Founded on Fear Read online

  Certain episodes, particularly of the abuse, remain in the mind long after. One of them is the ritualistic flogging of naked boys as they entered or left the showers. A particular form of cruelty seems to have been the practice of forcing them into showers that were too hot, by the fear of being beaten or actually being beaten. Those who were last or merely tardy were consciously beaten. Then when the showers became cold or freezing and the boys would attempt to avoid the jets of water, they would again be lashed at.

  The same Brother initiated a reign of terror in the refectory by introducing a no talking rule that was enforced with immediate and amazing severity. This Brother would ritualistically punish his charges – the ‘monitors’ he selected – for crumbs on the floor, for dirty fork tines and myriad other ‘offences’.

  When Brother Vale was beating a boy during a meal, I often tried to count the number of blows being struck, but always lost count after seven or eight. There was a better chance of keeping count, by looking away from where the beating was taking place, and concentrate on the sound of the rubber as it struck the child’s head and back. Another way was to count the number of screams, as some children – but not all, would scream in terror after each blow. Big Kenny was not beaten again after he had passed a motion of the bowels during a severe beating during breakfast one morning.12

  It was the ‘torture’ inflicted by this Brother in particular that seems to have made the entire Letterfrack experience an eight-year nightmare that never really ended for Tyrrell. Without this particular Brother, Tyrrell’s time in Letterfrack would undoubtedly have gone better. The awfulness of his time does to an extent revolve around the barbarity of one particular individual. So to an extent there is a certain element of subjectivity to it. Tyrrell was unfortunate that Brother Vale was the disciplinarian for most of his time there. He was also unfortunate that Vale was removed from Letterfrack and entered a ‘mental home’ only after Tyrrell had left. Another subjective element is that the emotional effect of this abuse is hard to gauge in that it seems to vary from person to person. A latter-day account, Fear of the Collar, makes the point quite well when it shows how one boy would cry and scream when hit. After the Brother had let him be, he would casually chuckle to an aghast onlooker that his screams were only to make his tormentor go away. Whether he was pretending to be brave or not, it indicates that punishment affected boys in different ways. Some could bear it while others could not.13 Clearly, it terrorized Tyrrell. Being hit, the fear of being hit, the awful anticipation of being hit, the fear of living under the oppressively watchful eye of Vale seemed to terrorize more than the action itself. It is purgatorial to read, and leaves us hoping the end of Tyrrell’s time in Letterfrack would somehow come quicker.

  All these occasions of abuse could legalistically in some perverse way be understood as ‘discipline’.14 What cannot be explained away is the cruelty inflicted in the classroom for what the Department of Education explicitly proscribed, that is, punishment for ‘mere failure at lessons’. Some of the saddest passages in Tyrrell’s account relate to instances of boys being repeatedly abused simply because they did not know an answer. We now know that this was widespread and by no means confined to Letterfrack. Indeed it was largely Sheehy Skeffington’s complaints over the persistence and excesses of corporal punishment in 1950s Ireland that led Tyrrell to contact Skeffington. What Tyrrell’s account does demonstrate is the effect these corrections had on students over an eight-year period. Boys with stammers were beaten to make them speak normally. Boys with poor memories – ‘a lazy mind’15 – were beaten to make them remember. The unsurprising effect is that their faculties were impaired and their conditions made worse. In certain cases they ended up as cultured imbeciles. The lack of care, ignorance and abject cruelty involved in these cases – inflicted on them by individuals who had received training in the education of young boys and who themselves were educated – is hard to fathom. A different era, with different standards some might say. Perhaps, but the Brother who allowed the defenceless and ill boy known as ‘Caleba’ to be brutalized by other boys is a moral perversion that would shame any society.

