Memories of corporal punishment

EdgeCase

I think the worst story that I've heard was from one of my gran's sisters. She was saying that on her first day in school, aged 4 a nun walked past, my auntie thought she was smiling at her and naturally enough smiled back. The nun actually had some kind of problem with her false teeth and a facial twitch which made it look like she was smiling. She reached out and slapped her hard enough to knock her flat on her face crying and kept shouting "I'll knock that smile off your face!"

This was a 4 year old girl, who was absolutely tiny at the time and had ringlets and little glasses. I don't know what kind of utter savage could actually do something like that? I mean it's absolutely insane when you think about it.
She was just a bubbly little kid and had never experienced anything like that in her home life.

She didn't seem to stay in school for very long, as far as I am aware she left when she was 12, worked and then went back to the tech to do design, moved to London and continued on and ended up having quite a successful career absolutely no thanks to the nuns anyway.

.......

Lorelli! wrote: »

I remember being told about the meter stick and how if you moved your hand back naturally from fear and they missed, you would get it much worse on the next try so you would have to stand there shaking trying not to pull away.

Yes, I learned quite early that if you moved your hand TOWARDS the metre stick it was less painful getting hit by a more middle part of it than the end - law of the lever (although I didnt find that out til much later!!).

But you had to be careful not to look like you were being impudent doing it - as that would also result in a worse beating.

Lorelli!

EdgeCase wrote: »

I think the worst story that I've heard was from one of my gran's sisters. She was saying that on her first day in school, aged 4 -

A nun walked past, my auntie thought she was smiling at her and naturally enough smiled back. The nun actually had some kind of problem with her false teeth and a facial twitch which made it look like she was smiling. She reached out and slapped her hard enough to knock her flat on her face crying and kept shouting "I'll knock that smile off your face!"

This was a 4 year old girl, who was absolutely tiny at the time and had ringlets and little glasses. I don't know what kind of utter savage could actually do something like that? I mean it's absolutely insane when you think about it.

I only ever saw one incident myself with a nun but it was a later time. I was talking to a taxi driver there a couple of months ago and he was telling me about his experience with the nuns after he was orphaned. Some horrible things and he was clearly still traumatized by it. I remember thinking how hard it must have been especially with him living there so he couldn't even get away from it.

road_high

EdgeCase wrote: »

I think the worst story that I've heard was from one of my gran's sisters. She was saying that on her first day in school, aged 4 -

A nun walked past, my auntie thought she was smiling at her and naturally enough smiled back. The nun actually had some kind of problem with her false teeth and a facial twitch which made it look like she was smiling. She reached out and slapped her hard enough to knock her flat on her face crying and kept shouting "I'll knock that smile off your face!"

This was a 4 year old girl, who was absolutely tiny at the time and had ringlets and little glasses. I don't know what kind of utter savage could actually do something like that? I mean it's absolutely insane when you think about it.
She was just a bubbly little kid and had never experienced anything like that in her home life.

She didn't seem to stay in school for very long, as far as I am aware she left when she was 12, worked and then went back to the tech to do design, moved to London and continued on and ended up having quite a successful career absolutely no thanks to the nuns anyway.

We like to slag off England in particular but it was an absolute safety valve for so many to get away from the nastiness and small mindedness of Irish society.
That story is heartbreaking but so real. This were the same **** pontificating about unborn babies in 1983. Despite the sheer contempt displayed when they were actaully born.
People say Ireland isn't/wasn't a class society? Well it absolutely was in education and social class determined how you were treated and thus how long you'd stay.

road_high

Lorelli! wrote: »

I only ever saw one incident myself with a nun but it was a later time. I was talking to a taxi driver there a couple of months ago and he was telling me about his experience with the nuns after he was orphaned. Some horrible things and he was clearly still traumatized by it. I remember thinking how hard it must have been especially with him living there so he couldn't even get away from it.

If you were orphaned (so many mothers died in childbirth then) you were screwed- men weren't deemed fit to look after kids and if you were working class even more so. Only for my own grandmothers father was a farmer they'd have been taken into a hellhole "care" home when their mother died. It was a living hell for people like the taxi driver.

EdgeCase

road_high wrote: »

We like to slag off England in particular but it was an absolute safety valve for so many to get away from the nastiness and small mindedness of Irish society.
That story is heartbreaking but so real. This were the same **** pontificating about unborn babies in 1983. Despite the sheer contempt displayed when they were actaully born.
People say Ireland isn't/wasn't a class society? Well it absolutely was in education and social class determined how you were treated and thus how long you'd stay.

