I speak for those whose lives were taken from them
I wish to add my voice as ‘PRO’ for the abandoned, forgotten, voiceless children who also took their own lives, for those whose lives were taken from them, for those buried in unmarked graves, and for those who died in servitude in the poisonous grip of the religious.
I wish to add my voice for the children who had no knowledge of their medical history because of medical neglect which unleashed fatal diseases like Huntington’s Disease into the population, with the death toll still mounting.
I wish to add my voice to my brother’s spirit.
He, like me, spent 10 years in an industrial prison - the last six months of his sentence being spent in a mental hospital. He died in the winter of 2003 in England and his hopes for justice died with him. I wish to add my voice to the chorus of others who still seek justice for having their constitutional rights ripped from them and sent into industrial prisons where they could be whipped, locked into a cell for up to two days on bread and water, have their mail opened, get three hours of education and six hours of manual labour daily, and be released on licence like a common criminal. There’s much more.
I do not deal in opinion, but fact, and everything I say I can prove.
I challenge Ms Hogan to do the same. Every day the drip feed of information regarding the conviction of paedophile priests, Christian Brothers, and other religious hits local, national, and international media with mind-numbing regularity.
Their silent complicity was a central component in their web of deceit. Ms Hogan waits with confidence for her predictions to come through, but these fly in the face of previous reports spanning 70 years ending with the Kennedy report in 1970.
The Ryan commission’s predecessor, the Laffoy commission, ended with the resignation of Judge Laffoy due to her frustration at the Government for stalling and withholding information from her.
All of these commissions had one common denominator: they clearly denounced the industrial prisons as wrong. I intend to prove that they were not only wrong, but also constitutionally illegal.
I dedicate this letter to the memory of my brother, Michael, and to all of those who passed through the industrial prisons of Ireland.
Barry Clifford
18 Carrowmannagh
Oughterard
Galway
