Criminal responsibility
Oct 16th, 2006 | By Bock | Category: Crime, Politics, popular cultureThey changed the system for kids committing crime.
It used to be that kids of seven years could be held responsible for crimes, which was plainly nonsense. That law was passed in an era when nobody cared about children. It was an era when children were sent up chimneys to clean them, or out into fields to work as a man would, and when children of the poorer classes never passed beyond primary school because they had to go out and work in support of the family. It was an appalling state of affairs that children could be treated with such brutality, and that they ended up in institutions whose list carries terrifying echoes of other, and far more sinister camps. Daingean. Letterfrack. Glin. Artane.
Actually, as I’m on the subject, let me just provide you with a list of these fine establishments.Here it is.
Our Lady of Succour, Newtownforbes
St.Patrick’s Industrial School, Kilkenny
St.Vincent’s Industrial School, Goldenbridge, Dublin
St.Conleth’s reformatory School, Daingean
St.Joseph’s Industrial School, Letterfrack
St.Joseph’s Industrial School, Kilkenny
St.Joseph’s Industrial School, Whitehall, Dublin
Artane Industrial School, Dublin,
St. Michael’s Industrial School for Girls, Wexford
St. Michael’s Industrial School for Junior boys, Cappoquin, Co. Waterford
St. Vincent’s (House of Charity) Industrial School for Junior Boys, Drogheda, Co. Louth
St. Vincent’s Industrial School for Girls, Limerick
St. Vincent’s Industrial School, Goldenbridge, Inchicore, Dublin 8
St. Ann’s Industrial School for Girls and Junior Boys, Renmore, Lenaboy, Co. Galway
St. Anne’s Industrial School for Girls, Booterstown, Co. Dublin
St. Anne’s Reformatory School for Girls, Kilmacud, Co. Dublin
St. Augustine’s Industrial School for Girls, Templemore, Co. Tipperary
St. Bernard’s Industrial School for Girls, Fethard, Dundrum, Co. Tipperary
St. Bridgid’s Industrial School for Girls, Loughrea, Co. Galway
St. Colman’s Industrial School for Girls, Cobh/Rushbrook, Co. Cork
St. Columba’s Industrial School for Girls, Westport, Co. Mayo
St. Conleth’s Reformatory School for Boys, Daingean, Co. Offaly
St. Dominick’s Industrial School for Girls, Waterford
St. Finbarr’s Industrial School for Girls, Sundays Well, Marymount, Cork
St. Francis Xavier’s Industrial School for Girls and Junior Boys, Ballaghadereen, Co Roscommon
St. Francis’s Industrial School for Girls, Cashel, Co. Tipperary
St. George’s Industrial School for Girls, Limerick
St. John’s Industrial School for Girls, Birr, Co. Offaly
St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Boys, Passage West, Co. Cork
St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Boys, Tralee, Co. Kerry
St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Girls and Junior Boys, Ballinasloe, Co. Galway
St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Girls and Junior Boys, Clifden, Co. Galway
St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Girls and Junior Boys, Liosomoine, Killarney, Co. Kerry
St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Girls, Cavan
St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Girls, Dundalk, Co. Louth
St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Girls, Kilkenny
St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Girls, Mallow, Co. Cork
St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Girls, Summerhill, Athlone, Co. Westmeath
St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Girls, Whitehall, Drumcondra, Dublin 9
St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Senior Boys, Ferryhouse, Clonmel, Co. Tipperary
St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Senior Boys, Glin, Co. Limerick
St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Senior Boys, Greenmount, Cork
St. Joseph’s Industrial School for Senior Boys, Salthill, Co. Galway
St. Joseph’ss Reformatory School for Girls, Limerick
St. Kyran’s Industrial School for Junior Boys, Rathdrum, Co. Wicklow
St. Laurence’s Industrial School for Girls, Sligo
St. Laurence’s Industrial School, Finglas, Dublin 11
St. Martha’s Industrial School for Girls, Bundoran, Co. Donegal
St. Mary’s Industrial School, Lakelands, Sandymount, Dublin 4
Do you notice anything about this list? Of course you do. You notice all the saints, and perhaps, like me, you find it remarkable that all these saints should be associated with places where so many of our children were raped by perverts from religious orders.
Now, there’s no doubt about the amount of violence and stupidity at large today among total skobes. But it occurs to me, and perhaps to you, that at least some of this aggression derives from the industrial schools. Saint this that and the other, where the grandparents of the current crop of skobes were locked up, put to slavery and buggered by the fine Roman Catholic clergy of the day.
