In Artane Industrial School I kept all of my very worst experiences a closely guarded secret. I feared speaking of such awful embarrassing things, and I never understood them or, in my own naive and gullible way, did I ever really comprehend or realise the depth of satisfaction men like the Macker got from the power they wielded over us in such a brutal, physical way.
Looking back at what I experienced and witnessed, much of the physical abuse, and the way in which the worst of the Christian Brothers inflicted pain and punishment, was to a large extent sexually motivated. Young orphan boys like me bore the brunt of this physical and sexual torture. I remember so clearly how fearful the hours between prayer and sleep were. It was the night sounds. As I tried to sleep they became a big part of my nightmares.
3
IT TOOK ALMOST two years for me to become a hardened Artaner, and I was glad when my tenth birthday came around in March 1952: not because of birthday presents or a birthday cake and cards – there were no such luxuries in Artane – but because I was to report to the Brother in charge after breakfast to be given a job. I was to be placed in a new division and a new dormitory and, best of all, I was now allowed to take part in parades and the Corpus Christi processions.
I got up that morning as usual at half past six, while the Brother on duty, the Apeman, stood in the centre passage shouting, ‘Up, up, you pups! First three rows out to wash. Last two out will face the wall. Bed-wetters report to the monitor at the double. Soilers bring their soiled sheets to the boot room. I’ll make you suffer for the poor souls in Purgatory, you filthy wretches! Next three rows out to wash on the double. Last two back will face the wall!’
Though it was my birthday, it was just like any previous morning in Artane. Whether it was your birthday or Christmas Day or if there was four feet of snow outside, the regimental system remained the same. Break the rules of silence in dormitory, chapel, toilets or classroom and you were put out to face the wall or, when on parade, sent to the charge room to face the Dude or Driller the Killer.
That morning in 1952 I took my place in my old division, the sixteenth. I had a good feeling about the day ahead. When the Brother in charge shouted, ‘By the left, quick march!’ I glanced to my right at Quickfart and said, ‘Thank heavens this is our last day in this division.’
‘Yeah, I hear they’re lookin’ for five or six new boys for the refectory. The Brother in charge is a madman.’
‘What’s his name?’
‘The Drisco.’
Suddenly I was scared of a man I had never met. At Mass I prayed the Dude would send me to the Sewing Room in the Long Hall. But my prayers were not answered. I was sent to work in the boys’ refectory, seven days a week, until I was fourteen.
I will never forget the noise at mealtimes in the refectory. As soon as the Brother on duty blew his whistle for us to begin to eat we had to shout over each other to be heard, and we had to defend what we were given from other hungry boys.
As a hardened Artaner I enjoyed a good punch-up, and mealtimes were looked upon as ‘mill’ time, when fights often broke out over trivial things such as the loaf of bread not being divided evenly.
It had taken all of those first two years for me to adjust to the strict military system. In those early days I lay awake for hours at night listening to other lads crying. They had different reasons for their tears. Some of them were bed-wetters who were flogged in the boot room before going to bed – flogged not just for dirtying the bedclothes but also for being too slow to report it or not reporting it at all. I was one of those who believed the story that our dormitory was haunted by the Devil and that he promised he would return some night to scorch the building. In the early 1960s, in fact, it came about. My old dormitory, along with the cinema, was burned to the ground.
My worst fears, however, were reserved for the classroom. I feared the hard men like the Hellfire, the Lug, the Bucko, the Macker and the Sheriff. But in class I was known as a duffer, and I was awful at spelling, writing and maths. My poor backside was always on fire from the pain of the hard leather.
I had been sentenced to eight years in Artane Industrial School for being an orphan. What a crime! But I was not alone in that valley of tears, as so many others cried for their mothers’ love, only to be told to shut up by the Hellfire or the Apeman. I found sanctuary in the chapel, and I often stole away from the gang to be alone on cold, wet days in winter. I became emotional at the singing of the Latin Mass, and often wept as the boys’ choir sang the beautiful Latin hymns. I escaped, too, in my dreams. I walked the road from Barnacullia to the old schoolhouse in Sandyford a thousand times as I dreamed of my stolen childhood. It took many years for me to realise that there’d be no going back. In reality it was now only a beautiful dream.