  The net of guilt spreads even wider. Although it may in some cases be laid at the feet of certain individuals, and though we are happy to point at the religious orders, it is clear that it is not exclusively the fault of either. Tyrrell’s text shows the extent to which the goings on of Letterfrack were well known in the community, and in some cases were carried out by laypersons. One of the most damning aspects of this account is the way the lay teachers and the instructors, the tradesmen, labourers and caretakers are all woven into the society of the industrial school. It was of course a major part of the community and a sizeable portion of the local economy, but it is surprising to a latter-day eye that so many were employed there. What one imagines as a remote, almost cloistered order really was nothing of the kind. The sad thing is that those who knew of the brutality were either complicit or were barely able to utter it themselves. As in the sympathetic case of Annie Aspel who acknowledged what was going on to the young Tyrrell but could not bring herself to mention it, it is almost as though a silent hand were covering her mouth. The ‘good’ laypeople of Letterfrack, that is, those who did not brutalize the children, feared the Brothers themselves who in this case were their moral guardians and, no minor detail, their employers. The others, who worked there and also knew, were themselves not a little intoxicated with their own tiny measure of power, and abused it accordingly. The one lesson that Skeffington would have us draw from Tyrrell’s account is that all levels of society are complicit. The individual, the community and the nation bowed to authoritarianism and did not have the moral courage to stand up to the abuse of authority.

  This is the merit of Founded on Fear. It allows us make sense of the industrial school mess. It enables us see the phenomenon realistically. It provides us with actual examples that resonate and linger in our minds. As well as the gruesome passages teeming with the monotony of destruction, there are occasional snatches of relief, and even joy. It is hard not to feel the young Tyrrell’s elation and excitement at Christmas, even if this is tempered with the knowledge that the good food is only for the day, or that the Brothers’ metamorphosis from oppressors into playful fellow celebrants of Christmas lasts equally as long. There is a similar, almost strange sense of liberation when we hear that the Brothers have departed for a six-week holiday, or that the boys’ annual day out to the nearby Tully strand will not be cancelled, and that this event, with its almost sublime quality, will actually go ahead. It is also a relief to hear that the parents are still alive and, despite their obvious poverty, send them letters, a cake, or clothes and money. It’s hard also not to feel Tyrrell’s bitterness towards his father for landing him in Letterfrack, or to understand why he hardens his heart toward his beloved mother. After eight years in Letterfrack the brevity of his letter to her is the most eloquent testimony: ‘My dear mother, Just a line hoping to find you well, as this letter leaves me at present, Peter.’16 It also allows us to see the havoc that was wreaked. This is very clear from the portion of Tyrrell’s memoir that deals with his time after Letterfrack. After he was released he returned to the family home and worked as a tailor in Ballinasloe for over two years. Here we can see how pronounced the psychological effects on the young Tyrrell were. There was no release or deliverance. He had been scarred and it would haunt him. This manifested itself in a number of ways. He could not deal with any responsibility or stress. He sweated profusely in the most normal conditions. He was sullen and uncommunicative, avoiding conversation with all of his family except his mother. This was in contrast to one of his other brothers from Letterfrack, who became aggressive and could fly into rages at the drop of a hat. His relations with women were crippled. Even though they found him sympathetic and attractive, he was inhibited and crushingly nervous in their company. He felt no self worth and could not imagine that any girl would want an industrial schoolboy. This was part of the terrible social
stigma that affected exinmates. He felt as though he belonged on the lowest rung of society. As a consequence he avoided as much of society as he could, walking the long way home through fields rather than come under the eyes of his neighbours. Because of this social suffocation he could not adjust to normal life. It was more because of this than economic necessity that he left for London. The bewilderment and insecurity he felt there – with no address to go to, no clue where to stay, no idea what to do with himself – resulted in him accepting the suggestion that he should join the British Army, which he did in 1935.