There was an element of similar in England, but I think it's really going back to the Upstairs-Downstairs era of Edwardian class ridden divided society. Ireland in some ways seems to have extended the social divides of the 1920s way beyond WWII and into what should have been the modern era. The UK went through some pretty radical transformation in the 1950s and 60s and, despite still having things like a formalised class system, it did become a much more open and modern society much sooner than we did. Ireland really caught up in the 80s and 90s and in recent years that's accelerated fairly exponentially.

When you look at how the school system here evolved though, the church basically ran a class system. You had barrier fees that allowed you to create schools for the influential and schools for the plebs. So, the children of the local influencers : doctor, lawyer, politicians, business people etc tended to go to the posher school which had the nicer nuns, priests or brothers and probably didn't experience the kinds of extremes of those who went to the local CBS rather than CBC.

I'd also suspect that's why the urban (and I don't just mean Dublin) movers and shakers in society here had a rather more positive attitude towards the Church(es) role in education than your typical person who was dragged through the local hell hole secondary school.

It's the same with the health system. We didn't radically reform a system that ran as a mess of private and charitable hospitals. Instead we just started writing it cheques from the public purse until it evolved into what is now a sort of a public health system. The NHS on the other hand was a radical post war reorganisation of everything.

I mean if the NHS screws up, EVERYONE including the local lawyer, doctor, MP, is impacted. If the HSE screws up, 49% of the population has top-up insurance to bypass it. So, those most exposed to the chaos of a screwed up public system tend to be those who have less influence and voice anyway, so nothing gets done.

I mean, yes we don't have titles and landed gentry and all of that nonsense but we could do a hell of a lot more to live up to the republican values that we are supposed to espouse. There's a lot more to being a republic than just deleting 19th century British symbolism.

I genuinely do think we have made massive improvements, it's just that we need to actually sometimes hold a mirror up to to things like the health service and the education system and see them for what they are - clapped out Edwardian systems that were never radically reformed.

Neady83

gozunda wrote: »

The thing is it wasn't just teachers - anywhere where there was an abuse of power- teachers, priests, social workers, guards there was a tendency for abuse whether that was beating the sh1te of small children or corruption - it was part and parcel of every day life unfortunately.

My father, who is 80 now, over the years (when he had a few drinks) talked about having to run away or escape from certain men who lived on his route home from school. He said that he would have to go through fields and bushes to get away and that he would arrive home with torn clothes and cuts and grazes and get a telling off from his parents. I'm sure that there were plenty of others who weren't so lucky to get away and who've never told a single sole about about what happened to them.

It's heartbreaking to read all these stories and to think about the impact that the cowardly actions of people with power have had on a whole generation.

The Irish Times did a piece on the childhoods ruined by corporal punishment only last year.

jmayo

corner of hells wrote: »

I can remember the son of a famous Dublin footballer getting seven shades beaten out of him on a regular basis by a Kerry teacher in the 70s for no particular reason other than Kerry and Dublin.

I was in primary school 70s early 80s and secondary in the 80s.
In primary school saw 8/9/10 year old lad wet himself with fear as he was considered the slow kid and always got the rod for not knowing his sums, his spellings, his prayers, etc.

Saw some teachers punch, kick and slap lads in secondary school.
Then if someone sent to principal they got the belt.

Although that is nothing to stories from my parents who had been in school in 30s/40s.
They claimed one kid actually died because the welts on the back of his legs got septic.
The local parish priest went to the family and lectured them how the teacher was a good man.
How the fook the father never plant both him and the teacher is beyond me.
Nothing ever happened, but it was a well believed story.

Listening to the stories it sounded nearly like a concentration camp and not schools.

One great story I heard though is of two brothers that fought back.
They were nearly finished school being about 13/14.
One day the usual teacher started laying in one of the brothers and because small school his brothers class was also in the room.
The brother jumped in and the two preceeded to belt 7 shades of shyte out of the teacher.
The other teachers heard the commotion but didn't step in.
The lads just picked up their bags and left.
They were legends to some, but awful ungodly hooligans to church ar**lickers.

.......

I always assumed some of the beatings being meted out in religious orders schools were a direct result of the frustrations that the abuser was experiencing from being forced to life an unnatural life with no sexual outlet.

Many people in religious orders were forced in by their family, again, victims of a society that had no place for an unmarried woman or too many sons to split land with etc....

EdgeCase

I heard a few stories first hand and second hand accounts of the Magdalene institutions that have really never left me.

I wouldn't ever have been religious but I was baptised and when the 'Count Me Out' campaign was running, I formally defected from the Catholic Church and outlined my reasons for doing so, which were both my lack of interest in religion and more so the abuse scandals.

When I was in my late teens, a neighbour's mother told us the story of her experience in one of those institutions and really it was so bad that at the time it seemed so extreme that it seemed almost unbelievable. I'm not saying I didn't believe her but some of the accounts were mind blowingly disturbing. I'm not going into the detail of them here because I don't want to have someone feel she's being identified, but the accounts were truly awful.