However, this doesn’t mean that I’ve gone soft or anything like that. The new plan is nonsense. If a kid commits a crime, the cops are supposed to take him to his parents and alert who?
The Health Board. That’s who.
The Health Board.
Listen, the health board can’t even run a health service properly. How are they going to stop children committing crime? I can see the headlines now: Health Board to Tackle Shoplifting!
For fuck’s sake. Make chav parents take responsibility for their kids, just like the rest of us do. How’s that for a radical idea?
Well listed.
I have passed a few of those places in Dublin… wonderful property, houses and apartment blocks, has been developed on them in the last decade.
Many of these establishments were originally funded by public charitable donations or subscriptions. They were then further developed on the back of child slave labour and state subvention.
Property developers paid good money for the sites and all traces of some of these institutions have been eradicated. But, where has the money gone?
IT DID STRIKE ME THE NUMBER OF SAINTS
THEN ST MURA THEY INVENTED THEM TO
ABUSE KIDS. THEY SAID BEATINGS WERE A
SIGN OF THE TIMES I HAD BAD BEATINGS AT
SCHOOL AND AT HOME BUT NOTHING LIKE
THAT.
I doubt very much if many of the “current crop of skobes” had grandparents in the Industrial Schools. There’s an implication in it that crime is somehow genetic. It’s no new thing though that people who were detained as children in the above Institutions being labeled as criminal despite the fact that very few of the children detained is these hell-holes were actually tried for any crimes whatsoever.
Here are figures relating to the detention of children in Ireland in 50s and 60s. The middle column relates to how many children were indicted for some kind of criminal activity. The third column shows the total number of children who were in those Industrial Schools for each year.
Year —-Indicted ——–Total
1950 —— 56 ———- 833
1951 —— 73 – ———789
1952 – —–70 – ———732
1953 – —–68 – ———626
1954 – —–55 – ———551
1955 – —–54 – ———553
1956 – —–47 – ———596
1957 – —–57 – ———572
1958 – —–63 – ———592
1959 – —–72 – ———623
1960 – —–50 – ———608
1961 – —–69 – ———664
1962 – —–79 – ———647
1963 – —–68 – ———611
1964 – —–70 – ———446
1965 – —–100 – ——–433
1966 – —–93 – ———408
1967 – —–29 – ———226
1968 – —–24 – ———168
1969 – —–15 – ———112
In those places we were treated as criminals and charity case – and the religious orders enriched themselves on our labour and our bodies, and when we left those places we were labeled – and still we are being labeled as criminals despite the mass of evidence to the contrary.
There’s no implication in it that crime is genetic. There’s a statement that crime is often handed down from father to son. Likewise, there’s no suggestion that innocent people locked up in industrial schools were criminals or had criminal grandchildren.
I think you need to read it again, more carefully.
I have read it again “more carefully” … indeed I read it this time with deliberate slowness and, guess what?, I’ve expanded the quote !
” Now, there’s no doubt about the amount of violence and stupidity at large today among total skobes. But it occurs to me, and perhaps to you, that at least some of this aggression derives from the industrial schools. Saint this that and the other, where the grandparents of the current crop of skobes were locked up.”
And I say again that I doubt very much if many of the “current crop of skobes†had grandparents in the Industrial Schools.
How could ex-child detainees pass on criminal tendencies to their children when they didn’t have any criminal tendencies to begin with?
What I read from your piece is crime flowing out of the Industrial Schools (through the child detainees) and into a new generation outside those places. Yet the only criminals in the Industrial Schools system were the religious orders and the Dept. of Education – not the children.
If some of the current aggression in society derives from the Industrial Schools it certainly doesn’t emanate from the ex-child detainees.
And what I’m trying to say is that, along with the thousands of innocent children locked up under that brutal regime, there must also have been some who had actually committed crimes, and who were further brutalised as a result.
If none of the people incarcerated in Industrial schools had ever committed criminal acts, I’ll accept the correction, but can you then tell me where they were sent instead?
Amongst the list you will find two places [Letterfrack & Daingean] which “catered” for apparently delinquent children. But all the places named in the list were used for this particular class of “delinquent” children. The reasons used for committal to ALL these Institutions can be found here:
http://tinyurl.com/2foegx
Also from Letterfrack I enclose a photo of a grave of one boy who died:>
http://tinyurl.com/2vko7j
Now as Letterfrack was used to detain what was described as delinquent children or the children of “ne’er do wells” (this quote from a Christian Brother at the Ryan Commission) it poses the question (to me in anyway) as to what kind of delinquency could little Bernard Kerrigan have been involved in! What terrible crime could this FOUR-YEAR-OLD child have committed to end up in that Institution. Mitching school! Robbing orchards!
