Founded on Fear

by Peter Tyrrell

  Brother Byrne in charge of number 2 school was aged about 36, about 5'-8", with fair hair. A good teacher, he slapped the boys for failure at lessons, but only on special occasions, i.e. when it was obvious the boy failed because of inattention, or when he was lazy. Only a strap or light stick was used. Brother Byrne’s lectures were most educational in preparing children for life outside the school. He said on several occasions, that ‘children who were brought up in industrial schools were, generally speaking, failures’. (It was about this time that an ex-Artane boy was on trial for murder.) He went on to say that ‘children brought up in schools and convents, were starved of love and affection which is the very foundation of a healthy and happy life’. ‘Children with memories of an unhappy early life, very often become a serious problem, to themselves and society.’

  Mr Griffin see earlier chapters.

  Mr Hickey the bandmaster. A short thick-set man about 5'-3" in height, 28 years old, fair hair brushed back. An ex-Artane boy, he is a cruel bully. He spends half the time teaching the band and the other half beating them. He beats them with his fists and the drumstick. He pulls them by the hair and the ears. Hickey is full of vanity, he is proud and cocky. He is studying for an exam and if he passes he will be awarded the A.R.C.M.

  Mr Lydon the tailor is a rather big man, about 5'-9" in height, and about fourteen stone, with dark hair, and about fifty years of age. His son Martin Joe is learning the tailoring. This boy does not live in the school but with his father. Lydon is a very unfriendly man, and a poor teacher because he is not a good tradesman, therefore the children are backward in their learning and when their work is unsatisfactory they are reported to the superior, or to Fahy. Lydon has been the school tailor for eighteen years, and is training his son so that he will get the job when his father retires.

  John Cusack is the handyman, who does all the repairs to the property, and he also works on the farm. He is about 48 years old and 5'-6" in height, he is thick set. He wears a blue suit and a check cap. He is very good to the children and often brings them food from his home. During the summer holidays, when the Brothers are not about, he takes lads to his house which is only a half a mile from the school and there they are given food. He is always friendly and has a kind word for everyone.

  Tom Mannion works on the farm. He is a tall man of about six foot and about twenty-five years old. He is thinly built and an excellent workman, he is well liked by everyone. He lives at Cleggan. Festy McDonald is in charge of the farmyard and the slaughterhouse (under Brother Scully). He is about fifty years old of medium build. He is noted for his heavy drinking and obscene language. He lives a mile south east of Letterfrack. He is married with several young children. Festy is responsible for all the fowl and livestock on the farm, and has a very famous sheep dog. Festy once said he would be lost without his dog, because he can’t count, but the dog can, and if there is a sheep missing, the dog will go and find it.

  9

  Fifth Year

  It’s February 1929, we clean out the tailor’s shop and the dirty rags, old clothing, and clippings, which have collected under the bench are removed to be burned. The workshop has always been rat-infested probably because it is next door to the bakehouse. Most of the children’s clothing we get for repair is alive with vermin. Recently two electric irons have been installed, one is seven pounds and the other is ten pounds. The first week we get the irons, one is left on during the night and the next morning it has burned its way through the table. The play which has been rehearsed for weeks is now on tour. Brother Byrne accompanies them and a bus is engaged from Clifden. Joe O’Shea the mechanic has now left Letterfrack, and a man of about fifty from Dublin takes his place.

  Brother Keegan is found one morning lying on the floor of his room. He is seriously ill, and confined to bed for several weeks, and is seen by the doctor every day. Brother Kelly, who was office Brother in 1925 and 1926, has now returned to take over the duties of superior. Everyone is now very pleased because Kelly is a very quiet man, and is fond of the children. We don’t have to worry about stamps any more because those who can’t afford them hand their letters into the office and they are stamped by Brother Kelly. But many children have stopped writing home. Some forget about their parents after two years, others blame them for their being in Letterfrack.

