‘Hidden Ireland’ haunts us still

INSTITUTIONAL abuse and neglect is something we associate with the past, with that “Hidden Ireland” in which a deeply conservative quasi-religious ethos held sway.

An Ireland where children were sent to frightening industrial schools for stealing apples or mitching from school and single mothers could find themselves detained in virtual concentration camps. A time when any of these detainees could be subjected to humiliating punishment or ill-treatment by the people supposedly looking after them or responsible for their care.

Watching The Magdalene Sisters, we cringe in shame, embarrassment, or revulsion, but breathe a sigh of relief that we’ve moved on since those dark days of ignorance and terror.

If only such horrors were all in the past… because now we learn that a substantial percentage of our fellow citizens are at risk of spending their lives in abject misery… and again in institutions that are ostensibly under the State’s “protection” and “control”.

A recently published detailed report on a state-run psychiatric hospital in Ireland reads like a horrifying extract from the annals of the Magdalene/industrial schools’ era: the report tells of patients languishing in small, stuffy rooms and being given poor quality food. It alludes to an ambience of fear and menace in the hospital and a threatening atmosphere in the corridors… to a lack of handwashing facilities for patients.

There are also references in the report to mysterious bone breaks and fractures at the hospital. And the investigators noted that very few residents had any personal mementos or pictures of loved ones to remind them of happier days.

Surely none of us would wish a relative — or anyone — to endure such a miserable life.

One wonders if we have learned anything from the legacy of past wrongs. Those physical and psychological scars have yet to heal and victims still seek justice. Will we now ignore the plight of another set of people who may be unable to speak up for themselves?

If, as a society, we allow our fellow citizens to suffer abuse or neglect in homes or hospitals, we will be upholding that same shameful tradition of looking the other way that characterised the institutional era. Except this time we can’t pretend we didn’t know.

John Fitzgerald

Callan

Co Kilkenny