Then as the media reports of what actually went on in those places came into the mainstream and everything she said tallied with what the worst of some of those reports were showing, I just was so disgusted with the institutions involved that I couldn't ever have anything to do with them ever again, even having them consider me some kind lapsed catholic / non participating member was too much for me. So, I made my protest formal, wrote to a Bishop and left. They responded more or less wishing me the best and that was it.

I've no issue with people's personal religious beliefs, but I have a massive issue with how the Church was organised and what it did as an organisation. I can get past the state in the sense that it's the elected will of the people and that has changed radically, but the church clung onto that stuff and attempted to burry it and hide it. That just isn't something I could be in anyway connected with.

It's a decision that I have never once regretted.

EdgeCase

jmayo wrote: »

One great story I heard though is of two brothers that fought back.
They were nearly finished school being about 13/14.
One day the usual teacher started laying in one of the brothers and because small school his brothers class was also in the room.
The brother jumped in and the two preceeded to belt 7 shades of shyte out of the teacher.
The other teachers heard the commotion but didn't step in.
The lads just picked up their bags and left.
They were legends to some, but awful ungodly hooligans to church ar**lickers.

The other side of that though was where people did stand up for themselves, they were often sent off to industrial schools, certainly until the 70s anyway. There was huge power wielded by these institutions and systems and there was that constant threat of being sent off to one of those places.

TeaBagMania

from the accounts iv'e read here, id much rather the industrial school

EdgeCase

TeaBagMania wrote: »

from the accounts iv'e read here, id much rather the industrial school

Why? They just meant you'd the same treatment 24/7 365 in full prison like conditions!

jmayo

TeaBagMania wrote: »

from the accounts iv'e read here, id much rather the industrial school

No you wouldn't.
It was effectively prison.
And there was no escape.

At least you got out of school at 3 or 4 o'clock and weren't spending the nights shivering waiting for some perverted cu** to get you.

Plumbthedepths

TeaBagMania wrote:

from the accounts iv'e read here, id much rather the industrial school

You really wouldn't, I have a friend who spent some time in one of those hellholes, he attempted suicide at 13 to try and end the abuse. Some time in hospital and the decency of some members of the education system gave him a future .

TeaBagMania

so if you stood up for yourself you went to prison? what in the hell

wiki reads its for the neglected, orphaned, and abandoned... how did you go from having parents to orphaned, did parents disown their children?

apologies for the ignorance in this subject, obviously i didnt grow up in Ireland.
My great great grand parents left Ireland for America in 1865 and now im starting to understand why they did

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Schools_in_Ireland

EdgeCase

If you hit a teacher in the 1950s, 60s, 70s etc, quite likely yes. You'd have been carted off to the Children's Court, convicted and sent off to Industrial School which doubled as juvenile detention centre. I assume if you punched your teacher in the US in the same era, you'd probably have been facing criminal charges too and probably "Juvi".

The 'industrial school' system here was was basically a throwback to the Dickensian poor law type setup and was rife with abuse.

i'd also point out that corporal punishment is still legal in 19 US states and practiced in 15 of them with some of the Deep South states reporting 50% of students having experienced corporal punishment in school in 2016.

Ireland's now gone from one end of the spectrum to the other. Corporal punishment was banned in 1982 by regulatory order and then any legal protections for teachers etc were fully removed in 1997 and then for parents in 2015.

If you slapped (spanked to use US terminology) anyone here, regardless of whether you're their parent, teacher or anything else, you'd be facing charges of assaulting a minor and potentially prison time.

So, I guess lessons were learnt and acted upon... eventually.

EdgeCase

EdgeCase wrote: »

Given the frequency of accounts and the total lack of cases taken against teachers, schools and institutions at that time, the sad reality of it is that is must have been acceptable. Otherwise these stories would be rare and worryingly they're not. It seems like it was just tolerated.

What gets me about this thread is that people contributing their horrible stories, are "filing" them under a thread entitled "Corporal Punishment". I've a lot of reservations about that.

What i'm reading now are stories of pure child physical abuse- that, even back in 1982 and before, wasn't acceptable behaviour-well not in the society I grew up in- and even as teenagers, the people I went to school with, knew that.

In our school, the headmaster/mistress was delegated the responsibility of "corporal punishment- which constituted a few slaps on each hand with a leather/cane if justified i.e. giving cheek to teachers, extreme disruption in class etc etc.

No teacher, in my experience, ever hit a child- it was always the head master/mistress, "administering corporal punishment as stated above- and that was over a number of schools I went to. While "wrong" in today's society, it equated to the odd slap by a parent towards a very bold child- while again, not right today, wasn't something you'd open up an enquiry into in 2019.