  I am now thinking of a tailor of about fourteen years, the name is Tommy Hewitt, he never reads his letters. He puts them in the stove in the workshop unopened. Another lad from Galway city, called O’Brien, has turned eyes and wears glasses. He just tears his letters up without even reading them. To me this seems very strange, something which puzzles me, so I often try to make conversation with them in order to find out what is wrong. Why should a boy of 12 or 13 years forget his mother? Why should they act so strangely? I am now about 12 and a half, yet every day I think of home, and every hour I can guess what is going on. I know that dad will not be up before 10 a.m. and he will sit by the fire until about twelve. After this he will probably go to the pump for water a mile away. He will take the donkey and cart with the barrel, which he will fill to the top, but by the time he gets home, it will be only half full, as the boreen is so uneven and with the jolting of the cart the water will be lost. Dad will get a fair share of water over his clothes and boots, because he stands on the cart to try and keep the barrel steady. When he gets home, he will have to sit by the fire for an hour to dry his clothes. He will then have a meal if there is anything in the house. He had lots of things to do to-day but it was too late to bother starting so he would just wander off to the village to see the time, or would go to the wood to get sticks for the fire.

  On Sunday everyone would go to eleven o’clock mass, but would be late as usual. When we were at home it was my job to go to the main road to find out the time. Jack would come with me. As we were a good mile from the chapel we calculated the time like this. If there were people walking to mass it was about 10:30 a.m. If they were travelling on bicycles it would be 10:45 a.m., in which time we would be late. So with this information we would run back home as fast as our feet could carry us. My mother always went to mass in the donkey and cart and before leaving she would warn us to go across the fields to the chapel, as it was late, and this was a shortcut, and another reason was so that the people would not see our shabby clothes.

  It is almost Easter 1929. There is quite a lot of excitement but nothing like what it is at Christmas. It has been terribly cold all winter. We don’t get much snow in Connemara, but a lot of frost. Most of the very young children have been ill with chilblains, but I don’t get any this year, or at least my hands don’t break out like they did the first three years. My brother Jack is now working on the farm and is having a better time. Vale gave him a hell of a life. Vale’s leg is now a lot better, and he just limps a little. He has started beating the boys again just as bad as ever. The other day he flogged every one on our table because there were crumbs of bread on the floor after breakfast.

  He is back again on his old perch, he stands on the hot water pipe which runs along by the wall about nine inches from the floor. By doing this, he gets a good field of view, he can now see everyone in the refectory, and by turning around he can see the school clock which is over the door of number one and number two schools. He also keeps an eye on the steps leading down from the terrace, because Brother Kelly the new superior often comes down to see the boys at meals.

  Vale doesn’t seem to like the superior and always gets out of his way quickly when he arrives. It’s Good Friday and there is no mass today, but we go to the chapel just the same. We go again in the evening to kiss the cross. We all file into the chapel and take our usual place and as Brother Fahy walks piously to the altar steps to where the cross is laid, he kneels down and kisses the cross. We all follow and do likewise. After a breakfast in silence, we go to the dormitories to make the beds, and sweep and polish the floor. There is no school so we spend the morning cleaning the windows and polishing the washbasin taps. As I am cleaning one of
the back windows I can see the ‘Gough’ coming up the road, with a horse and cartload of fish for the dinner. Every two weeks we get fish, it’s always mackerel. When it’s not fish, we get rice and rhubarb mixed or rice with raisins in it. The food always gives me terrible indigestion, no matter what I eat in the refectory, but I do not suffer from indigestion when I get potatoes from the farm and roast them in the stove in the workshop, or the bread which Mr Hayden gives me from the bakehouse. We must always finish our food, if we leave any we get beaten. We always get soup on Monday and Wednesday, and very often there is far too much salt in it. It is in the soup the medicine is usually put. This happens about once a month and Vale comes round at the end of each meal to see that every boy has finished his soup.

  Easter passes without very much excitement. I get a letter from home and a homemade cake. Mother says that my sister Norah has gone to the States. She is eighteen, a relation has paid her fare, and has found her a job. For breakfast on Easter Sunday we have a boiled egg, with tea and an extra slice of bread and marmalade, and margarine. There is roast lamb, boiled potatoes and turnip. Supper the same as for any other Sunday plus a slice of cake. There is a whist drive that evening in the library for the senior classes, and prizes of sweets and chocolates for the three highest scores and the lowest score.

