February 9 marks 65 years since the death of Arthur Joseph Pyke at St Joseph’s Industrial School in Tralee, where the state entrusted his care to the Christian Brothers.
he cause of death was initially given as senility but later changed to septicaemia. Even though Michael did not witness Pyke’s death, those who did say the 16-year-old died from a severe kick to his chest while he carried a plate of potatoes.
Pyke’s heart-breaking story is known to only a few people in Tralee today, his memory fading fast in all except for Michael Clemenger’s world.
“I’m riddled with guilt over what happened to Arthur Joseph,” he says.
The windswept bleakness of Rath Graveyard in early February offers little comfort to Michael as he walks us towards Pyke’s grave. Aged 72, one would be forgiven for thinking illness and age might slow Michael’s determination to visit the grave every year.
He travels from his home in County Meath to pay his respects to Pyke on his anniversary, a ritual he has kept going for over 20 years.
Michael boarded the 11am train in Dublin and headed straight to Pyke’s grave. He will take the 5pm train back to Dublin again. An eight-hour round trip pared down to a few moments of contemplation, aggravated by the sadness of a shared past.
Michael spends a few minutes watching over Joseph’s headstone in quiet contemplation, the rumble of traffic on the Tralee-Killarney road the only sound competing with the sombreness of the scene.
Michael and Joseph were victims of abuse at St Joseph’s Industrial School from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s.
As the author of ‘Holy Terrors: A Boy. Two Brothers. a Stolen Childhood’ (2009), Michael’s is the only definitive account of the abuse within the walls of St Josephs. He tells me he wrote his memoir because he believes the book ‘will live on’ after he is dead.
“Arthur Joseph got a kick in the chest, went down, and never got up again. To remember the great wrong done to him on his anniversary, that’s why I’m here today. He would have been 82 years old had he lived,” he says.
While Michael was sexually and physically abused during his seven-year stay in the Tralee institution, Pyke’s death is the wound that won’t heal.
It’s the wilful loyalty of a fellow sufferer that drives Michael. He is angry and perplexed that the circumstances surrounding Pyke’s death continue to be ignored.
“I developed a terrible guilt complex over what happened Arthur Joseph. I did the things I had to do to survive in there” he says.
“Time is running out for me, I’m getting on now. I don’t know for how long more I’ll be coming here. Who will remember people like Arthur Joseph when I’m gone? The story of what happened in that place must never be forgotten.”
Michael was born on November 1, 1950, to a single mother. Soon after, he was baptised and handed over to the Sisters of Charity in Stillorgan in County Dublin to avoid what he calls ‘too much embarrassment’.
In August 1959, along with 23 other boys, Michael was transferred to St Josephs, where he soon absorbed the grim details of Pyke’s death. Michael calls what happened to Pyke ‘a murder’.
“I remember when I first arrived there was a picture of Arthur Joseph hanging on the far wall, just beside the clock. I was told the story and the Brother was pointed out to me. I was told if he took a dislike to you, you could be on that wall,” Michael explains.
The litany of child abuse outlined in the Murphy and Ryan reports vindicate the testimony of victims like Michael, those who were ignored for decades.
Michael informed the guards in Kerry of his abuse after leaving St Josephs in 1967. They did not believe him. And, in a sign of the times, one guard even threatened to wash Michael’s mouth out with bleach. Criticism of religious orders was still a world away.
“I remember it was around the time Jayne Mansfield was in Tralee, and all the talk about religious and moral purity. Yet when I told my story it was blanked out,” he says.
The Ryan Report concluded that physical and sexual abuse at St Joseph’s Industrial School was ‘systemic and pervasive’. The report – in clear detail – lists the names of several Brothers blacklisted for violence towards children.
The names Br Eriq, Br Marceau, Br Jules, Br Beaufort, Br Millard, Br Reynard, Br Ansel, Br Maslin, Br Dumont, Br Sevrin, and Br Lafyette – all polished and refined pseudonyms – are cited for the most heinous acts of punishment against children from the 1930s to the 1960s.