When I first entered Brother Paul’s class in the autumn of 1952 I was not alone in feeling the bitter wind of change. From the moment he stood before us, I instantly felt terrified of the man nicknamed the Sheriff. I may have been naive and gullible, but I was nobody’s fool. I could rebel at any given time, particularly when I was getting a severe beating for a mere triviality, only to lead myself into further trouble and to find myself placed on a two-week charge, to stand guard on some bloody gate during recreation times and to prevent boys from escaping. Fat chance I had of ever preventing a kid from escape as I was very small and I so desperately wanted to run away myself many times.
Every Christian Brother was issued with a long leather, about eighteen inches in length, two inches wide and half an inch thick. These long, hard leathers were made several lengths of leather put together. Inserted in the lower half were slats of lead or iron to add weight and pain. The strips were then sewn together in the bootmakers’ workshop on the machines.
The Brothers used these long, painful leathers inside the classrooms for even the most minor of offences, such as getting sums and spellings incorrect, and most of the Christian Brothers used the leathers with force and brutality. Boys who were ordered at any given time to face the wall would receive six to twelve strokes across the hands or buttocks. When used with brute force against naked flesh, the pain was quite simply excruciating. I suffered horrendous pain from beatings I received from the Brothers in the classrooms on a regular basis.
The Sheriff had an uncontrollable vicious streak in him. For many years I was in his class and in his dormitory; both were run with fear through brutal physical force. I was often brutally attacked by this man, as were so many kids, for bad spelling, for bad grammar or for quite simply getting some question he’d asked me wrong. Even his tone had a cutting edge to it.
On one particular occasion in 1953 he indicated that I should come to the top of the class. I was so frightened of this brutal man, who so often whipped boys across the face and head with his open hands that I was just too scared to stand close to him. I always tried to stand back, but that day he was determined to get his evil way. ‘Move closer to me, boy, so I can get a clear view of you,’ he ordered. As I moved in closer I could smell his foul tobacco-tainted breath.
The first smack landed on the right side of my jaw. As I raised my hand to feel it, the second smack landed over my left ear and knocked me to the floor. Bells were ringing out inside my throbbing head as he pounded my face, both sides with fierce blows. I had witnessed him beat many of my pals in the classroom in similar fashion. As I licked the blood from my lips a thumping dull sound, similar to the fierce thundering sound of marching feet, swept the classroom as the Sheriff physically pulled me up by the hair from the floor. The noise grew louder and louder, and I dimly became aware that the entire class was chanting, ‘We want out, we want out, why are we waiting for the big break-out?’ The Sheriff stared down at my bloodied face, his voice filled with hate. ‘Face the wall, hold your hands straight above your head, drop ’em, you pup, and I will flog you naked.’
While I stood that morning facing the wall as I was ordered to, the Sheriff suddenly drew out his long hard leather and attacked the boys, brutally beating them ac
ross the head and face, while shouting at them to be quiet. When the classroom fell silent he ordered every kid in the class to bend over the desks and he systematically flogged every boy across the buttocks.
To this day I blame the Christian Brothers who used physical violence in the classrooms to get results, such as the Sheriff, the Macker, the Hellfire and many like them, for depriving me of getting a decent education. I feared entering their classrooms so much I couldn’t spell my own name. These men were men of violence who used fear to gain complete control over us. Boys wet their beds at night as they slept, soaked in fear of these evil, brutal men who were nothing more than a band of sadists and a discredit to the order of the Christian Brothers.
It was mostly the same teak-tough band of Brothers such as the Hellfire, The Apeman, the Bucko, the Macker, the Lug, the Sheriff, the Drisco and Joey Boy who acted out and performed their acts of cruelty on a regular basis. They went about the task of physically and sexually abusing boys under their evil control with a certain degree of lustful satisfaction and ultimate power. On any given day this cruel gang of Brothers dished out whatever form of punishment for any mere trivial offence to those boys who were ordered to face the wall. The punishment would depend on the mood these Christian Brothers were in once they were on duty.
