Irish Child Abuse Report

The long awaited report on abuse of children, sexual and other, is about to be released in Ireland. It is a good thing that those who have suffered abuse in orphanages and other institutions run by the Church have an opportunity to make known the suffering they have had to undergo. It is also sad that such abuse took place while the children were under the care of religious communities such as the Irish Christian Brothers or the Sisters of Mercy. Former Prime Minister Bertie Ahern apologised on behalf of the State some ten years ago for its part in this whole affair. Although Pope John Paul II apologised for some of the evils brought about in history by the Church, in this case such an apology can be of some solace to those who suffered the abuse. It will also be an occasion for many to tear their garments like the High Priest Caiphas at the trial of Jesus and affirm themselves in their conviction that the Catholic Church is an evil institution. Such matters need to be put in context.

St. Augustine tells in his Confessions about the beatings to which he was submitted in school and particularly by teachers who attempted to teach him Greek. Beating, and what is now called emotional abuse was universal in schools in those days and throughout the centuries. As far as we can tell, St. Augustine did have a sufficient knowledge of Greek to be able to read texts, but he was not as proficient in it as he would have liked. Let us remember that he happened to have one of the most brilliant minds in history. The beatings and abuse he was subjected to in school did leave any permanent scar in his personality, something apparent to anyone who reads the whole of his Confessions, or any of his other masterpieces.

I remember reading Frank O'Connor's autobioghaphy, An only Child, in which he provides abundant evidence of the almost universal practice of beating and abusing children in Ireland. That was in the first decade of the twentieth century when he was a child in County Cork. Besides being beaten in school, he had the added misfortune, smilar to that of Fran Court later on in Limerick, to have had an alcoholic father. He was also a victim of "the curse of the Irish". I was raised in County Cork in the 1950s and 60s. Things hadn't changed at all. The notion that any kid could like school was totally foreign to me and my schoolmates. We loved Friday evening and hated Monday morning because we would have to "face the music". We might have spent a good portion of the weekend writing compositions, learning poetry in both Gaelic and English, translating sentences from English into Latin and vice versa, and a long list of other chores, such as drawing maps of Spain or North America, as well as math problems. None of that would save us from being beaten in school.

The secondary school was worse than the primary. When I was in fifth class in primary school, we had a teacher who ran a game called "find the dunce". In those days before the advent of electronic calculators mental arithmetic was an important part of what we had to learn. He would have us all stand up and announce arithmetic problems involving adding, subtracting or multiplying mentaly using pounds shillings and pence. As we were able to solve the problems we could sit down until only one was left. He was declared the dunce and given the dunce award, with the word written in large letters on the cover of a copybook. Fortunatley, I never got that award. Teachers had a special strap which they carried around in their back pocket. They didn't review everyone's homework, but those who were found to be most negligent were "put out on the line", that is had to line up standing so that the teacher on arriving at the classroom would always check their homework. They were the first to get a beating, which was not necessarily limited to being hit six times on the hand with the strap. Some teachers would cynically tell us: "It hurts me more than it hurts you". One could also be hit on the head, have one's hair torn. There was also the verbal abuse, such as being called a fool ("amadán" in Gaelic), an idiot and other such names. School began at 9.30 AM. Some kids would arrive at 9.00 and get someone else's copybook to copy the math problems, which were often the most difficult. There were problems in algebra, trigonometry and others. If one had the bad luck to be caught copying, then besides the beating, one was sure to be "put out on the line" for a long period.

When I was in the second year of secondary school, we had a teacher called Travers for four subjects. His name was enough to strike terror into the heart of any kid in the school. He taught geography among other subjects. We had to draw maps of various countries, as well as know the names of the rivers, mountain ranges, cities, products produced in each of them etc. If for instance, in a map of Spain one placed Barcelona further down on the coast than it really is, then one could expect a beating and to be called nasty names. While the others were getting beaten, the rest of us would be busy with our pencil and rubber making the necesary changes in order to avoid the beating when he got to us. One could also get expelled from the class and sent out into the school yard on a frosty morning. The thought of facing "the music" might be enought not only to feign sickness, but to get truly sick. If we were caught talking in class we might get punished with "lines". This meant that the teacher would assign some line to be written perhaps hundreds of times, something like: "I am a chatterbox". Others would assign an extra composition on some topic, which was more difficult than "lines". School was sheer terror for me and my classmates, and I wasn't one of the last in the class or lazy. My sister went to the local Presentation Convent School, where all the teachers were nuns. I was also an altar boy there. If they beat the girls, it seems that it was much less than we boys had to put up with.

Of course, nobody would dare complain to his parents about being beaten in school. They were also beaten when they were in school and they generally considered that the teachers were right in beating the kids in accordance with the old adage "spare the rod and spoil the child". A family from near Bandon dared to take a teacher to court and won, but most of the neighbors severely criticized them for it. Parents would use corporal punishment at home, but I don't have memories of being hit by them.

Wages were low and although one didn't suffer hunger, my parents and those who lived near us found it very difficult to make ends meet. The notion of going on vacation never occured to us or any of our neighbors. Child labor, now condemned by the United Nations, among many other institutions, was common at the time. Such condemnations are fine for the "dogooders" of the opulent West. The children of farmers helped out in the farm as they had always done. Children of townsfolk might work in some grocery store on weekends and during the summer, as I did and my brothers.

I in now way regret that all of this has changed and that these days children can go to school without fearing such beatings, or go on to adult life with the memory the their schooldays being mostly terror induced by violent teachers. Fortunately most of us who went through this system were able to overcome it in later life without apparent psychological problems or scars. My parents and grandparents lived a tough life and had to struggle to survive in a period of economic depression and bad government policies in Ireland. The generations who went before them had it even worse. Those who survived the Great Famine and didn't emigrate to America or Australia or somewhere else lived in conditions which would be considered inhuman by contemporary standards.

These days, people in the so called First World, or developed countries enjoy a level of material comfort which could not be dreamed of by most of those who lived centuries ago. Certainly, the awareness of the evils of abuse of children, sexual, emotional and physical is a sign of progress in our civilization. It is true that persons who took religious vows and had consecrated themselves to live according to the Gospel failed to live up to their commitments. Are we the ones who "have no sin" and capable of "throwing the first stone"? Many of those who tear their garments on the occasion of a report like this one of what happened in the past are in favor of abortion, thanks to which children are not even allowed to be born, not that one evil eliminates another. Yes, many in the Church did fail, but who are we to judge them? Fortunately, it is God who judges. Frank Court in his "Angela's Ashes" attacks the Church, but if St. Vincent de Paul Society hadn't helped to feed and clothe him, he would never have survived to tell his story in excellent prose. In this matter like most human behavior there is no such thing as black and white. In the real world good and evil come mixed together, as Jesus tells us in the parable of the wheat and the cockle. Yes, we can deplore what happened decades and cennturies ago, but we also need to examine our own behavior. A recent study in Spain has shown that almost 30% of school children complain of loneliness. Yes, parents buy the playstations and other gadgets such as mobile phones to have them "connected", but they feel lonely. Parents and adults in general are failing to educate children. Of course, they feel guilty and buy them more and more gadgets in order somehow to show them their love. The children also need to be corrected, to be told no and taught to control themselves. Then what are we to say about the millions of unborn children who have been slaughtered by their own mothers and doctors by means of abortion?