  He was posted to Scotland, with the King’s Own Scottish Borders regiment. Despite many trials he adapted very successfully to army life and served in Malta and Palestine, and for most of the war in India, and even the Himalayas. He overcame many of his fears, received further education in the Army, and was twice promoted. He fell in love in India with a beautiful young girl, Angela Dennison. From his letters to Owen Sheehy Skeffington, he gives a good portrait of her. ‘She was seventeen when I first met her. She was sitting on the floor of her house eating curry and rice from a very big green leaf. She looked lovely and beautiful and perfectly natural ... She was polite and well-mannered, but I liked her best when she first told me to go to hell saying “Go to hell Paddy, you bloody pig”. She called me Paddy, pronounced “Paddee”.’17 They had a relationship in India in the middle of the war, and it is clear that she and her family were keen for him to propose to her, but he was unable to not only because of his tenuous position in the Army, but also because it seems that he was both too nervous and too lacking in self-esteem to be able to go through with it.

  I was not well, and I would have to face this awful fact. I was being driven in opposite directions by an equally powerful force. I wanted to marry her more than anything in the world but was afraid that I would not be good enough, or that I would let her down. This was my mental conflict.18

  Just how fond of her he was can be gauged by his agreeing to go to a dance with her. He was literally terrorized by the prospect of this for weeks. Eventually he went, but only after steadying himself with drink, and was delighted when it had to be abandoned due to an air raid. The effect of Letterfrack on his life, even in this period when he was beginning to free himself from his past, is clear from the cruelties he inflicted upon others; people he did not wish to hurt, but nonetheless did:

  But when I was worried or depressed I took it out on the Indians. This went on for two years... That night I began to identify myself with the Christian Brother. I found myself behaving in almost the same manner as Brother Vale. It was then that I began to think of sadism as a terrible and contagious disease. I remembered in previous years I used to think for days and days how best to hurt somebody I didn’t like. I bought Angela my girlfriend an expensive watch and a few weeks later I went to her house and asked for the watch back. I was in love with this girl, yet I deliberately hurt her. A few hours later when I had fully realised what I had done I remembered that look on her face as she handed me back the watch.19

  Sadly, because of incidents like this and because he was not able to take the final step, their relationship ended.

  After the Allied invasion into France he was redeployed to the Western Front in 1944. His company landed in Holland. Over the following few months they fought their way through to near the German border, where he was wounded and captured. He details his four months in Stalag XIB Fallingbostel and describes it as a ‘heaven on earth’ compared with Letterfrack. Tyrrell was undoubtedly impressed with his treatment by the Germans. There was a civility and togetherness in the POW camp and military hospital that was at odds with his memory of school. Because he was well treated by the Germans he was reluctant to believe stories of Nazi extermination and preferred to blame it on disease rather than mass murder, and even goes so far as to say that had a gas chamber been offered to him when he had been in Letterfrack, he would happily have chosen it. It could also be noted that he failed to perceive the obvious parallel between the German treatment of the Russian prisoners and Ireland’s treatment of its industrial schoolchildren. Western prisoners were treated humanely, while Russians were abused and starved by the Germans. It was something which perhaps should have sprung to mind when he saw the similarities himself: ‘Most young children suffered from chilblains. The backs of the hands were red and swollen and a mass of watery sores. I noticed this amongst some of the Russian Prisoners of Stalag Eleven B.’20 It has to be said that whatever his subjective feelings about the two regimes, his comparison of the food allowances is startling.

  The bread ration is two thin slices a day, two potatoes, a portion of sausage meat, a table spoonful of sugar, and on alternate days we get a portion of honey or jam. There is now no salt. We get black coffee twice daily and the sauerkraut which the doctor has advised us against eating. The bread ration is half what we got at Letterfrack. The potato ration is about the same. The sugar is slightly more in prison than at Letterfrack. The butter or margarine is about the same. At Letterfrack we got fish or rice or rhubarb on Friday, which we don’t get in prison. Here in prison there is a cheese ration once a week or sometimes twice. So taking the food ration all round we were slightly better off at school in Ireland. But there is more variety in prison. But older prisoners from different camps say that it is the smallest ration they have seen. Don’t forget we are living in a country which has been fighting a bitter war for six years. She has been fighting three of the most powerful nations on earth. Life here in Stalag 11B Fallingbostel during the last months of the war is hard and unpleasant. Yet it is a Heaven on earth in comparison to my life at school.21

  That a grown man could feel better cared for in a Nazi POW camp right at the end of the war with Germany on its knees, than as a young man in peacetime Ireland speaks for itself.

