The 'unfortunate' life and times of children in the care of the Brothers
The hearings were widely reported in the media. Particular attention was given to the extreme brutality of one Christian Brother whose teaching was reinforced by violent beatings, one of which resulted in a child's jaw beingbroken.
The sisters who appeared apologised, expressed regret, and made the claim that the first the Order knew of the cruelties and the suffering was in October 1999.
Since one of the sisters was provincial leader of the Order, this is surprising.
But in common with virtually all the testimony coming to the commission - at least in its public sessions - the norm is for the spokesperson to be at arm's length from the events, and therefore from responsibility for the allegations made to the commission and its chairman, Judge Sean Ryan.
It is a different matter when the investigation committee meets in private session. Then, there is indeed direct conflict of evidence, with victims giving details and naming their tormentors. Those charged with abuse defend themselves, or are defended, sometimes by squads of lawyers.
I confine myself here to Tralee and to the Christian Brothers. The case for the Order, on Tuesday morning, came from Brother Seamus Nolan, a member of the provincial leadership of the Christian Brothers, but one who never himself worked within the industrial school system.
In respect of his general testimony, no defence was offered for the brutality of the unnamed teaching brother, his acknowledged violence and the extremity of this behaviour. Nor was there any apology for the failure by the Christian Brothers to put a stop to him.
Instead, like sexual abusers among clerics within dioceses, the moving around of this offender, and presumably others, was the automatic and only response. This spread the violence from school to school. Implicit in this and in other evidence - including evidence that a boy died following a brutal beating - is a very dismal indication of what went on.
Brother Nolan was a relaxed and plausible witness. He used the word "unfortunate" many times. Records were kept only minimally, statements of complaint - were any victims brave enough to make them? - were not taken, and all of this was "unfortunate".
So too was the fact that the legal requirement of keeping a punishment record, or punishment 'book', was widely abandoned, as early as the 1920s. This was universal within the Order. Brother Nolan said that the programme for discipline was the same as in all Christian Brother institutions, that is, no record of sadism, brutality, excessive physical assault.
Brother Nolan told us that the Christian Brothers participated in the annual meetings of all the congregations that ran institutions across Ireland and used to hold Christian Brother meetings either the day before the general meeting or the day after.
One wonders, did they discuss punishment records, teaching records, health records? Did they tell the other congregations they had abandoned keeping 'all that stuff'? Did they discuss the 'unfortunate' lack of law-abiding management and co-operation with Department of Education regulations?
Brother Nolan acknowledged that washing facilities were "inadequate". It is a constant theme throughout the industrial schools. I have seen them in Daingean, and in Letterfrack before the makeover, and they were appalling. I know that the children did not have toothbrushes. Dental havoc has been one of many lifelong miseries for many I have met. 'Unfortunate'.
Brother Nolan told Tuesday's public session that "improvements were discussed but not progressed". The toilets were in the yard. They never "managed" to modernise them. 'Unfortunate'.
The lawyer took Brother Nolan through all of this, relying on the statement previously furnished. The lawyer for the commission, in my view, dealt with the controversial issues in a way that did not penetrate to the heart of them, in particular over the whole question of funding, sustaining the fiction about limited government funds - with much more money available within the UK, this simply was not the case.
Judge Sean Ryan intervened rarely, and without much additional bite. The room was packed. The elderly victims, in comparative silence, heard what I believe was a sanitised version of what might have happened, all of it 'unfortunate'.
It is quite different in the confidential sessions. There the abused confront their abusers and real argument is in the air. One recently involved two alleged victims who were present for the cross-examination of a brother.
One victim had his brutal punishment acknowledged by the brother who had charge of him at Artane.
But the same brother fiercely denied a charge of extreme sexual abuse made against him and other brothers accused of regular sexual assault in a dormitory at Artane.
It turned out that the allegation by the second victim could not be sustained or supported because the brother in question was on sabbatical throughout the period identified in the false accusation.
Truth was upheld on the one hand, falsehood apparently detected on the other.
In another private session, lawyers for the Christian Brothers attempted to cross-examine an abused plaintiff on his membership of Irish SOCA, the support group, Survivors of Child Abuse.
Despite the intimidating environment, the man challenged their right to adopt such an approach. They were, he said, obliged to deal with his case, not his affiliations with an organisation that has done more than any other to bring the truth out. After some argument Judge Ryan sustained this view.
Will we ever arrive at the truth of what happened, unwrapping the layers of confusion that still surround the commission in its work?