Maybe it’s a blessing he DID die in Letterfrack as God only knows what his offspring would be getting up to now – perhaps they’d be running around with brown envelopes chasing politicians, or maybe they’d be ripping milions off banks ! Why they might even be judges downloading pictures of abused children from the Internet.
I have dealt personally with 183 people, all former child detainees/former residents of the above Institutions and only ONE of those people (and their families) is “KNOWN” to the police (to use the parlance of today!) – ONLY ONE – and that’s because he’s a sergeant !
There ARE a couple of former “residents” of those places who became infamous that I’ve read of:
Martin Cahill and Robert Howard.
Robert Howard was in Ferryhouse in Clonmel at the same time as Michael O’Brien, the former Mayor of Clonmel who spent eight years inside St Joseph’s Ferryhouse in Clonmel. During Michael’s time in Ferryhouse only four of the children in Ferryhouse were there for some kind of delinquency. Ferryhouse held 180 to 200 children.
Howard spent three years in Ferryhouse – and went on to become a rapist and murderer. Did Ferryhouse shape him or was he already bad before he went in? What about Michael who went on to become Mayor – did Ferryhouse shape him as well?
For more on all this area I recommend Paddy Doyle’s website and particularly this page:
http://tinyurl.com/2d5hbn
Andrew, Paddy Doyle is a friend of mine and his site has been listed here since I began.
I don’t particularly want to get into an argument with you on this as there’s nothing to be gained from it.
This discussion isn’t what the post is about, so we’ll leave it at that.
Perhaps not, but didn’t you put forward the question:
“But it occurs to me, and perhaps to you, that at least some of this aggression derives from the industrial schools. Saint this that and the other, where the grandparents of the current crop of skobes were locked up, put to slavery and buggered by the fine Roman Catholic clergy of the day.”
And my replies were in response to that.
That said I will respond to the real point of your post: I remember in 1994 being at a meeting in a town in the North-East part of Ireland concerning an economically and socially deprived area.There was “joy-riding” and under-age drinking in this particular estate. There were many worthies at the meeting and one of them was an ex-nun, another an ex-heroin addict also present were Health Board and Social Welfare representatives. My own presence at this meeting was that I was working on a FAS Community Scheme publishing an 8 page local newsletter in this estate. Also I was asked to take notes at the meeting and write something on this meeting in the newsletter.
It was typical kind of meeting where nobody really spoke their mind and just spoke the usual trite phrases but when it came to me to speak I suggested, in all innocence, that running a Parenting Course would be perfect ! Well it was just the same as suggesting that we should cut off the balls of bulls and feed them to the children such were the shocked responses from all in attendance!
The ironic part of this little tale was that out of all the people that were at this meeting I was actually the only person present who actually lived in the estate!
I would consider Paddy Doyle a close confidant of mine and I’ve had your site listed on my blog since even before you moved to Wordpress – and I came to know your site from ultimatedisposal.com
Unthinkable what happened to these children at these Institutions, but save a little thought for all the children that were abused in the ‘main stream’ schools and went home to their parents afterwards. Nobody aware of what was happening, and the child thinking that this wasn’t nice, but it must be part of growing up. I was one of these children, and it worries me that there is very little discussion on the subject.
Martin: You’re dead right, and all the kids knew it was going on. That’s why people who claim they only recently heard about child abuse are talking horseshit.
I just found out that my mother (who never talked about her childhood) and her sisters were sent to St. John’s Industrial School for Girls in Birr in 1937 after her mother died. I dread what I will discover as I dig deeper.
hi , just came accross your blog while looking for information on st vincents industrial school o connell ave limerick where i lived for 4yrs approx 1971-75.at this time it was not known as an industrial school but had addopted the title of residential home,unfortunately that was the only change ,its nature and character remained exactly the same. during this time i was subject to and witness to many acts of cruelty degradation and humilation which were carried out by a minority of religous and lay people.people who i looked at with awe and fear and who now i regard as pathetic. however my biggest difficulty is not actually with our termentors and abusers but with those people whome i regarded as good or not so bad.were they so blind that they could not see,so deaf that they could not hear or did they simply turn and look the other way. for evil to triumph all that is necessary is that good men do nothing, i dont know who said that but he was a wise man indeed .and all those senior clergy who scurried to protect holy mother church from the excesses of its deivent members like rats in a sewer.theirs is the greater sin.