However, what I'm finding from this thread, is that people's interpretation of "Corporal Punishment" is based on their experience in their school- naturally- but what's emerging are gross stories of child physical abuse, that even then, for both old and young people in society at the time, wouldn't have been classed as "acceptable", by any means.

Certainly, if I was subject to having my head rammed through a plate glass window or whatever, by a teacher, I'd be gunning for that teacher today- that's not nor wasn't what corporal punishment was about back in the day- but obviously, there's teachers out there that need to be held to account now.

TeaBagMania

EdgeCase wrote: »

i'd also point out that corporal punishment is still legal in 19 US states and practiced in 15 of them with some of the Deep South states reporting 50% of students having experienced corporal punishment in school in 2016.

I grew up in Florida and it was more or less phased out, while still legal most choose not to.
Just leaves the school district to vulnerable for lawsuits, not to mention every parent here thinks their child is perfect and incapable of wrong doing.

Back in my day we were given a choice, three licks with the wooden paddle or a three day suspension. We all chose the paddle as it was less painful than having to explain to your parents why we were suspended.

Now the school has to call the parents and get their approval before paddling, if the parents refuse its a three day suspension

NewbridgeIR

I went to a CBS primary and there were still Brothers teaching then. One had a drumstick and would routinely hit boys on the knuckles or across the backside (after making them stand at the back of the class). One particular day he hit a boy across the face with the drumstick. Blood. Even then that was seen as way beyond the pale and we expected that he would be disciplined / sacked. The boy's father (an ex-boxer) was regarded as a "hard man" and the following day he arrived at the school to confront the Brother. We all thought "yes - he's met his match and will get his comeuppance". They went into an office and a few minutes later the father left looking very meek and grey in the face. Nothing more was said.

We found out a few years later the reason - the Brother had seriously heavy republican connections and threatened to have him "sorted out" unless he dropped it.

Sardonicat

The level of violence dished out here, especially to boys is frightening. Yet these animals were left in their posts to terrorise and traumatise generations of of children and then to retire and draw a pension.

The nun who taught me I'm 3rd class was notorious in my town even amongst those who didn't attend my school. A few years before I had the misfortune of being in her class she punched a girl in the back while holding a pair of scissors and actually stabbed her. Her sister was in the same class as me and the nun never went near her. I cant comprehend how her parents allowef her to be left woth that obviously insane wan.Morning than once she ripped earrings out of ears. I witnessed this. I was punched, pinched and dragged around by my hair. She once slapped me so hard across the face that I was knocked to the floor. I told my parents and when my mother went down she made a big show of affection will squeezingyou cheeks. She was actually digging her nails into my face. As soon as my mother was gone she punched me in the stomach and ridiculed me in front of the class. I could go on. Most of the other girls received similar or worse but she kept away from girls with "prominent ' fathers.

She never actually taught us anything just rehearsed a 'class' for the cigire's visit. The rest of the time we were singing or colouring in. How was this type of abuse allowed to continue for decades up and down the country?

Plumbthedepths

Deleted User wrote:

In our school, the headmaster/mistress was delegated the responsibility of "corporal punishment- which constituted a few slaps on each hand with a leather/cane if justified i.e. giving cheek to teachers, extreme disruption in class etc etc.

Awesome you are quoting how corporal punishment was to be administered, sadly this was rarely how it actually happened in real life. Then again you didn't believe physical punishment took place in the school continued after 1982. Btw a few slaps is never justified no matter whether you think it was or not.

Plumbthedepths

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

Awesome you are quoting how corporal punishment was to be administered, sadly this was rarely how it actually happened in real life. Then again you didn't believe physical punishment took place in the school continued after 1982. Btw a few slaps is never justified no matter whether you think it was or not.

Stop misquoting me. I never said I didn’t believe it. In fact I told a poster I did believe them - what I said was I was in disbelief- something completely different but you obviously don’t have the intelligence to comprehend the difference.

Plumbthedepths

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

. Btw a few slaps is never justified no matter whether you think it was or not.

And you can leave the fkiing condescending lecture out also - I spoke in context of corporal punishment in place at the time as administered and guided by the Dept of Eduacatin- a historical fact . I never “ justified” it so you can fck off with trolling.

Plumbthedepths

Deleted User wrote:

Stop misquoting me. I never said I didn’t believe it. In fact I told a poster I did believe them - what I said was I was in disbelief- something completely different but you obviously don’t have the intelligence to comprehend the difference.

You seem to be on a mission to insult and denigrate the experience of others. You don't think not believing and disbelief are not the same. I wouldn't question your intelligence or lack thereof. I do however find it amazing that all the schools you were aware of carried out corporal punishment in the manner it was proscribed by the dept. Personally I think you are spouting rubbish but that's just my opinion and possibly the opinion of several others here. Prehaps you can respond without an attempt at insult, something you have engaged in on a couple of occasions so far on this thread.

