Children whose only crime was poverty

FOR many of the thousands of children committed to the industrial and reformatory schools system, their only crime was poverty.

Others were removed from their families because they had ‘mitched’ from school, and even to protect their physical and moral wellbeing.

Court committals of girls and boys for non-attendance at school was “severe and far reaching,” the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse concludes. Furthermore, there was little or no challenges against the evidence of gardaí and child protection inspectors whose evidence led to committals in the brutal schooling system.