When the Sheriff, the Macker and the drill instructor, Driller the Killer, were on duty together they were a frightening evil force. While in command of the Saturday showers and on general duty in charge over all the boys on parade during recreation, they were in their element.
Whenever I look back to the worst moments I experienced, I think of the brutality I witnessed at close quarters in that shower room in my early years, 1950 to 1955. These memories are among the hardest to bear.
As a ten-year-old I suffered at the cruel hands of the Macker and Hellfire, the Sheriff and Driller the Killer inside the shower room. I felt degraded and quite often humiliated at having to march naked in my division up the long back hall to enter the shower.
I remember one particular Saturday back in February 1952. As I lined up on the snow- and ice-covered parade ground in the fifteenth division, a bitter cold wind swept over us. The vast grounds were white. I felt pangs of hunger, even though I’d just had my slice of thick bread which was dipped in hot dripping and a mug of tea!
The Dude stood on the wooden platform dressed in his long black cloak, his black hat dipped to shade his eyes from the snow. He was built like an American quarterback. Alongside of him stood the most fearsome drill instructor: Driller the Killer. A monitor took charge of each division. Billy the Sly was in charge of ours.
Quickfart whispered as he covered his mouth with his hand, yet his words were picked up. ‘Hey, Collie. The Dude, he’s like a bleedin gangster, Harry Lime, remember in The Third Man.’ I nodded a silent yes as the monitor came close to us.
This monitor would have got on well in the Hitler youth movement, I thought.
His voice rose above the Dude’s, pointing at Quickfart, then at me. ‘Face the wall inside the shower room. You will suffer for breaking the rules.’
Just then a packed hard snowball crashed against the monitor’s head. I watched him grasp his face as he went down on his knees, covering his eyes. I heard a voice. ‘Ou-ra the bleedin’ way, Collie.’ The Burner put the first kick in, followed by Stewie and Quickfart. The Sly was pelted with snowballs before help arrived.
On hard, cold days in the depths of winter, when the snow fell, boys took their revenge on monitors and Brothers alike. No monitor was well liked.
That Saturday I marched with my division from the snow-covered grounds to the back hall. As the voice of the Dude rang out, ‘Left, left, left right left,’ I wondered who was on duty inside the shower room, hoping it was not the Macker.
The monitor shouted, ‘Division get ready. Halt. Stand at ease. Take your clothes off. Fold them up neatly and form up in silence.’
I lined up naked behind the Burner. ‘Who’s on duty?’
Whispering swept through the long hall when the big doors opened wide. The Macker, Hellfire and the Sheriff could be seen with Driller the Killer. I felt scared. What a team, I thought to myself. Then the order was given, ‘Division. Attention. Division by the left, quick march. No talking. Every boy must get soap and brush. Left, left, left right left.’
I marched with my naked division of sixty boys with fear in my heart. Fear so many of us shared as we marched into the spacious shower room. The air filled with steam. As I stood facing the tiled wall, as I had been ordered to do by the monitor, the Macker’s voice rang out, ‘Any boy without soap or brush face the wall. Hands straight above your heads.’ I could taste his smoke-tainted breath as he stood close to me. Then I heard the sound of leather crashing off naked buttocks mixed with screams of terror.
I dropped my arms aching with pain for a few satisfying moments of utter relief. But to my horror I was caught. I knew the voice. His smell. It was the Macker. ‘Oh God, help me,’ I murmured as my name was called. My naked body froze with fear.
‘Did you shower, boy?’
Afraid to look up at him I could hear Quickfart shouting at Hellfire, ‘Leave me alone, yeh bleedin’ evil bastard.’ His screams filled me with fear. ‘Bend down. Spread your legs wide, boy.’ The Macker’s voice was low and deep. ‘You lied, you pup, you lied.’
‘No, sir, no sir. Honest, sir.
‘Your anus is filthy, you did not scrub your anus, boy. Did you?’
