Industrial school wrecked relationship

KittyeeTrix

Hi guys,
Mods, please feel free to move this if ye feel it would be best served elsewhere

My mum spent 20 years in an Industrial school in Longford, it left her with huge issues. Like most of the other "inmates" she grew up with she had the run of the mill adult problems such as alcohol dependence issues.
She wasn't educated past the age of 6 once it was realised she had learning difficulties, funny how that same government is now again withdrawing learning services from children with disabilities, anyhow, I digress....
Even though all this horrible stuff happened to her she managed to raise a good decent family and managed to instill in us all a sense of pride in education.
What she couldn't manage to do however was have a normal mother - daughter relationship,
By that I mean she couldn't relate to silly things like going to town shopping for clothes or talking about the latest nail polish colour and doing silly things like having a mum - daughter pamper night in with a glass or two of wine and a face mask etc.
I love her and i respect all that she has been through but it has made her too tough, she has absolutely no empathy for anybody....not empathy anyway that she can show
Let me explain it this way, for the following events she never once shed a tear
*husband fractures skull in car crash
*3 grandchildren born 7-8 weeks premature
*grandchild suspected to have bone tumour
*Never batted an eyelid at international events such as the beslan kids
massacre, the boxing day tsunami
The beslan kids massacre happened on the day I got married, whilst on our honeymoon my husband had to tell me to stop buying the morning paper as I would be upset for the rest of the day, I had 4 children and it was impossible for me not to be upset by the terrible images and stories I saw
It's awful to realise that she doesn't cry because she learned very early on in her childhood that there was no point, that it would not achieve anything:( She has lost the ability to emphatise with others, i believe, because she never saw it shown to herself
I get so mad when I think about it. I grieve the loss of a relationship with my mum that I see other friends have with theirs,

Has anybody else got a parent who went through the industrial school system here in the care of the Sisters of Mercy and how has it affected their relationships?

Eve_Dublin

Hi Fluffyorganic,

I've just spent my lunch break reading about the report released the past few days and it's so unbelievably upsetting I can't get my head around it at all. Shame on the Catholic Church and may those responsible rot in hell. This is an absolute embarassment to the Irish state and my heart goes out to all those abused over the years

My father wasn't in an industrial school but attended a well-known secondary CBS school in Dublin's North inner city that was run by Christian brothers. He was beaten because he wrote with his left-hand and now writes terribly with his right-hand, he was beaten for talking, he was beaten for making a spelling mistake...from what he told us in the past, he was beaten for any old reason.

His brother, my uncle, who is Down Syndrome was beaten repeatedly every day because of the way he was and was taken out of school very young by my granny (fair play to her) because of this and is now unable to talk or communicate with us beyond a very basic way because of the lack of education and assistance back in those days for people with Downs. It's very sad to think of the way he might've been now if there was more tolerance of his condition and God knows what he remembers from those times, it must have traumatised him but he was unable to express how he felt. Very sad.

My father finds it very hard to express emotion. I could give you a long list of things that have happened to him and my family that he never showed emotion over (although I caught him crying alone on ocassion...it'd break your heart). His sister is dying at the moment and he says nothing, just bottles it up. This could be said for a lot of Irish dads of that generation but a lot of it has to do with the systematic abuse that routinely took place in industrial AND day schools around the country.

He was a very angry man while I was growing up, i'm no psychologist but I suppose this was how he expressed his pent up frustration and anger. I was never that close to him (difficult with a man who could never talk about emotions and feelings) but he did a good job raising us (although I'd say were all a little low on self-esteem...I suppose he never had any himself so how could he pass it on?)...he did the best he could under the circumstances (mother passed away when I was young) and I respect and love him for that.

As a result, he justifably hates the church and everything associated with it and has a general problem with the education system as a whole (not a fan of teachers at all.) I always wished he could talk about the feelings he must have felt and is still feeling but he won't and probably never will.

I suppose all we can hope for is that the next generation of Irish will grow up more confident and more self-assured than my father's generation (he's 70, I'm 29). The transition between old Ireland and new Ireland has been happening the past 10 - 15 years and for all the moaning about the Celtic Tiger and pinning for the 'good old days' in Ireland, I hope this report will make us take off those rose-tinted glasses and take a long, hard look at the hidden history of abuse that was so prevalent in Irish society for so long and that was kept secret by the church and those in power and by those victims who were too scared to speak out.

OP, all you can do now is be the best mother you can be and be open with your own children so the affects off this vicious cycle will stop NOW and not passed on to your children and not let those b****ds win. The Catholic Church is loosing control over us now and this will never be repeated.

Edit: Sorry, just to add OP, I'm not equating my dad's experience with your mother's...at least my father was able to leave school at the end of the day unlike your mother so I'm sure it was a million times worse for her but I do know where you're coming from when you speak of not being able to have a proper emotional relationship with your mother.

KittyeeTrix

Thanks evedublin
Sorry to hear that your dad and uncle had to endure hardship under the regime of the CB's
We were always aware of my mum's upbringing whilst we were growing up. She applied for her redress back in August '05 just before the closing date in December. As part of her journey she had to recount to me details of the abuse she suffered over the years. God, it was so tough sitting there listening to her really go into details of what happened, being beaten, locked in cellars for nights alone, scratching in the dirt of the veg garden out back eating raw, rotting veg not fit to be harvested.
I always believed that there had been no sexual abuse as it was an all women's institute with nun's but even that turned out not to be the case, I don't want to go into into but the solicitor confirmed that he was aware of it from other cases that had come forward from the same industrial school.
It near killed her to open up about that part of it as she had buried it deep for almost 40 years.....

To be honest I was well annoyed with the government at the time in August '05 because I had from the time of the apology in May 1999 never heard anything about this redress scheme.

I just happened to be reading the Irish Independent one day when I came across a solicitors full page advert about redress if you had spent time in an institution run by the priests or nuns.

I knew she had spent that time in a convent run by the sisters of mercy but I nearly died when I rang up and discovered it was in actual fact an industrial school and from there the whole thing shifted into motion.
I still don't understand how I had never heard of it before then as I'm a smart intelligent person who is an avid reader of not only the broadsheets but also the tabloids and am constantly watching the news both on RTE and also BBC and Fox etc. It just all seemed so hush hush....

The worst thing about the whole situation is because they kept it so hushed we didn't trace her roots thru barnadoes until April '07. She found a sister whom she now has a great relationship with but unfortunately her mum had died in '05. If we had been aware of the redress earlier we would have been in time for her to meet the one person in the world she had always wanted to know,

As for us kids, we are all fine and have moved on from the whole thing, just still feel incredibly overcome with sadness sometimes when I imagine my mum as a young girl with no-one in the world to give a damn about her:(

Ann22

It's harrowing enough reading newspaper reports, but hearing from fellow posters makes it even more real. It's the whole next generation who are suffering. If children are beaten if they cry, are showed no love and kindness it's understandable how they grow to be emotionally stunted. It's just horrific.