Founded on Fear Page 4

  Similarly, when he claimed that he had approached the Christian Brothers and had written to them and other authorities over the years he was being absolutely factual.47

  My brother visited Letterfrack in July 1955 ... I met him a month later and he told me that Letterfrack was just the same. He had spoken to about twenty children who complained of daily beatings. The pets received better treatment just as they did thirty years ago. The Christian Brothers were just as cruel and as savage as ever. Drastic action was now necessary. Instead of writing letters to the Ministers responsible and the Clergy – which were never acknowledged, I must think of some method of bringing the hateful bullies to their senses. I went to the Christian Brothers at Marino and warned them that I was about to start a great campaign against the torture of children in Catholic schools all over Ireland. I have heard awful reports from other schools especially the Deaf and Dumb school at Dublin, and the convents. I got no satisfaction from the Brothers at Marino so I went to the clergy, who warned me against interfering with the Christian Brothers schools, saying you are playing with fire, the Brothers are well able to look after themselves.48

  In June 2005 it became known that Tyrrell had in fact written and visited the Christian Brothers as early as August 1953. Having received no acknowledgement Tyrrell visited the Christian Brothers. The Brother who met him that day subsequently wrote to the order’s solicitor to inform him that Tyrrell might contact him in the future:

  I took it that he was working on the blackmail ticket and after listening to him gave him your name and address as our solicitor. I know you will know how to deal with him if he approaches.49

  As the representative of the order acknowledged some fifty years later, it was ‘a totally inadequate response’.50

  Other incidents mentioned by Tyrrell complicate our picture of Letterfrack: it was not all abuse by the Brothers upon the children. One example of a more widespread brutality and authoritarianism was the beating of a young lay teacher by an older Brother. Tyrrell also related how new Brothers were encouraged, to the point of instruction, to carry out corporal punishment. Other more complex issues like bullying and abuse of inmates by other inmates are all presented in his account. Part of the tragedy of his time in Letterfrack is that we can see from Tyrrell’s own life story how those who themselves were bullied could turn around and become an oppressor. It is something which he is honest about and to which he admits he fell prey. His remarkably even-handed account signals that ultimately abuse is a human phenomenon. As he pointed out himself, there was good and bad in Letterfrack. He reminds us that although it was set in idyllic circumstances, Letterfrack was impaired by a lack of money. Yet, our sympathy on this point is tempered when we see how the finances were divided unevenly and how one Brother in particular spent the school’s resources on himself. But Tyrrell also spends a surprising amount of space extolling the virtues of various individuals, who were ‘good or kind’. From his very first letter to the Christian Brothers in 1953 he made it clear that many did their best in the circumstances, and he has no hesitation in referring to one Brother as ‘a saint’.51

  More generally, there are a whole series of examples from Tyrrell’s account that bear out what he was saying. From a historical point of view the detail is faithful, as the way the world heavyweight fight between Jack Dempsey and Gene Tunney, or the great storm that practically wiped out an entire fishing fleet up the coast in Mayo, appear seamlessly in the narrative. Perhaps one of the most convincing examples is a simple aside that he knew one New Zealander amongst a group of POW escapees who were killed toward the end of the war. This particular incident was made into the Steve McQueen film The Great Escape years after Tyrrell’s death. And one of the people killed after recapture was indeed a New Zealander called Christiansen, the very same man whom Tyrrell recalled knowing.

