christian Brothers claimed that the punishments given to boys at Artane industrial reformatory were no different to the punishments suffered by a child who was living at home and attending a National School.
The testimony can be read on the Commission’s website (22-23 May 2006).
I lived at home and attended a National School for eight years before I was imprisoned in Artane. I received my share of the cane at the National School.
As I recall, the maximum punishment given to me or anyone else in that school was four strokes of the National School cane on the hands. The cane was about 24 inches long and was used quite infrequently.
After I was imprisoned in Artane at the age of 13, I was frequently subjected to as many as 20 strokes of the reformatory cane (a 40-inch affair) on the bare backside. Those punishments, I can assure your readers, did not feel anything like the punishments that I’d experienced in the National School.
But I suggest there is an easy way of settling this arcane dispute.
As an experiment, the Reverend Brother Reynolds could submit himself to four strokes of the National School cane on the hands and then to 20 strokes of the reformatory cane on his bare backside (other readers shouldn’t try this at home). If Brother Reynolds can sit comfortably and hold a pen after that, perhaps he could write in and tell your readers whether he still believes that the two types of punishment are equivalent. I think the experiment will have corrected his erroneous opinion.
I suggest that the Reverend Brother should have the caning job done by an expert. I’m sure that one of his fellow Christian Brothers would be only too pleased to oblige – in the interests of scientific enquiry, of course.
Jim Beresford
Former Artane child prisoner 14262
Huddersfield
W. Yorkshire