Plumbthedepths

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

You seem to be on a mission to insult and denigrate the experience of others. You don't think not believing and disbelief are not the same. I wouldn't question your intelligence or lack thereof. I do however find it amazing that all the schools you were aware of carried out corporal punishment in the manner it was proscribed by the dept. Personally I think you are spouting rubbish but that's just my opinion and possibly the opinion of several others here. Prehaps you can respond without an attempt at insult, something you have engaged in on a couple of occasions so far on this thread.

You’re so far off the mark with all your comments that I couldn’t care less what you think at this point.

Plumbthedepths

Deleted User wrote:

You’re so far off the mark with all your comments that I couldn’t care less what you think at this point.

Just re-enforced what I have said about your comments. I didn't ask for your care or your thoughts. It's evident from a few of your comments you think the physical abuse of children had a place in the education system . Personally I find that mindset abhorrent. Anyway I'm not out,( saves you saying 'good' as you did to another poster) just done responding to you.

Plumbthedepths

Plumbthedepths wrote: »

Just re-enforced what I have said about your comments. I didn't ask for your care or your thoughts. It's evident from a few of your comments you think the physical abuse of children had a place in the education system . Personally I find that mindset abhorrent. Anyway I'm not out,( saves you saying 'good' as you did to another poster) just done responding to you.

Post reported

kowloon

pawrick wrote: »

As an 80's kid things were starting to change when I was in national school, however there was a nun in my school who would randomly take out her mood swings on the boys in our class. She always referred to us as the "bad boys" and the girls as the "good girls".

If you hadn't said she was a nun I would have thought you were talking about one of the teachers from my primary school. All lay teachers there, so the blame doesn't lie with any religious order, although there was still plenty of religion.
I reckon more than one teacher worked out their Misogyny/Misandry by picking on the children. People trapped in unhappy marriages before divorce might be part of it, it's easy to take it out on the children.

The worst that happened to me was being dragged along a corridor and down some stairs by the hair. I remember a kid from the 'special class' being lifted up and punched by a teacher and left struggling to breathe. Corporal punishment was banned at this stage and from my experience, most teachers were able to avoid the urge if they ever had it, although some just found new ways to torment the kids. One teacher encouraged the class to bully a girl she didn't like, just as twisted and damaging as a slap imo. No idea what happened to the girl but she was in a different class the next year.

I went to a secondary school run by Jesuits and the headmaster was a prick, but none of them ever laid a hand on anyone afaik. There was one issue where a kid had spent some time in the headmaster's office and instead of going home that day killed himself. The headmaster announced it to the school along with a few carefully placed words, can't remember the exact way it was phrased but it was along the lines of him being a troubled boy and the suicide not being the result of any one thing.

Stovepipe

One of our teachers was a temperamental little bollox who had been taught how to box, so he knew how to punch. One day, he picked on and bashed one of the lads so hard, he fell against the partition and it burst open and the victim fell into the class next door. That teacher stopped our guy at once. Next day, he was back at the top of the class as if nothing had happened. The victim was not in class and there came a knock on the door a few minutes after the class started. He went and opened the door himself, which was unusual, as normally the nearest boy was jobbed with opening the door. A big fist came in and the teacher was immediately knocked flat on his back, much to our shock and delight. It turned out to be the dad of the victim, who stood over the teacher with a clenched fist and warned him off hitting his son ever again. Turned out, the dad was a docker and as hard as nails. The teacher waited until the dad had left and then crept out. He didn't come back until the next day and was a very quiet chap thereafter, but he invoked the usual revenge of not teaching the victim............the left hand thing? My sister got slapped constantly on the hands by a particular nun for writing left-handed, whilst being forced to try and write right-handed until she kicked the nun in the shin and got a slap again for her pains. My dad went across to see them and made it clear that if the nun struck my sister again, she'd get a hiding. The head Nun backed her colleague, of course. Same story; no further education given by that nun to my sister and she had to change classes.

JupiterKid

I went to primary school as the ban on corporal punishment was brought in and there was the cane by the headmaster but only a couple of kids got it (and that ended in 1st/second class).

A few teachers fired blackboard dusters at pupils who misbehaved and there where also a few teachers who relished in verbally abusing and humiliating “slow” pupils.

Then there was an English and History teacher in 5th/6th class who was very fond of putting his hand down your back or feeling your arse. We complained to the headmaster but were ignored. That teacher eventually got fired in the 1990s. He was in retrospect a paedophile.

All extremely mild compared to what many unfortunates children had to endure. A few years ago in rehab one of the guys there angrily recounted the severe beatings he received at the hands of a “Christian” brother. He ended up in hospital twice as a result of the beatings and yet his parents didn’t complain or take him out of the school.