The Ryan Report said of St Josephs: ‘Corporal punishment became physical abuse because of the excessive violence used and its general application and acceptance as a means of control of the Institution.’
It was within this soulless environment that Pyke lost his life. The truth behind his death remains unsolved. A criminal investigation was launched in 2009 into 13 Brothers at St Josephs, all of whom are now deceased. Michael has written to the Minister for Justice and Taoiseach, hoping to keep Pyke’s case alive.
“I asked them if there was some way that they could investigate his case again. They never got back to me. It’s part of the reason what I am filled with such sadness every time I make this journey [to Tralee],” Michael says.
“Arthur Joseph’s life was cut short by violence in a frenzy for which no one has ever been brought to justice. The attempts to muddy the waters surrounding the circumstances of his death over the years only add to the pain.”
Michal elaborates on this by saying the last time he gave an interview on the death of Pyke there was ‘considerable pushback’ and that nobody knew the real cause of his death.
“Everybody knew and anyone that investigates can see what I have known for the past 65 years: Joseph was murdered by a brute of a Christian Brother. Such was the [same] Brother’s animosity towards me, I was worried that I would meet the same fate if I was not careful,” he says.
As a way of surviving and avoiding severe beatings, Michael was forced to fulfil the sexual advances of two Christian Brothers.
Disturbingly, the Brothers would become jealous of each other’s relationship with Michael. But even this did not save him from beatings.
“It was particularly important to please those Brothers who had a major influence on what happened in the industrial school. I was told from the first day to be careful of them,” he explains.
“But it didn’t save me. One day I was brought down to the dungeon and put over a tea chest. The Brother just lost the head with a bamboo shoot, he just lost it. I went unconscious; I thought I was gone.
“That’s why every year I stand at Joseph’s grave a guilt comes over me at the things I did to survive. The smell of those sinful actions has stayed with me all these years later,” he adds.
“I was up there last year [the location of St Josephs] and all that remains is the tree and grassy area to the front. That’s where the Brother would make me run up and down with my shirt off, to get the sun. That’s the sort of perverse world we lived in,” he explains.
Michael said pupils from St Josephs were looked down on as second-class citizens at a time when being fixated on the virtues of Catholicism rather than Christianity was rife.
“We were only educated to a minimum; we were marked out as cheap labour, work horses with little preparation for what life would bring us. We were treated with suspicion by the townspeople of Tralee,” he said.
“I don’t like the word ‘bitterness’, but I feel disappointed that we didn’t get support from the people of the town, we should have. People looked down on us as halfwits. I used to go down to the town for meat and the newspapers every day, people saw me every day. They would hide from me.”
For all the darkness in his childhood, Michael knew knowledge would be a passport to what he called ‘a half-decent life’.
“One of the few advantages of childhood at St Joseph’s Industrial School was access to books,” he says.
Michael later returned to study and trained as a psychiatric nurse in the UK. He also married the love of his life, Mary.
“About three months after I came out of St Josephs, I did try to kill myself. It wasn’t easy afterwards. It still isn’t. If I didn’t have books, I wonder would I have lived to be an old man. Once I was between the covers of a book, I could escape,” he says.
“The greatest irony, which makes me smile, is that it would be me who would write the definitive version of events in St Josephs during the years I was there,” he adds.
Although steadfast in his belief that what happened Pyke was murder, Michael’s visits to Tralee have become emotionally and physically wearying. Despite his illness, Michael insists he will continue to keep Joseph’s memory alive, something he calls ‘an honour’.
“I just said quietly to Joseph there today that I don’t know when I’ll be back. How many more years I have to make this journey is in the hands of the Almighty now,” he explains.
“The scars will never heal. In the meantime, sleep well old friend, it’s what you deserve. This dirty secret in a small town will remain safe for another while.”