Christy — Am I right in thinking that nuns ran that place? You’re probably talking about Mount St Vincent school which is still in existence and owned by the Sisters of No Mercy.
yes it was run by the sisters of mercy and is still owned by them. an impressive stone building in o connell ave .i pass it many times every day ,no one would would ever suspect the hidden secrets it hides behind its walls.if stones had a voice they would not talk rather they would weep for the innocent victims who were not delinquent but were simply there as a result of marrital breakdown or as a result of being born out of weddlock. the reasons were varied but none of us were commited by the courts rather we were signed in by relatives who trusted that we would be well looked after. the opposite of course was the case.
Just reading the comments above and felt i had to add to it if its ok with everybody, First id like to tell you i was in Ferryhouse Clonmel from 1978 to 1985 and i can understand the feelings from some people who claim to know what we had to go through every day but you dont know for example you got to go home every day after school to your family we didnt, we had the fear of punishment 24/7 which sometimes getting a beating would take that stress away because living in fear of knowing a beating could come your way at any time for the slighest reason like having your elbows on the table during meals or talking. I am not looking for people to feel sorry for the kids who had to live that life but just us get it off our chests by talking about it. i have never spoken about it until 20 years later and still find those feelings are the same inside even though im much older now.
I wish i could rid myself of this rage and anger i have against religious orders !
Hi Bock,
Firstly, I think your site is necessary, brave, loud and needed. I couldn’t have done it or I would have ended up seriously contemplating shooting some of the bastards who did that shit with us.
That said, for your own peace, sanity and health you have to take a step back from your anger (as my wife says to me sometimes). The shit happened, we have to live with it and realise that all of the f***kers who did it to us are either dead or protected. Shit happens, but sadly not to those who deserve it.
Take care and thanks,
Steve H.
Good point Steve and in a way i agree whole heartly with what you said, these bastards are still protected to this day. All the church wants is to protect their money donations and keep up with the brainwashing that things werent asbad as we made them out to be thats the thing that really bites. The general public dont have a fucking clue what really went on in those places, some of my closet friends only found out in the past couple of years that i was one of those kids in the system. Shit happens Steve correct but who are the ones living in nice retirement homes and who are the ones still suffering ?
Hi John,
My wife (she’s German who grew up in a the very liberal, anti-fascist school system of 1960’s Germany) is often shocked and speechless when I tell her of the sadistic system I (we – you, me, others) went through. My German brother-in-law and his wife (teachers in their late 50’s) were completely shocked by my stories. They said, (to quote) ‘reminded them of the stories of their parents growing up under the Nazis.
But what really disgusts me about this ‘new’ (oh so new) report is that none of these sadistic f***kers are going to be punished for what they did. THAT is the injustice. Not what they did, but that now they will walk free. The Germans say Zum Kotzen! To translate: ‘It’s enough to make you throw up’. WE WANT JUSTICE! – AND WE WANT IT NOW.
It obviously has been passed back to the victims to get justice.
My proposal: Name the bas*ards who did these things to you and let them sue for defamation.
YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN! YES WE CAN!!!!!!!!!
Shame I can longer confront the sadist who used to beat my naked ass with a cricket bat, or the physics teacher who gave us electric shocks.
But somewhen in this universe we’ll met again. Positive!
thats all i want Steve is Justice and the state is still in the control of those evil fucks we call the catholic church all they care about it taking peoples money and mentality.
i can still picture Bro Barry walking into the A Group Dorm in Ferryhouse and stretching his arms like he was holding a rifle pointing to his next victim, We called him sniper. I can still picture this kid no more than 9 years of age face when he was singled out he went to the sneaked off to the canteen before he had to go to the brothers bedroom and got a knife were he then tried to cut off his own penis so the brother would no longer rape him.
he was rushed to hospital and the garda never even investigated at the time because the priests told them oh he fell down the concrete steps leading to the A group.
It was the fear installed in us that was the worse not knowing who was next, the beatings i could handle i learned to block out the pain and kept telling myself it will be over in a couple of minutes that sorta numbed me from within still to this day and i dispise those people for turning me into a man i am today.
