At age 78 all I want to know

■Patrick Rice on November 9th, 2009

At age 78 all I want to know is who my family were. I understand funds were made available for tracing family members. After a number of months I’m told there are no records of my 8 year ’stay’ in Kilkenny, nor my 6 years in Artane!

I did however learn of the shocking evil the Church State inflicted on the whole family. I’m now in no doubt as to why none of the family I met for the first time on my release refused to talk about the whole affair.

Sadly I had nothing to do with any member of the family, except the one remaining relative, a sister. Now in her mid eighties she lives in Ireland and still can’t talk, and I respect that. The problem is since I left Ireland at age 17 there was never a home or country to return to.

Research is providing more questions than answers. It appears I had three brothers. Two birth certificates are available but only one name. No death certificate to match the births or to show cause of death. Because the third boy was born out of wedlock there is no record except a date of birth which shows he was/is five years younger than I. The woman that was my Mother was considered a ‘fallen woman’ and therefor lost all of her six children. I was shipped away from Dublin and became known by a different name.

Unlike the rest of the family who took their secret to the grave, I intend to speak out. To say they have no records of my time in these places I say without fear, I know they are lying. These religious orders came up with plenty of information when accused of wrong doings. The nuns challenged me on statements I made in my book ‘Lonesome Stray’. I’m sure they were surprised that I was able to name nuns and lay staff that worked there. In addition I was able to describe the whole layout of the place, after 70 years.

If these people think they are going to shut me up then they are mistaken. The first chapter in my new book ‘Dare to Dream’ is titled the Battery Children, it’s about these child prisons. They never educated me but like many things in my life I’ve never let those evil people win.
Patrick

Did these people who met the bishops not learn anything from their days in the child prisons?
The religious orders taught me nothing, but like the other children I was trained well. So well that I can still spout some Latin better than a trained parrot. It mattered little that I still don’t understand the meaning.
One gang like to tell us; “Give me the child, till it’s seven and I’ll show you the man.” Many other religions might well preach the same and the results can be witnessed around the world.

With my own education in the university of the world and I mean just that; the Far East, Middle East and European countries I worked and lived, I understand it. They mean,”I’ll plant the seed of fear in the mind of the child and there after she/he is mine to control for life.”

Had the christian brothers taught children in Artane and other Institutions to think freely, to apply logic to reason problems, they would not had control by fear. How other, were less than twenty ‘brothers’ able to maintain control of more than 800 boys during my ’stay’ in Artane?
These people dressed in strange black uniforms are not to be looked up to, rather are they to be avoided like the plague.
Some thirty years ago I made a short visit to Dublin and visited Artane ‘School.’ It was quiet with only a handful of band boys about. I’m sure that many survivors may well have reacted as I did to the sight of a one black garbed ‘brother’. I flew into a rage and attempted to attack him. But for the intervention of the boys, I hate to think what I might have done. That fear they instilled had turned to hate.
Later on as I walked along O’Connell Street I confronted another ‘black garbed’ fellow:
“What are you?” He replied; “A Christian Brother”. It’s taken me many years to realize it was unfair of me to have told him: “You lot are no Christians and do not fit the definition of Brother.”
There is no way that I would enter the same room as any men in black, never mind hold a meeting with them.
The information I’m uncovering about the way my family were treated by the State/Church more than ever confirms they are not to be trusted. Their mind set is not in the real world. They preach one thing and do the opposite.
I leave you with just an extract from a letter written in 1937 by the Manager of the Industrial School my sister was in.
“The Archbishop sternly forbids his flock to send their children to non-Catholic schools.
We know that the voice of the Bishop is the voice of Our Lord Himself for us, for he has also told us that “he who hears you (meaning His Bishops and priests) hears Me.”

The letter was sent to my father who was refusing to return the girl to the school.

He was fighting to keep his family.
It’s a strange old world, the law was changed in 1955 ref Supreme Court Re Doyle, an infant. A father was fighting for his daughter and won. Doyle was my Mother’s maiden name!

Als de grote klokke luidt, de klokke luidt, de reuze komt uit.
Kere weerom, reuze, reuze, kere weerom, reuzegom.