He said that it was one of the factors that led him to the bottle...

realitykeeper

There is a particular perfume I associate with corporal punishment, an aftershave too. Also the stale bread smell that seemed ever present in the entrance hall.

jmreire

Deleted User wrote: »

What gets me about this thread is that people contributing their horrible stories, are "filing" them under a thread entitled "Corporal Punishment". I've a lot of reservations about that.

What i'm reading now are stories of pure child physical abuse- that, even back in 1982 and before, wasn't acceptable behaviour-well not in the society I grew up in- and even as teenagers, the people I went to school with, knew that.

In our school, the headmaster/mistress was delegated the responsibility of "corporal punishment- which constituted a few slaps on each hand with a leather/cane if justified i.e. giving cheek to teachers, extreme disruption in class etc etc.

No teacher, in my experience, ever hit a child- it was always the head master/mistress, "administering corporal punishment as stated above- and that was over a number of schools I went to. While "wrong" in today's society, it equated to the odd slap by a parent towards a very bold child- while again, not right today, wasn't something you'd open up an enquiry into in 2019.


However, what I'm finding from this thread, is that people's interpretation of "Corporal Punishment" is based on their experience in their school- naturally- but what's emerging are gross stories of child physical abuse, that even then, for both old and young people in society at the time, wouldn't have been classed as "acceptable", by any means.

Certainly, if I was subject to having my head rammed through a plate glass window or whatever, by a teacher, I'd be gunning for that teacher today- that's not nor wasn't what corporal punishment was about back in the day- but obviously, there's teachers out there that need to be held to account now.

Yes Plenty, that's exactly what it was "Physical Abuse " and it was universal and tolerated... because it's what the teacher's/ Brother's / Nun's etc would have gone through in their own school days.. they just carried on the system. As has been already mentioned here several times, if you complained at home, you could get a few more slaps, as the teachers were perceived as being untouchable....plus you were a crybaby, and would be publicly shamed by the teachers for " Telling Tales" out of school. There was really no way out for the kids. But as they got older and bigger, some kids stopped being punch bags, and there are quite a few instances where the teacher met his match in the hitting punching business,,This would invariably mark the end of that kids education. From my own school day's, I would say that most if not all are long dead now, so no point in looking for justice....neither would I join the legion of "Compo" claimants that might take action if any formal case was taken against Religious Orders/ Department of Education etc. It's over and done with now, and Children today will never have to go through these kind of horrors.

swarlb

I did my Leaving Cert in the early 70's. The primary school I went to in Dublin was a small affair, not religious, and the only person to wield the cane was the headmaster, who we only had for 5/6th class. It was a reasonably 'hard' school, and to be honest, most of the beatings any of the kids got was from fellow classmates in the yard.
Secondary was a different matter, inner city CBS. About 60/30% in favour of the brothers, who meted out punishment on a daily basis, but as I remember it, mostly to kids who may have not deserved it, but who certainly brought it upon themselves. And trust me, the parents of these kids, would have been totally supportive of how the brothers went about their daily business.
And, as in primary school, there was more to be wary of in the yard, than in the class. Believe me, we learned street smarts very quickly. I had kids late in life, and I doubt if they would have survived those years.
The education I got was first class, and I have to admit, those Brothers knew their stuff. Whenever one was sick and another took his place, they could teach anything.
If anyone here has seen the 'Ballad of Buster Scruggs' on Netflix, there is a scene where a character recites 'Ozymandias' by Shelly... the second I heard this, I could recite every line, probably due to the method it was thought, as in 'beating it into us', and oddly, I'm glad I can remember it, and most else I was thought.
The one thing they failed at.. was teaching us Irish.. punishment or not, I know for a fact that most of us in that class failed the subject.
About 10 years ago, we had a re union, and the head brother actually turned up. He was probably one of the youngest back then, and was probably pushing 80 at the event. We quizzed him about those days, and his response was 'Well Lads, we were full of it back then, and shure, yez didn't turn out that badly from what I see'.
And he was right, we didn't.
The one thing, however, that I am ashamed about, was the punishment, and verbal abuse we gave to one of the few lay teachers in the final year (he should never have been sent to that school), we tormented him on a daily basis, till finally he cracked and broke down in the class. Not once did he ever report us for our behaviour. And the subject he taught... Irish !
No wonder we failed...

JupiterKid

I see one poster commented on a teacher refusing children permission to use the toilet just so they would wet or soil themselves and be humiliated. That is exactly what a religion teacher did to me and a couple of other pupils - aged about 6/7 in the early 1980s. A nun - a sadistic, snobbish, anti-Protestant b*tch who opined that non Catholics were all going to burn in hell and that the “guerriers” from deprived parts of Dublin deserved to be poor as they were stupid and lazy.

This was all part of what was supposed to be an education system. And I count myself very lucky compared to what children just a few years older than me or in less comfortable parts of Dublin had to endure.