Fuck the money from the redress board its only hush money and it means nothing, Just a few minutes with each priest or brother so i can confront him and tell them what they did and what effect it had on so many children.
i often think what would i say if i ever did meet them face to face or if i could conrol my rage and anger ,
easier to say it happend get on with life but id love nothing more than to rid myself of these bitter feelings i have for those people,
Hi John,
.
the anger, frustration and feelings of confusion are less these days because I taught myself to think and talk about what happened. Over this is a feeling of… not ‘feeling sorry for them’ but more of ‘the poor, twisted f**kers’,.
But still, justice MUST be done. Those still alive MUST be named and shamed. They MUST ask for forgiveness. The Church and the Government MUST stop protecting them.
I remember when I was 14, during class an ‘old boy’ walked into the classroom and punched the teacher right in the middle of the face, then walked out again. It was soooooo hard not to cheer, (but that would have really got us in the sh*t
Everyone should see this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9jHqndf9Kx4
Thanks Katherine i watched Q&A last night and every single word the ex lord mayor of Clonmel said is correct Money is nothing in all of this what i and a lot if not all want is for the Catholic Church to admit to their wrong doings. I was in the very same school he was in put there by the courts because i mitched from school. Nearly 8 years i was sent away for because of this instead of sitting down to talk to a child that mitched from school because i was bullied. Not a single person from the education board asked at the time why i was mitching instead i was dragged to court and sent to ferryhouse.
It was a scam between the church and state at them times along with cheap labor as we were used to picking spuds and clearning fields of stones for famers down around the clonmel area.
Sorry i cannot find it in my heart to forgive these people because you wouldnt treat an animal the way these so called priests did.
hi all, just found this site now,
having had a very ”rocky”relationship with my mother………….rocky in the sence that when i had my own children i realised how ”inadequate” my own mother was. Shes a great woman dont get me wrong bit there always seemed to be a lil summit missing weather it was the kisses and hugs i showered my children with . but the fact that i study behaviour analysis may have had somthing to do with it…………
however i have ”’patched things up” with mam. Thank god or who ever ye will……………….but then she told me summit i had always suspected………mam came from a well to do family….due to family ”issues” she landed in the shit hole which was st annes in booterstown………………..she was known as 83 her sister 30…….they were 3 and 6 years old and told their parents were dead……….i have no idea what kind of torture these perverted bastards subjected my mother too…………but i can only imagine..which i choose not to coz ye see, since she told me…..and im the only one of 9 children who knows……she appears really small…………almost the same size as my 8 year old daughter……….. i have an inate urge to protect her and pick her up and cuddle her………………….she wanted an appology…………an appolgy which consisted of 20k!!!!!! sweet jesus and the orphans the woman is 63 they took 63 years of her life and gave her 20k i ask ur bloody pardon but where do these monsters get off?? mam wasnt bothered bout the money……..she just wanted it done close the chapter so we as a family can open a new one…………you know i asked her how she felt and she said……….i have 9 children……and tons of greand children and have never been able to write them a bday card!! bless her the poor woman…………im only so the only family member privvy to this info……………….so in response to the remark crime is gentic………………..crime isn’t……….but the behavious we are shown as children…..stay with us all our lives…………………..and are handed down……….we are ”conditioned”………sure we have all at some stage sounding like our parents………………………….an example…………………………my house when i was a child was run with the percision of a military camp…………6 older children lined up to be washed each morning……….all allocated jobs ect….regemental bed times getting up times ect………………………i never had this as part of my life i came 11 years after my brother….so this is what i have been told…………………my older sibblings are the same ye could eat ur dinner off their floor’s…………………………………….not saying its a bad thing ppl………….im saying its immatating behaiours we have learned..”conditioned” if ye like………..to anyone else…….it was good house keeping…but to me it was odd…………………………………like i said this area is my professional feild so i notice things others wouldnt…………..ad i was right too!!
mam ‘’settled” yesterday………………………if i could give her one thing i would give her the bastards who make my mother feel like such a failure………………….but i cant…..ye see there all dead……………………..my poor mother……..feels like her experiences have had a very negative effect on her abilty to raise her children……….even down to my dad who was a gentle man (he has since passed)…when she was ”released” she was collected by the parents she had been told were dead!!!! the poor kid imagine that effect on ye??? any who she ran to the first man.daddy………………to confom to the ”norms” of the time married him…had kids split up after 25 years……………they got on like a house on fire apart so twas better for all involved……………….none the less a sad tale……………when she tried to tsalk to her mother the oul battle axe, when it became public knowledge about ten years ago gran refused to believe the ”boarding” school was nothing like the tv…..it was the exact hell hole my mother was in…………………………sad so sad…………………..death is too good a thing for some people torture should be the order of the day!!!
