Christian Brother who broke boy’s jaw taught for another 13 years

A Christian Brother teacher who broke a boy’s jaw remained in the industrial school system for 13 years, the Child Abuse Commission heard yesterday.

Between 1956 and 1969 the perpetrator worked at the congregation’s schools in Dun Laoghaire, Clonmel, Tralee and Glin, Co Limerick.

It took years before the unnamed abuser, whose brutality was known among his congregation, was removed from teaching.

Action followed only when a very senior Christian Brother visited from Rome in 1968. “It was perfectly obvious he told the local provincial he would have to be removed from teaching,” said Br Nolan, a member of the Provincial leadership team, St Helen’s Province.

“He was obviously unsuited to teaching. These things should not have been allowed to happen before the Clonmel incident.”

The brother, who later broke the boy’s jaw, had been transferred to Tralee amid complaints that he pulled out a boy’s hair in Clonmel industrial school.

In Clonmel, he was told not to use the stick or leather strap, because he was known to be too severe.

“I can’t explain this case,” Br Nolan told a public hearing of the commission’s investigating committee. “We have no defence for not stopping it before it was far too late.”

Commission lawyer Brian McGovern, who questioned Br Nolan, described the notorious brother’s history as a “catalogue of mayhem”.

Another brother was transferred from one industrial school to another after internal records spoke of his “immoderate” punishments. These went beyond acceptable levels as the man could not control his temper “adequately”.

After the boy’s jaw was broken, there was no garda investigation. Br Nolan said it was reported to the Department of Education, who “went easy” and sent an inspector to investigate.

The hearing also heard that in February 1958 an apprentice shoemaker, Joseph Pyke, died in hospital some days after being beaten by a brother at St Joseph’s industrial school in Tralee, Co Kerry.

The hospital, however, could not link his death to the beating and the cause of death was variously described as septicaemia and plural infusion (pneumonia).

In a statement released at the public hearing, the Congregation of Christian Brothers said allegations of abuse at Tralee began to emerge in 1992, “but they were few in number”.

Following the apology by the Christian Brothers published in national newspapers the number of allegations had increased. They further increased following Taoiseach Bertie Ahern’s apology and the establishment of the Residential Institutions Redress Board.

“The Christian Brothers, in making the submission, do not wish to justify or excuse, in any way, the hurt and damage done to those who were abused,” the statement said.

An order of nuns who ran an industrial school for girls also apologised yesterday forfailing to provide for their needs.

The Sisters of Mercy operated St Joseph’s School in Dundalk, Co Louth, for more than 100 years until it closed in 1983.

The order said the sisters had at all times sought to provide for the needs of the girls who had been sent there from broken homes.

“But no institution, even if it were perfect, could ever recreate what a loving home offered or even substitute for the love of parents, particularly for vulnerable and traumatised children who were frightened and lonely and suffered so much and lost so much,” said Sister Anne-Marie McQuaid.

There were two general inspection reports in 1944 and 1966 which were severely critical of the nuns’ care of the children in the school. They revealed that the children looked dirty, unkempt and underweight and had lice.