  Back in school again we are doing well under Mr Griffin. He only beats boys for cheating, and at the end of each lesson boys who get all their sums wrong, or get Poor for any subject are slapped once with a light rod or stick. For the last fifteen minutes each evening Mr Griffin reads a chapter of a book called ‘Sinbad the Sailor’ until the whistle blows for supper.

  The new mechanic has left the school as the work is much too hard for him, and he is over fifty years old. A man called Joe Kelly has taken his place. He is a relation of the superior Brother Kelly and everyone is talking about the big wage he is getting, three pounds a week. Mr Griffin who is now 42 years in Letterfrack is only getting a pound a week. Joe Kelly is known as the mechanic who always carries the book of knowledge, so that when anything goes wrong with a car or lorry he looks up his book. He is also the man who brings the new style of suit to Letterfrack. The black jacket which is very short, and the black trousers with a white stripe which are worn very wide at the bottom, 24 inches. The next to copy the new style is the bandmaster Hickey, who has now gone to London to sit for his examination in music which he has passed, he is now an A.R.C.M. He has returned to the school and is paid a higher wage. He is now a right pain in the neck. He has always been proud and cocky but he only speaks to the great people from now on. He no longer dines with the masters, they are not good enough for him. He dines with the nurse in the monastery. He spends all his spare time with Brother Fahy in the Library, they often leave the school together in the late evenings, and go for a drive with their girlfriends. Fahy now takes advantage of the new superior, because he is not as strict as Keegan, who did not allow the Brothers to go with women. Brother Kelly has now bought a new car called a ‘Desoto’, it is said to have cost three hundred pounds. The mechanic said it is very fast, it can do eighty miles an hour, and it is the latest model.

  The mechanic is now courting the carpenter’s daughter, and they are going to be married very soon. I do not know this man the carpenter well as I have only been in the carpenter’s shop a few times. It was in this shop a few months ago that John cut a wooden plank (the saw is worked by electricity). As Cummings could not switch off the saw he jumped up and caught the belt, to try and stop it and he lost a finger.

  In the tailor’s shop, work is more interesting, as the superior bought a long roll of blue serge material, and a number of the local people are having suits made at £4-15-0 each. It’s very much more pleasant working on good material. Up ’til now I have only done work for the children, and the material used is a very cheap cotton.

  Bob Donavan who is the oldest tailor in the shop leaves the school. He is over sixteen but had to wait until a vacancy occurred. He is going to a job in Westport and he will get five shillings a week and his keep. Donavan was a nice fellow and taught me quite a lot. We always envy a lad who is ‘going out’, that is the expression used for leaving the school, and on such an occasion every one becomes anxious as to when he will be going out. This time I have a friend called Bob Haywood from Galway city, he is my own age, and he works in the office with Brother Murphy. Haywood has promised to look up the rule book and find out for me when I shall be going out. So one afternoon I go to the office and as Haywood is alone we go through the book and find out that my time is up in October 1932. I have another three and a half years to do, so we work it out in months, weeks, and days. It seems a lifetime under such conditions.

  It’s now the first week in June and I am on serve again, with all the same lads as before. Vale now beats us almost daily when scrubbing the floor. It is a habit of his to come up and look at the bucket of water we are using, and say ‘that water is dirty, go to the kitchen and change it’. But when we go into the kitchen we find he has followed us in. As he wears rubber heels it’s difficult to hear him, and we dare not look back, to look back is a sign that we are afraid, and he always beats lads more when they are afraid of him. He has now got a lot worse than before the accident, we had a good time while he was in hospital, and for a few months after he came back.