  The war experience seems to have given him a great deal of confidence in himself and shown him that he could overcome his fears. He returned to England in late 1945 a different man with a good job in the Ministry of Supplies. In many respects this was the crucial period of his life.

  This job lasted almost two years and I must say I was beginning to really enjoy life. I had learned to mix and enjoy people’s company instead of being the odd man out. I was no longer afraid of people. I had learned to cast aside that terrible inferiority complex. I didn’t blush or tremble when I met superiors. I didn’t jump out of my skin when my name was called ... Yes I had beaten most of my fears. I learned to cycle, I learned to drive a car, but failed in the test, which didn’t worry me because I feel I could pass another time. I learned to swim, and done a lot of mountaineering whilst in the Himalayas. So there was a good deal to be thankful for. I was afraid of going in the boxing ring, not so much of being hurt as being laughed at. I did eventually put my name down and entered the ring at the depot in Berwick on Tweed. But my opponent had such long arms I couldn’t get near him.22

  His war experiences show fully the downward slide that accompanied his rejoining the Irish emigrants in London. Unfortunately, after the war his job disappeared and he found himself unemployed. At this crucial juncture two things happened. Firstly, he returned to tailoring. His newly won status and confidence disappeared and he found himself travelling for work again. At the same time he met one of his friends from school. This seems to have been the catalyst for his preoccupation with his experience in Letterfrack.

  As we were being introduced, Thornton recognized me immediately, and before I had a chance to speak ‘O Yes, I know Peter, we met in Ballinrobe’ said Thornton, and as he did so gave me a wink. There was no mention of Letterfrack (I have never been to Ballinrobe). When Thornton and I were alone for a few seconds, he said very quickly ‘Don’t say anything about Letterfrack, if ever you want to speak about the school, always call it the SHIP.’ It is the most awful disgrace in the world to be identified as a boy from the Christian Brothers.23

  His reintroduction into an exclusively Irish community seems to have played a major part in a recrudescence
of anger.

  I should mention that before meeting Thornton, I had almost forgotten Letterfrack. I was inclined to be over confident, I was becoming a snob, almost too self centred, a hero, I was gambling heavy and winning about ten pounds a week. I spent a lot of money on clothes and would hardly go out without first pressing my trousers. I was a proper swank, always showing off. But after meeting Thornton, I gambled heavily and lost, I began to drink more. I travelled to London and met other lads from Christian Brothers Schools who told me stories even worse than Letterfrack.24

  Although noticeably different in many respects to his compatriots – they jokingly referred to him as ‘the professor’ because he carried a pen and paper and might write a few notes in the pub – and even though he seemed to drink less than they, after a few years ‘observing’ the Irish in Britain he fell into their cycle – a daily routine of work and the pub. He also seems to have lost his bearings, so to speak, and ended up travelling around most of the major cities trying to find work – Leeds, Liverpool, Birmingham, Bristol, Glasgow, Newcastle, but always returning to London.

  This part of his narrative is an equally necessary part of his story simply because as so many of the ex-inmates of Irish reformatories and industrial schools emigrated, it is integral to the industrial school experience. The aspects of exile that he did deal with were handled almost obliquely, but it is nonetheless a very revealing portrait. As with the rest of his writing he matter-of-factly relates the daily life of the uprooted unmarried Irishman in London: the mindless grazing every evening in the pubs, the exigencies, intrusions and complications of communal living are all told without embellishment.