It shows just how f*cked up, dysfunctional, anger filled and brutal Irish society was at that time.

You see, the Tuam babies mass grave or the Magdalene laundries or the Artane boys hell hole of abuse and misery represented the extreme end of a wide spectrum of institutional abuse and depravity - school abuse was the thinner end of this vile wedge. All indicate just how sick a society this country was until very recently.

sligojoek

I did primary school in Nenagh CBS in the 70s. I'd be here all night telling stories if I had the time. One of the worst things I saw was this:

I was in 5th class when we got a new headmaster, as if the last cunt wasn't bad enough. He was a brutal bastard . If you saw him running from the pre-fab to the main building some poor fucker was gonna get it bad. The heavy leather strap was his weapon of choice. Near the end of term 2 of the 6th class lads broke into the school one night and stole all the leathers from the classrooms. Thanks to some lick holes the two culprits were identified and the whole school was brought out to the playground and made stand around in a circle. C***** the headmaster sent another brother into his office for two new leathers. The two boys were whacked on the arse and legs from one end of the playground to the other.

.

bb12

i remember having one teacher in 1st and 2nd class who was pretty brutal. he used to particularly pick on one of the boys in the class who was from a poorer background in the village. i vividly remember one incident where the teacher pulled the boy out of his seat with both his arms locked above his head and the teacher then proceeding to beat him up and down his entire body and legs with the 'leather'. a little 7 year old boy.

i was also on the receiving end of the leather once when i was learning to write between the lines with a pencil that was deemed too short by said teacher. When i told my mother what happened, she promptly visited the school and i was never touched again.

very sad that i never saw the boys parents ever visit the school.

i think that teacher may have been an alcoholic because i remember, what i now know to be, a whiskey smell off his breath that was disguised with his coffee from his flask each day

Ahwell

It was abolished when was in my 1st year of secondary school. It made no difference to how we behaved. Those teachers who could control a class...still could and those who couldn't...still couldn't. It wasn't any kind of deterrent, just pointless brutality.

sligojoek

I did two more years in Nenagh CBS secondary before going to the tech.

There there was a brother in his 70s who should have been in a home. Think Father Jack without the drink.

Every morning he'd pick out lads at random to recite an answer from a Q&A prayer book. Things like "What is faith?" Answer : Faith is a supernatural gift from god which.... blah blah...

He'd stand behind you with the strap in his hand. If you got anything wrong, you got a belt of the leather on the back of the legs.

scudzilla

i left primary school in 82 and left secondary school in 89, was back in Wales.

In Primary School i got the cane a few times, a sharp bamboo cane across the hands, i was 10.

We had a teacher that we nicknamed hitler, i remember vividly in 1 class this girl called Nia said to him i'd done a nazi salute behind his back, he came over and punched me so hard on the side of my head that i fell off the chair and to this day was pretty sure it gave me concussion, i was 9. I seen the prick some years later in Asda, i approached him and asked him if he remembered it, he just looked like a weak old man.

I had a full on fist fight with a temp teacher in secondary school, i was 13, he beat me but i did get quite a few decent digs in. 10yrs later i used to hang around with him and he was sound as fcuk, i was a little bollix in them days

joeguevara

I have some crazy ones but they weren’t corporal punishment. I was messing in 2nd year and the teacher brought me up. Made me lie on my back and put the stool over my shoulders so only my head was out. Dropped the duster on my head. We all thought it was great craic and I still do but others would be horrified.

Remember getting slapped on my hand in baby infants by mothers friend. But it wasn’t bad. Nothing like the leathering sand beatings on here. That’s horrific.

GrumpyMe

TeaBagMania wrote: »

from the accounts iv'e read here, id much rather the industrial school

Watch this and think again!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2iQGczIx6Sg

Sardonicat

^^^^^
Makes being whacked around the place by a crazy nun/brother seem like day on Sesame st!

Crock Rock

I'm 28 myself but my dad is 60. His teachers are cruel and sadistic cunts.

The teachers knew who did and who didn't have a father figure and would bully the boys accordingly. My dad's dad died quite young. The teacher would often open your lunch and mock you for what you had, one teacher would take your milk and put it on the radiator to deliberately spoil it.

One of the teachers would mercilessly beat the shit out of you until he was doubled over with an asthma attack. He would also molest the boys and find the hottest radiator in the room and push your bare leg down to burn you until the boys cried in agony.

One teacher would use the boys as a duster and thrown them on the ground after wards.

One teacher used to mock a nervous twitch my dad had by blinking into his face and mocking him.

The teachers were evil bastards, if there is a hell, that is where they belong.

TeaBagMania

GrumpyMe wrote: »

Watch this and think again!