  In the end, the final stamp of veracity is to be found in Tyrrell’s narrative ‘style’. As Skeffington noted from the first letter, it has ‘the ring of truth, unadorned’. It is free of embellishment and is told at the level he lived it. Beginning with the almost childlike recollection of cutting the horns of their family goat, the remaining years in Letterfrack are related by someone who we would guess is little more than a teenager. His hurt and fears are transmitted unpolished and raw onto the page. Likewise, his account of his time ‘under fire’ in the army recreates the immediacy, the confusion, and the fear. Perhaps this was because of the speed he wrote it at. No sooner were his twenty or thirty pages written than he posted them off to Skeffington. Remarkably, for a man who professed to have only the most basic writing skills, he managed to make it appear almost seamless: there was barely a correction in the four hundred or so pages of manuscript. Bar four or five passages scribbled out, the text runs like a long letter written in one sitting. But it wasn’t. There were over twenty separate envelopes sent, each with their postmarks to indicate just when they arrived, and each with their package of narrative literally stitched together with needle and thread by a ‘tailor to trade’. He assembled it so quickly, so urgently and so simply, that he wrote as though he were reliving it. It all comes across in a frightened, unstoppable, defenceless and uncomprehending way: the way he experienced it.

  Diarmuid Whelan

  July 2006

  Note on the Text

  What follows has been entirely transcribed from manuscripts posted by Peter Tyrrell to Owen Sheehy Skeffington over a five-month period. From November 1958 his story arrived in individual envelopes, which in most cases were literally stitched together. Each page was numbered and with few exceptions they are all in sequential order. One or two pages are missing from the original manuscripts and probably never entered into Skeffington’s possession.

  There were several difficulties in transcribing Tyrrell’s text. The main one was that he seemed to confuse commas and full stops, with the result that some sentences went on too long and others were ungrammatical or syntactically challenging. I have corrected this while trying, as faithfully as possible, to retain his style. It might not be a perfect writing style, but it is one that is particular to him: it is conversational, it blurs tenses, and it inhabits the past more than the present, but all to good effect. Another tic of his writing was to give capitals to every second word, which perhaps reflects his authoritarian education. The occasional grammatical infelicities are retained simply to allow the reader to hear his voice. Misspellings have beencorrected on the highly subjective grounds that Tyrrell was a proud man; while a few of them give an idea of what his accent was like (Senator was occasionally spelt ‘Sinator’), others like ‘cartmendor’ (carpenter) are too wide of the mark to be intelligible.

  Foreword

  It is with deep regret I find it necessary to tell my story, which I know will cause great pain and suffering to thousands of good and kind people in Ireland.

  Many of my readers I feel sure will ask the question, why I have waited so long? The answer is, because I had hoped to bring about improvements of conditions in Catholic homes for young children by other means.

  For a number of years I have been writing to responsible Ministers in the government, and the Catholic Church, as well as to the Christian Brothers and their solicitors in Ireland. But not only have I failed to bring to an end the criminal brutality, which in many cases reaches a degree of torture, but I have failed to get a single reply to any of my letters.

  If Letterfrack was an isolated case, or if any responsible person could prove to me that children are not being savagely ill-treated in Catholic homes, I would gladly throw away my pen. But I am certain beyond any shadow of doubt, that the appalling happenings, which I am about to tell you, are still going on to this day. Beating of children in almost all Catholic schools is the general practice. Education and training in Catholic schools is founded on fear, the fear of corporal punishment, and the fear of hell.

  Each day of my life I try to fight fears, most of which are imaginary. In a few cases I have been successful, but very often I find
a method of escape. Many times in my life I felt it my duty to hurt others, as I had been. The Irish are amongst the world’s most backward peoples. We are also most unhappy. The child who is beaten by someone bigger and stronger than himself, will very often grow up bitter and full of hatred of society. He will want to get his own back. He may one day hit back. I warn society against the child who has been hurt.

  Peter Tyrrell

  February 1959

  1

  Background

  It was raining that night in the summer of the year 1921. We didn’t have to look out to see what the weather was like, because there were holes in the roof. It was a felt roof, but a storm had blown part of the felt away several years before.

