Founded on Fear by Peter Tyrrell

Author:Peter Tyrrell [Tyrrell, Peter]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781407036410
Publisher: Transworld
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

11

I Leave Letterfrack

My term is up about June 1932. Although it’s only January 1931,I call this my last year, hoping they will let me ‘go out’ before I am sixteen. About one in three manage to ‘go out’ before their time is up. This can be anything from three to six months early. So far two of my brothers managed to get away before their time. I have known lads to leave school when they were fifteen. The P.P. at home just drops a line to the superior, I am told that a few pounds change hands. Some lads are claimed by their parents, and of course the priest must call to see if the home is suitable for the boy’s return. The essential thing is that the parents attend mass and contribute generously to the priest when he calls.

Almost all the old bullies have now left, that is the kind who ran the place when I first came. They were usually monitors who sat at the end of the table in the refectory. They distributed the food, and after everyone was served then went round and demanded a portion of food from the young kids. These monitors were usually fifteen, but George Gordon, our monitor, was only fourteen.

The monitor often copied the Brother who was in charge of him. That is in respect to beatings he beat the younger children under him in the same manner as he had been beaten himself. Ackle, a boy of about fifteen and a half in 1925, was a monitor and even worse than any of the Brothers. He was in Brother Dooley’s class, and Dooley used a heavy cane walking stick, so Ackle got himself a cane. Cavanagh, who had been several years under Brother Walsh, used a leather strap because Walsh used one. When I was ten I was polishing the floor in St Michael’s dormitory one day, when there was a boy left in charge of us. He was only about thirteen. He worked in the shoemaker’s shop and he used a strap to beat us exactly the same as the one Walsh used. He had made this strap himself, it consisted of two pieces of sole leather sewn together by hand. This boy was with Walsh for three years. Not only did he beat us in the same manner as Walsh but he pulled our hair the same. In 1925-26 it was not an uncommon sight to see a lad of twelve to fourteen having five or six very young children in line and beating them with a stick or strap. At that time it was fashionable for boys of over twelve to carry some kind of weapon. During my first few months at the school I can faintly remember seeing monitors using three heavy leather laces which were plaited together. The night man of that time used a number of leather laces which he used to flog the kids when he put them across the bed. Another method

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