The Filth and The Fury
Hypocrisy is too small a word . . . © Adam Zyglis
It’s scarcely believable, the things I’ve heard over the past few days. The publishing of the report from the Ryan Commission’s investigation into child abuse in Ireland’s industrial schools blew the lid on the the whole festering cluster-fuck we like to call “Catholicism” in this country. 800 priests, nuns, Christian Brothers and various others were implicated in the torture, rape and general Nazi-like treatment of babies, children, teenagers and young adults who were put into the care of the “religious” orders from the 1930’s up to the early 1990’s, when the last of these hell-hole establishments was closed. The commission also concluded that the rank and file of these schools, their superiors, the Catholic church in general, and the wider communities colluded to keep the atrocities quiet.
Of course, the release of the commission’s report was surrounded with farce as we painfully witnessed some of the victims of the abuse being ejected from the Conrad hotel and scuffling with the police. Nothing has changed. Dignity was not even granted to them at this late hour. But why should we expect any different? Our nation’s record on child care is starting to bare a resemblance to China’s record on Human Rights.
The Irish State started off by giving most of the children over to these workhouses by means of a conviction for minor offences such as truancy, petty theft or disruptive behaviour. It’s also been revealed that severe poverty was enough to have your children taken from you by some busy body priest or nun trying to clean up their town. It seems the children of suicide victims were shown a special disdain with siblings frequently split up, never to reunite. And just to compound their situation the local magistrate would convict them of “not being in the possession of a suitable guardian”! To this day these same people, wrongly criminalised, cannot serve on a jury, cannot run for election, are restricted when travelling internationally and all the other benefits that go with having a conviction in this country.
I’m fortunate enough never to have encountered any of these sicko kiddie fiddlers in my time, but I’m old enough to remember corporal punishment in the Christian Brothers’ schools I attended. Of course, I was on the end of a few beatings with the infamous “leather” (a 12 to 18 inch long, 1/4 inch thick piece of black cow hide, carried like a symbol of office by most of the frocked “teachers”) – but then again most of us were. The worst of the beatings (although mild in comparison to those revealed last Thursday) were often dished out with orgasmic zeal. And most of us were aware of the rumours of the extra curricular nocturnal activities of the caped crusaders. None of it, however, prepared me or the wider public for the truth.
I cried when I heard some of the details from the litany of sadism; the child made to lick dog excrement from the bottom of his shoe; the child made to eat his own vomit from the plate he puked on; kids forced to eat the rancid 3-day-old food that they had previously refused; toilet training consisted of strapping babies to potties for hours until their rectums prolapsed (and others recall re-inserting rectums); toddlers beaten for soiling themselves . . . the list goes on.
They are the individual cases documented in the report. Equally disturbing is the endemic and systematic abuse which was de rigueur to enforce discipline in Industrial Schools; routine rape and gang rape; routine torture and beatings of a savage nature, some of which lead to deaths which were subsequently covered up; routine starvation – the details are chilling.
Hitler’s National Socialists would be proud – in fact the Nazis might have learned a lot from the followers of Blessed Edmund Ignatius Rice when it came to soul destroying humiliation. The Nuns were particularly good at psychological abuse with young girls.
Up to the end of 2008 there were 14,500 claims made to the farcical Redress Board set up by Bertie Ahern nearly 10 years ago. Salt in the wound is a mild way to describe this approach by our crony government which insisted that victims relinquish their right to pursue legal redress in order to claim monetary compensation. The religious orders also shamefully covered their own asse(t)s by [1] negotiating a deal to limit their liability to EURO €128 million and [2] guaranteeing anonymity for all alleged perpetrators. The cover-up continues as the compensation looks likely to top EURO €1.2 billion!
The media has scarcely been able to keep up with the scale of the revelations and has usually tried some cathartic approach as if the public discussion itself would help victims. I don’t know how any of us can even begin to contemplate what it might be like to have ones childhood stolen, to have ones soul consumed, ones body defiled and all self respect and dignity disposed of every morning, just like one might dispose of a chamber pot filled with acrid urine from the night before. I personally couldn’t even dare look into that abyss, nor could I ever hope to grasp the perpetual weight that all this brings on it’s victims and families, regardless of where it goes from here.
I will, however, look into the empty chasm that’s been left for victims that should be filled with extended free counselling, better compensation, unlimited help and understanding from their local communities, extended services to trace lost families, convictions of the offenders where possible, and the remorse of all those responsible for allowing it all to continue. I would personally also call for the dissolution of all the religious orders involved and their land and other assets sold and put towards the compensation bill. Finally it is necessary for every single person who was criminally convicted to be pardoned immediately.
As the proud parent of 2 kids I hope never to have to defend them against this kind of inhuman behaviour – I dread to think what I might do if such a thing were perpetrated on my own kind. So it is with trepidation and hope with which I will quote the immortal words of Flann O’Brien: -
” . . . and their likes will never be seen again.”
I hope it’s true.
The Pale – Lights Out Boys
The Pale - Lights Out Boys [2:49m]: He claimed he was a reformer, a reformer of wayward boys
Not to be confused with an act of charity from somebody civilised
He claimed he was a programmer of a brilliant moral code
The feral, the weak, he just swept off the streets,
From halfway houses and broken homes
Lights out boys, lights out boys
The monster you described is real and alive
The whole wide world is gonna act surprised
Everybody knows how children lie
…
The whole wide world is gonna act surprised
He claimed he turned informer, in an effort to reclaim his life
Inspired by some documentary he watched alone late one night
He said he had a recurring dream, how is mother would come for him
Cut through the deceit of policemen and priests
Win the battle of custody
Music and lyrics ©2009 The Pale (Devereux/Wearen/Flynn/O’Grady) / 1969 Records