  We had a visitor that night, a distant relation of the family, a man called Costello. He hadn’t said very much yet, but we all knew what he wanted, he usually spent about three hours in the house and gave Dad a pipe of tobacco before asking Dad to give him a hand on the farm for a day or two, this could mean anything up to two weeks. Of course Dad would never refuse anyone. He loved to do favours for people, for which there was never any payment. He could do almost any kind of property repairs, new doors, windows, floors or even a new roof, yet he would do nothing at home. The last time Mr Costello was here, it was almost a year ago, Dad had promised to repair the roof the first fine day, but everybody laughed when the roof was mentioned, it had now become a good joke. Dad became very angry and threatened to put us to bed, but we knew he couldn’t do that, because six of us slept on the kitchen floor on an old mattress, and we could not go to bed until Mr Costello had gone home. There was only one other room in the house, where Mother and Dad and my other two brothers slept. There were no windows in the house and the floor was cobble stone because it was intended to be a stable, but Mother once said we moved in when the old house fell down, the gable end of the old dwelling is still standing. It’s raining much heavier now and Mr Costello has moved over to the corner to a more dry place, as there was a rain drop going down his back. Dad was now talking about his future plans, he had just got up from his stool and marked the place on the wall where he was going to make two windows, but Mother reminded him that he had marked the windows ten years ago. She also reminded him that he had not cut any turf for three years, that no crops had been sown for two years and the last time potatoes were sown they were allowed to rot in the ground before being dug up. I was sitting with my young brother under the table, it was fairly dry there and besides there wasn’t much room, with my sister and six brothers, all in a tiny kitchen. I could see my father’s face now, it was very red, he was furious. No one had ever spoken to him like that before. He went over and placed his fist on Mother’s nose, he threatened to leave her, he then said he would throw her out. Dad was well liked by everyone in the village, the neighbours all spoke well of him and he was most obliging and was always ready and willing to give a hand. If there was a sick horse or cow in the neighbourhood Dad was always there, his advice was second to none.

  A neighbour once said that James Tyrrell knew more than the doctor, the lawyer and the schoolteacher all put together. Yet in spite of all this, Dad at home was a lazy and irresponsible husband and father. Dad was now back to his old form. The argument with Mother was over and forgotten about. He was now telling Mr Costello a story, yes he loved to tell stories, and could keep an audience well entertained all night. Dad was not a liar as there was always an element of truth in everything he said.

  It’s now after one o’clock in the morning. We had no clock in the house, but Mr Costello told us the time, the rain is now easing off and everyone is getting restless. Mother usually makes tea when a friend or neighbour calls. But there is no sugar and only just enough bread for the breakfast. I heard Mother say early in the day that ‘all the two pounds (£2) which uncle John had sent us from the States was gone’. Dad’s reply was that ‘God is good’.

  Mr Costello is now getting ready to go and Dad says ‘what’s your hurry’ which is considered good manners amongst country folk. The visitor has now gone, and Mother is getting the bed ready on the floor. We all kneel down to say the rosary. Yes Dad is very religious. He prays and asks God to send us food for to-morrow. We have four acres of good land which has not been tilled for years and yet Dad prays every day and asks Almighty God to provide for us. There is no turf for the fire, although we have more than twelve acres of first-class bog. We could supply the whole village with turf, but we haven’t even any for ourselves: instead we must search through the woods for sticks and fallen branches. On our way back from the woods, we pick crab apples, blackberries and nuts. We go through the neighbours’ fields to hunt for potatoes and turnips, cabbages, or anything which will keep us alive for one more day. It’s now late autumn, Mother said the other day that it would soon be winter. I am not yet six years old but I can remember last winter.

  Mother used to go out begging and borrowing from the kind neighbours. One day she came home with 10 shillings, and my sister Norah and five brothers all ran across the fields to the village in their bare feet to buy food. They bought four big loaves, two stone of flour, butter, a pot of jam and two lbs of bacon. They were so hungry that they had eaten a whole loaf on the way back. Whilst they were away my eldest brother and I went to get sticks for the fire. Mother fried a whole pound of bacon on the big pan, and we all stood around the table dipping our bread in the fat. (We did not use plates, but soaked our bread in the frying pan.) A few weeks after Dad got a job breaking stones for the new road. He got 12/- a week. One day shortly after, a lady came to see my Mother who was still in bed. We were all told to go to the wood and play and not to return before dark.

