April 30, 2006

Daingean's horrific history must never be forgotten

IRELAND
Irish Independent

THE public will get a chance to see inside the infamous St Conleth's Reformatory, in Daingean, Co Offaly, during an open day there tomorrow.

The Junior Minister responsible for the Office of Public Works, Tom Parlon, is organising the event. The property is in his constituency and is one of the buildings for which the OPW is seeking a future.

Since it closed as a reformatory 30 years ago it has been used as a storehouse for items in public ownership that should be in museums, but for which there is no space.

They are housed in the rambling dormitories and refectory, rarely seen, cut off from the small town that has had the mixed blessing of this forbidding complex of buildings on its outskirts. ...

Daingean was different. It was one of two reformatories run by the Oblates of Mary Immaculate. The other reformatory, St Kevin's in Glencree, was closed in the 1960s and its inmates moved to Daingean.

Posted by kshaw at April 30, 2006 08:11 AM