The Health Board is a joke alright, but I’m not sure your solution of holding the parents responsible is currently workable. Parents are not allowed full control of their children, so how can they be expected to have full responsibility? For example, if your son was out breaking windows and burning cars at night, how would you stop him, legally? You cant assault him, you cant disown him, I doubt if you are allowed to keep him locked in the house, so what do you do? Hope that he really, really needs you to drive him somewhere or needs your pocket money, so that you can restrain him with bribery of one sort or another. If we are talking about minors who are committing crimes, the chances are they dont really need you for anything, and dont respect you either.
And of course, as a society we cant allow parents to have carte blanche, and beat their children to a pulp. And the state taking charge of the kids, well, we’ve all seen how that went. No easy answers to this one as far as I can see. Checks and balances, transparency, and a populace unwilling to turn a blind eye would help though.
I just came across this site. No doubt many may find it strange that after more than 60 years I’m trying to find who I am. I note it says St. Patrick’s Kilkenny Industrial School was for junior boys. Well I have news for you that is where I always believed I started out in life. Then in 2006 I discovered through the Freedom of Information Act I was in fact all of two years old when I arrived there. Why, you may well ask? Well I was a young criminal and had appeared at Dublin DC in Feb 1934. In the column with what charged, it’s entered; receiving alms. The sentence handed down by Judge Cussen was to be detained till age 16 in 1947.
As for young adults, well I guess at ten it was considered I was old enough to be put to work, and so I was transferred back to the city of my birth Dublin. Yes you guess it, a stretch of six years in Artane. Why no one ever bothered to visit me I still don’t know. Maybe I was tainted by mixing with all the other criminals in St. Patrick’s and Artane. I’ve never found out what trouble the children under two had been up to. I was also guilty of original sin, being left-handed, they cured me of that.
By the time I was released I was emotionally barren, a social misfit plus my developmental levels were stunted. Like many before me I left for England by the time I was 17 and with my proper name (they called me by a name they decided) I entered the university of the world. I still can’t spell (computers help).
No doubt it will surprise many that I did OK by retiring in comfort by the time I was 54. I’ve learned so much more than people with a formal education because life is an ever ending process.
I’m still looking for me! Paddy
Interesting story Patrick Rice.
I can’t imagine what a 2 year old could have done to warrant being sent away for 14 years.
You seem to have survived the bad times and as you so rightly say ‘life is an ever ending process’.
Hope you continue to develop and flourish.
i was in st lawrences in finglas from 82 -85 , im not goin to talk about the abuse i suffered in that shite hole , but i will point out that i came from a respecable family , my father died when i was 10 . my mother suffered manic depression and was hospitalised for years , so the HEALTH BOARD said it would be a better clean safe place for me to be taken out of my loving family setting and dumped at the hands of nasty fucking bastards , they were pure evil , i had 2 older brothers who were only to happy to care for me but as they were under 18 it wasnt goin to happen, i will never ever get over what happened to me in there , i was a heroin addict from 15 to 34 luckily im clean 3 years now and slowly getting my life together ,4 suicide attemts and many “accidental “overdoses later and i still fucking hate myself .
Alan just keep telling yourself you`re not going to let these people grind you down any more and look to the future in a positive note.These people who put us into these industrial schools are living in fear today and will do until they die because the catholic church is seen today for what it really stands for. It was a relief to listen to the ryan report read out on national tv and it proves we were not telling lies that alone gave me a little relief inside because i dont feel that guilt of having done something wrong to warrant to be sent to these monsters.To patrick rice i take my hat off too you for making a success of yourself and showing these f****** that they didnt succeed in totally taking your spirit for life away. What makes me sick when i read the Ryan report was how the Bishops told priests to deny everything and to protect the Catholic churches assets at all costs, To this day when i see a priest with a collar on i feel like going over and punching them right in the mouth but i have learned to control that rage within me and tell myself not to lower myself to their level, I know not all priests are bad but they are part of the system that has caused so much pain to defensless children.All i want is to rid myself of the pain and anger i feel to this day.I wish you all the best of luck in the future and remember every day you smile is a slap in the face to those animals who thought they were doing gods work!!
thanks john your good wishes are greatly appreciated .
Never forget the mental institutions where so many children were sent and subjected to all kinds of abuse including being half starved and used in guinea pig experiments