‘I don’t understand you, sir. Honest, sir.’
‘There’s so much you don’t understand, boy. If you don’t know where your anus is, then I will show you.’ Suddenly I was lifted off my feet. I felt a lump of soap being forced up my back passage. I cried out but it was in vain. As he raised his voice, ‘I will scrub your anus for you, boy,’ I felt him push the broken half of a broom handle up inside me. As he withdrew it, I cried out. His voice was severe now. ‘This is for telling me lies, boy. Bend over, hands touching your toes, boy.’ The pain was excruciating as the leather crashed off my wet naked buttocks.
Then Driller the Killer blew the whistle for us to leave the showers and get towelled off. I felt relief as I dried myself down. Except for the awful stinging pain up my back passage, I’ll be okay, I thought.
I marched out of the shower room with my division to get dressed. Just as a division of older boys marched past us I got a glimpse of Oxo and the Burner. As I got dressed, murmuring swept over our division. ‘There’s a mill, there’s a big bleedin’ big mill. Look,’ said Stewie, ‘it’s Driller the Killer and two farm hands.’
I followed the kids to look on as two tough farm hands wrestled Driller the Killer to the ground. The Driller took a real beating from a few of the older boys before order was restored. I watched with many lads from my division as one of the farm hands was carried out and down to the Infirmary. Later we learned the boy received a broken arm and a busted nose for his troubles.
As I recall these incidents, I remember saying to my pal Minnie, ‘Can it get any worse here?’ He laughed as usual at being asked a question. I remember how he looked at me that day out on the snow-covered parade ground. He said, ‘I’m in here just as you are. But I hope it does, cos I love watching a good mill. So do you.’
4
FOR THE MOST part, the vast majority of the Christian Brothers were of good stock. There were good men who were not so hard or cruel to us kids in care. Many of these Christian Brothers used their free time to help and participate in sporting activities with us. Some of them organised drama and worked the projector on the cinema on Saturdays. They were hard when they had to be, but never cruel, evil or sadistic. Most were good men and true to us and to their order.
But then there were the rest. The child molesters, like Joey Boy and the Macker. As in all walks of life, there are those perverted men who will find the way to exploit young children while in their care and under their control, as I was for eight years in Artane. These men got their satisfaction by a combination of
physical force and sadistic brutality.
Looking back, I recall other Brothers such as the Sis, Rowdy, Brother Davaro. They made use of the attractive boys for their pleasure in a way that could seem kind and gentle. They all came to Artane in the summertime. Some of them, like Sis, Rowdy and Brother Davaro stayed longer, too long.
It was 1953, the year I was, most unfortunately, in the class of the Brother we called Joey Boy. I remember one awful day when I was reported by a monitor to him for swearing. I will always remember his beady look as a perverted smile spread over his handsome face. As he came towards me, his voice wavered. ‘Stand up, you pup.’ The classroom of almost fifty boys aged eleven fell silent. ‘Get out into the back hall, boy. I will make you swear, you’ll be sorry you were born. Step out.’ In fact I almost ran out. I heard his wavering voice: ‘Take off your boots, socks and trousers and lie over the bench, hands flat on the floor. I will teach you a lesson you won’t forget.’
He was right; I never have forgotten what he did. First, this sexually depraved Christian Brother used all of his strength to do what he promised he would by flogging my naked buttocks and thighs with a hard leather strap. Before cutting my naked ass, he beat the soles of my bare feet. It was then he pulled my arse between his legs and while he did try to force entry, my cries for help possibly prevented the rape.
But still, I felt him bouncing off my naked buttocks for quite a long, grunting moment. When he had finished I felt a wet and sticky substance on my buttocks and thighs. Thinking it was blood, I felt my arse but when I looked at my sticky wet hand it was not as I had expected it to be, red with blood. It was his semen. Many months later he repeated his sexual abuse in the same way on me in a room just off the practice music room in the long hall. I can still recall his radiant expression that evening as the band played ‘The Minstrel Boy’, a military march engraved in my memory.
Scars that Run Deep Page 3