IRELAND
Irish Times
Looking back, it was one incident that summed up the whole story.
In 1976, Mavis Arnold and I were interviewing a jittery Department of Education civil servant responsible for what had been industrial schools.
Our focus was on the institution run by the Sisters of the Poor Clares in Cavan.
We asked to see examples of the institution’s “dietary” plan and of a notification of punishment, both required by the 1908 Children Act.
Not available, he replied.
What about children sent out to work from the age of 10 in the early 1960s?
“You can’t see individual confidential reports.”
Could we see the accounts?
They didn’t exist.
By what process, we asked, had some Cavan girls been sent to the laundry-reformatory in Gloucester Street, Dublin?
His agitation increased: “We’d better not delve into that terrain.”
The point was that that institution, run by other nuns, was not certificated, thus the girls’ incarceration there was contrary to the rules of the Act governing the schools.
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