  When we got home we’re informed by the lady that God had sent us a baby brother. My eldest brother Mick now was employed as an apprentice butcher for a few shillings a week. His employer was most kind and always gave him a parcel of meat to take home on Saturday night. We managed all right for the winter, by this time I had started going to school at Ahascragh, and the teacher Mrs Kennedy gave us lunch each day which she brought from her own home.

  Dad lost his job in the spring and we couldn’t go to school, because we had no clothes. I missed the school very much and the lunch which the teacher gave us was very nice indeed. She also gave us a sweet every day. We were always asking Mother to let us go back to school and we were told that very soon we would be getting a parcel of clothes from the States.

  About October 1923 another boy was born and Mother became very ill, from which she never fully recovered. She was confined to bed for several months. When she did get up she could get about only with great difficulty. Mother now became very fat, her hands and joints swelled up. She suffered terribly from rheumatism. Although she was only about thirty-eight, Mother was now an old woman. She cried with pain all the time.

  The parcel of clothing did arrive, but it was too late. An inspector for child welfare came to inform my parents that we would be all taken away and confined to a Catholic home where we should be given a good education and taught a trade, that is all the children under fourteen years. We went to school again a few days later. We all had new clothes. Joe had a light grey suit, Paddy had a blue serge, but I can’t remember what colours the others were. I got a jersey and pants. My sister Norah was now going out to work for a draper in Ballinasloe called J. Smith, and later for the sergeant of the guards. My second eldest brother, James, was also working for Lord Crofton, who lived in a mansion in the wood about two miles away. I remember one day when the school was closed taking James his dinner, it was half a griddle cake with butter and a pint bottle of tea. He gave me several apples, which were very big and sweet. I had never seen a real apple before, as the crab or wild apples were small and sour and very hard. The apples my brother gave me were better by far than those we stole from Nolan’s garden when they set the dogs after us. I heard that crab apples were dangerous to eat. I stayed with my brother until he finished his meal and then walked back with him to where he worked in a ten-ac
re turnip field. I asked him for a turnip to take home, and he told me to ask the foreman, who gave me a whole armful. It was now beginning to get dark and I had never been so far away from home before. I still had a mile to walk when I reached the wood wall, and about three hundred yards was thick undergrowth. If I had come back the way I came, that is to follow the path, there would have been no difficulty. I stopped at the wood wall, it was now quite dark, I would have to pass ‘Nolan’s corner’ or the place where Uncle Peter saw the ghost. I wish Dad had not told us that story, he was always frightening us about banshees and devils and bogymen. I went into the wood now but ran out again after about twenty yards. I followed the wall around until I reached the path. This path took me straight to our own four acre field a distance of only a hundred yards away. By this method I was able to bypass the haunted corner.

  When I arrived home I discovered that it was Saturday and Mick had brought home a sheep’s head, which Mother cooked with the turnips. I was happy to have been able to get them, as Mick was very fond of boiled turnips. It was good to see everybody standing around the table, enjoying a meal, and I felt proud that I should have been able to contribute. Dad was now getting ready to go out, he always went visiting when the chimney wasn’t drawing correctly. When the wind came from the north the kitchen was always full of smoke. The smoke made me cough and gave me sore eyes. Mother advised me to sit on the floor. This was a good idea, because smoke has a tendency to climb. James was now home and having his supper. I was hoping he would ask Mick to go with him to set the snares, they often set snares on Saturday night, to catch rabbits. For several weeks now they caught nothing. Mick said the rabbits in our district were too clever and he mentioned going to Clonbrock which was several miles away, in which case I would not be able to go, as they would go on bicycles. There was no mention of setting snares, they were going to a dance at the cross roads.