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	Reduced to Tears by Harrowing Tales of the Vulnerable By Derek Lord Press and Journal (Scotland) June 12, 2009 http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1258411?UserKey= RETURNING home on Wednesday afternoon, I found Herself in floods of tears. She was listening to an Irish radio station covering a march of more than 5,000 people in Dublin that had been organised by some of the victims who had suffered at the hands of nuns and Christian Brothers in Ireland's industrial schools for most of the 20th century. The last of these brutal establishments was only closed down in the 1990s. A 2,600-page report into the horrific treatment meted out to the children in over 200 of these correctional schools was released recently, much to the embarrassment of the Catholic Church and the politicians who for generations had turned a blind eye to the sexual and psychological abuse suffered by thousands of vulnerable children in their charge. The march was aimed at Leinster House, the seat of Ireland's government, but most of the politicians were conspicuous by their absence. The organisers had hoped to have a debate on the ramifications of the report, but the politicos had turned down their request in favour of a debate of their own on the subject of the recent European election results in which the ruling party received a drubbing and the Green Party garnered only 2% of the vote. Now that the Celtic Tiger's roar has been reduced to a whimper, it seems the good people of Ireland are more concerned about the shortage of money in their pockets than the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Herself had been reduced to tears by the tales of abuse related by some of the marchers. One man told of how, as an 11-year-old, he had been given the task of cooking breakfast for the Christian Brothers who ran the institution in which he was incarcerated. He had earned his imprisonment in that particular hellhole by playing truant and scrumping apples out of someone's orchard. He told the reporter that the boys were allowed only one egg a year, as an Easter treat. The rest of the year, their breakfast consisted of two slices of bread and a tin mug of tea, despite the fact that the institution kept 1,500 chickens. The brothers did their best to get through as many eggs as possible. The boy was told to serve up two eggs, two rashers of bacon and two slices of black pudding for each of the seven staff. One morning the brothers took more time than usual over their morning devotions and the boy had to put the breakfasts into the oven until the Mass had finished. He duly served up the breakfasts and returned to the kitchen. A few minutes later, the kitchen door burst open and one of the teachers flew at the boy, striking him so hard on the side of his head that he is deaf in one ear to this day. The teacher screamed at the terrified child and told him never again to dare to cook the eggs so hard. He stood over the lad while he scraped the offending hen fruit into the bin and cooked another 14 eggs. Many of these so-called schools were just a source of cheap labour for the local farmers and a source of a lot of moolah for the brothers who hired the boys out in batches of 100 and more to pick potatoes from dawn to dusk. It's hardly surprising that many of the boys left these institutions unable to read or write. The government poured millions of pounds into these establishments, but failed to provide adequate supervision of them. The few inspectors had to cover up to 50 schools each and they had to give the school advance warning of their visits so that the children could be smartened up in time for the inspection. And, of course, in a society in which the government and the Church were in collusion, it would have been a brave man who blew the whistle on any of the institutions. One woman phoned the radio station from England and broke down in tears as she described how her late mother had been put into a similar institution at the age of four. Her crime was that she was illegitimate. The Sisters of Mercy took a very dim view of the progeny of such carnal sin. The tot was told that she was the spawn of the devil and her room was cleaned out with strong bleach every morning to remove any trace of Beelzebub she might have dragged in on her feet. By the time she was released from the school some 12 years later, she was a psychological wreck. She fled to England where eventually she got married and had children, but she was so badly damaged by what she had experienced in the care of the nuns that she was unable to function either as a wife or a mother. She left her family. After some time living on her own, she drowned herself. She was 49. It was this story more than any other that had caused the tears to course down Herself's cheeks. She is horrified to think that she was growing up in total ignorance of the horrors that were going on behind the walls of buildings within a few short miles of where she lived, although she is not surprised at the conduct of some of the clergy. She was taught by nuns for the first eight years of her education and the very sight of one of them is enough to set her off. She says they were the worst snobs she has ever come across. She was all right because she had what they considered to be a "nice" address, but heaven help any child who came from the wrong side of the tracks. The sisters delighted in denigrating and humiliating any girl from a financially-disadvantaged background. They would sneer at the child's clothes and generally treat her like something they had stepped in. If they have got this Heaven and Hell thing right, I reckon they're in an awful lot of bother right now.
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