If they're not already dead Michael O'Brien has every right to murder those raping POS's

jmreire

I am not condoning this or trying to make excuses ( how could you do that anyway?? ) But the one thing that I think about all this is, these people ( the teachers, brother's Nun's etc ) did not suddenly turn into the monsters they were...it was hammered into them in their day too !!!! Recruiting 12 year old kids, and holding on to them during the formative years as young adults, all normal activities forbidden had to have had a perverse effect. I wonder was Ireland the only Country where this went on? or was it common practice in other Countries too?

JupiterKid

jmreire wrote: »

I am not condoning this or trying to make excuses ( how could you do that anyway?? ) But the one thing that I think about all this is, these people ( the teachers, brother's Nun's etc ) did not suddenly turn into the monsters they were...it was hammered into them in their day too !!!! Recruiting 12 year old kids, and holding on to them during the formative years as young adults, all normal activities forbidden had to have had a perverse effect. I wonder was Ireland the only Country where this went on? or was it common practice in other Countries too?

The UK was certainly very fond of meting out corporal punishment to children until it was banned in the 1980s - around the same time as Ireland. I suspect it was widespread in former UK colonies. The Brits really have a lot to answer for in terms of certain aspects of their nasty colonial legacy.

Ireland certainly took up corporal punshment with relish and meted it out very harshly to very small children. In a way we collectively turned our post-colonial rage and anger in on ourselves and our defenceless young. We probably destroyed the potential of tens of thousands of young people through a fear-based brutal education "system."

The cycle of abuse went on and on through the generations. And some people wonder why mental health, alcoholism and drug addiction are such major issues here...

The legacy of instilled fear and brutality is another good reason why the church should be fully jettisoned from State funded education.

jmreire

JupiterKid wrote: »

The UK was certainly very fond of meting out corporal punishment to children until it was banned in the 1980s - around the same time as Ireland. I suspect it was widespread in former UK colonies. The Brits really have a lot to answer for in terms of certain aspects of their nasty colonial legacy.

Ireland certainly took up corporal punshment with relish and meted it out very harshly to very small children. In a way we collectively turned our post-colonial rage and anger in on ourselves and our defenceless young. We probably destroyed the potential of tens of thousands of young people through a fear-based brutal education "sydtem."

The cycle of abuse went on and on through the generations. And some people wonder why mental health, alcoholim and drug addiction are such major issues here...

The legacy of instilled fear and brutality is another good reason why the church whould be fully jettisoned from State funded education.

I agree 100% that the state and religion should be kept far apart. But another aspect of it was that only for the Church back in those early day's of the foundation of the state ( and even long before that ) only for the Church,( Bad as it was) there was simply no education for ordinary people.....if your family did not have money, tough luck in the education stake's. As you state the brutality we experienced during our school days would have been strongly influenced by the "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash" brigade of the British Empire.

JupiterKid

jmreire wrote: »

JupiterKid wrote: »

The UK was certainly very fond of meting out corporal punishment to children until it was banned in the 1980s - around the same time as Ireland. I suspect it was widespread in former UK colonies. The Brits really have a lot to answer for in terms of certain aspects of their nasty colonial legacy.

Ireland certainly took up corporal punshment with relish and meted it out very harshly to very small children. In a way we collectively turned our post-colonial rage and anger in on ourselves and our defenceless young. We probably destroyed the potential of tens of thousands of young people through a fear-based brutal education "sydtem."

The cycle of abuse went on and on through the generations. And some people wonder why mental health, alcoholim and drug addiction are such major issues here...

The legacy of instilled fear and brutality is another good reason why the church whould be fully jettisoned from State funded education.

I agree 100% that the state and religion should be kept far apart. But another aspect of it was that only for the Church back in those early day's of the foundation of the state ( and even long before that ) only for the Church,( Bad as it was) there was simply no education for ordinary people.....if your family did not have money, tough luck in the education stake's. As you state the brutality we experienced during our school days would have been strongly influenced by the "Rum, Sodomy and the Lash" brigade of the British Empire.

Yes this indeed true - Ireland effectively outsourced education, social services and healthcare to the religious at the time of the foundation of the State but the religious abused their power immensely in those spheres - as all the enquiries of the past 20 years have proven - and held onto these services for far longer than they should have.

When Ireland started to modernise and develop in the 1960s and 1970s there was the opportunity to wrest control of health and education from the church but it was not taken due to political cowardice.

nlrkjos

One particular "christian" brother in north mon back in the day was an evil fecker,used beat lads for the smallest reason,he hammered the crap out of me once for missing swimming.... stopped after that when he was told my dad was in portlaoise gaol for "RA' activities !!
He got sentenced to gaol himself last week for sexual abuse of minors, so the wheel does turn sometimes. I knew he was an evil bastard but never heard back then that he was a sex offender.