DUBLIN, Ireland (CNS): Physical and sexual abuse was endemic in Irish institutions for boys run by religious between 1940 and the late 1970s, said an independent commission report.
A report released on May 20 by the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse said a climate of fear created by pervasive, excessive and arbitrary punishment permeated most of Ireland’s institutions for children and all those run for boys.
Children lived with the daily terror of not knowing where the next beating was coming from, the report said.
In addition to being hit and beaten, witnesses described other forms of abuse such as being flogged, kicked and otherwise physically assaulted, scalded, burned and held under water. Witnesses reported being beaten in front of other staff, residents, patients and pupils as well as in private.
The commission of inquiry, established in 2000, was chaired by High Court Justice Sean Ryan and included prominent social workers, a pediatrician, a clinical psychologist and a representative of a children’s charity.
Eight chapters of the report were devoted to institutions run by the Irish Christian Brothers, whose schools cared for more boys than all the other religious-run institutions put together.
The order ran the Artane Industrial School in Dublin, which had 830 male residents, almost four times the size of any other school in the nation.
The commission found that the number of students “led to problems of supervision and control, and children were left feeling powerless and defenceless in the face of bullying and abuse by staff and fellow pupils”.
More than 3100 people testified.
Irish Catholic Church and government officials welcomed the report and expressed sorrow about the incidents it documented. Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh, Northern Ireland, president of the Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference.
“The publication of this comprehensive report and analysis is a welcome and important step in establishing the truth, giving justice to victims and ensuring such abuse does not happen again,” Irish Catholic Bishops’ Conference president Cardinal Sean Brady of Armagh, Northern Ireland, said.
“I am profoundly sorry and deeply ashamed that children suffered in such awful ways in these institutions.
“Children deserved better, and especially from those caring for them in the name of Jesus Christ.”