  I went into the scullery a few days ago and there were two boys washing dishes in the sink, Stapleton and Sharkey, and as they worked he flogged them from behind, as usual. I asked Joe Baker, why it is that the rubber is so terribly painful and he explained that the rubber which Vale is using is the rim of the tyre, and is reinforced with wire which is running through it (steel wire). I have now been beaten several times daily for weeks, and when I go to the refectory for meals my hands are sweating. My sight is getting blurred and I am unsteady on my feet. I feel hungry but when I eat the food will not stay down. I am now weak, and as I walk along find it difficult to keep my balance.

  I now get bad dreams in my sleep, I am always running away, but there is a man behind me, and he is getting closer and closer. I want to scream but I can’t. I now wake up and I am sweating all over. I want a drink of water but am afraid to go in the dark, I try to keep awake because I am terrified to go to sleep. I do sleep again but there is an even worse dream. I am flying over water, there is no land in sight, I am now losing height, as I touch the water I wake up again more afraid than before. It’s now only a few days until the holidays commence and Vale is standing at the organ, he appears to be looking towards our table, he is swaying slightly from side to side, like a cat about to spring at a mouse. He is swinging the rubber and hitting the leg of his trousers, we are well used to this, everyone knows he is about to beat someone, but who? That is the question. We are now having breakfast and as I drink the tasteless cocoa, I am thinking of previous years at this time. Vale becomes a savage brute during the last few days before going away on holiday, some of the lads say it’s because he does not go home, but spends his holidays praying at a monastery. He now walks fairly quickly towards the kitchen. We dare not look to enquire where he is going, it would just be too bad if we did. All of a sudden there is a scream of agony as he attacks two boys. One lad we call ‘Redskin’ and John Kelly, they are both about twelve years old. There is no doubt as to who he is beating. I can always recognise the voice of ‘Redskin’ as he cries ‘please sir, forgive me sir’, this is repeated every time he gets a blow. They each get about twenty blows on the back and head. Kelly is now being flogged. He is very brave and doesn’t cry very much. I have seen this boy being savagely beaten on many occasions. He goes snow white in the face. Vale always gives him several terrible blows on the backside when he is scrubbing the floor.

  Vale is now standing on the water pipe again. I glance towards him, and he is, or I imagine he is looking at me. I hope my face does not start twitching again, because he may think I am talking. This has worried me terribly of late, the left side of my face shivers and trembles, and my left ey
e closes and opens very quickly. In order to try and stop this twitching I sometimes bit into my upper lip real hard, until the blood comes from it.

  The breakfast is over and we are now doing the washing up. Vale calls a lad called Murtaugh, who is small for his age, he is about eleven. Vale sits on the—3 and puts the lad across his knee and pinches him first playfully, now harder, until the lad begins to cry and shout. Vale is now using the rubber. He is flogging him. Murtaugh is in a state of hysteria, he is laughing and crying, he is now allowed to fall on to the floor.

  This is a terrible method of punishment, which I have suffered many times, but it’s not as bad as the bathroom treatment. Having experienced this kind of beating it’s even more horrifying to watch, than the actual beating. In other words the victim in this case is better off than the onlooker. We are all lined up now for inspection with knives and forks and spoons (sometimes the spoons are not inspected). We are standing by our tables for inspection and Vale is back on the water pipe. He looks out the window towards the clock, usually he walks around and looks at the floor under each table but not today. He hits the wall with the strap, which is the signal for attention. As we look towards him, he signals with his head towards the door, this means we can go, but he does not follow us. Usually he beats the last one or two.

  * * *

  The first day of the holidays is simply wonderful. As the new car, the Desoto, takes the Christian Brothers away to Clifden station there is a great sigh of relief. Brothers Fahy, Conway, Byrne, and Murphy all leave. Everyone is sorry to see Byrne leaving, and Brother Murphy, because they are real good people. There is no visible sign of happiness or excitement. On this day there is no laughing or shouting or singing as on Christmas, even when one looks the children in the face. One may still see the frightened look in their eyes, only sometimes an occasional smile and from a close friend, one’s own age. It is not unusual to find a boy huddled in some corner crying. I have seen lads on this day standing in small groups without saying a single word. We are lost for words, the change has been too sudden. We are caught unawares as it were. It takes time to learn to be happy after this quick change from unpleasure to pleasure.