Nun criticised in abuse report identified as Nora Wall
ALISON HEALY and CONOR LALLY
SISTERS OF MERCY, CAPPOQUIN: A NUN referred to in the report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse has been identified as Nora Wall, whose 1999 conviction for the rape of a 12-year-old girl in her care was declared a miscarriage of justice.
The commission report refers to Ms Wall’s time in the St Michael’s Child Care Centre – managed by the Sisters of Mercy – in Cappoquin, Co Waterford, in the 1980s. The commission’s report outlines Ms Wall’s “alarming” and “disastrous” management of children in her care while in Waterford. Seán Costello, the solicitor who represents Ms Wall told The Irish Times that media organisations should not identify her as Sr Callida, a pseudonym given to Ms Wall in the report.
Asked to confirm that Ms Wall and Sr Callida were the same person, Mr Costello said: “You already know the answer to that.” He said Ms Wall had already been identified as Sr Callida in other media reports. However, he said Ms Wall, like every other person who appeared before the commission, had been granted anonymity. “Any attempt to identify Nora Wall is a breach of her rights,” he said. The information provided by the commission report on Sr Callida tallies with Nora Wall’s tenure at St Michael’s.
The report states that Sr Callida was removed from Cappoquin in the early 1990s and left the order in the mid-1990s. According to the Sisters of Mercy, Nora Wall was removed from St Michael’s in 1990 and left the order in the mid-1990s. Sr Callida was in charge of one of the group homes from 1975 and so was Nora Wall. The commission refers to a “glowing reference” given to Sr Callida by a health board official in the early 1990s. A South Eastern Health Board official gave a glowing reference to Nora Wall in 1992. The Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse’s chapter on St Michael’s Industrial School in Cappoquin is dominated by Ms Wall’s tenure at the home, when she was known as Sr Dominic.
On July 27th, 1999, she had her conviction for the rape of a 12-year-old girl quashed after it emerged that a crucial witness had given evidence after the Director of Public Prosecutions had directed that she should not be called. In 2005, the Court of Criminal Appeal declared a miscarriage of justice in relation to the conviction. The Commission to Inquire into Child abuse report gives Ms Wall the pseudonym Sr Callida. It tells how she was put in charge of one of the group homes which replaced the industrial school in 1975 and became resident manager of the two group homes in the 1980s. The report found Ms Wall’s behaviour in the home was “inappropriate and dangerous” and said her lack of basic management skills constituted a “disastrous mixture”.
It heard evidence that staff became “increasingly alarmed” at how she ran a group home after her appointment in 1975. She had an alcohol problem and drank in front of the children. One witness told the commission Ms Wall was so drunk on one occasion that she fell into a playpen on top of a child. The commission heard that she went absent for days without notice, leaving a young woman in charge of up to 16 young children. She allowed children to sleep in her bedroom, and often shared her room with the convent superior, given the pseudonym Sr Serena in the report.
The pair went away together and sometimes brought children with them. They stayed in family rooms in hotels, with the nuns sharing the main bed, Sr Serena told the Commission. The inquiry also heard that Ms Wall entertained past pupils and student priests in the home and allowed them to stay overnight. A witness said there was a lot of drinking at these gatherings. In the late 1970s, her superior asked a nun, given the pseudonym Sr Melita, to act as her companion and keep an eye on matters but Sr Melita became compromised when she and Ms Wall developed “a close intimate relationship”.
In her evidence to the commission, Ms Wall accepted there were times when she drank a lot but did not accept what she described as “the bigness of it”. “There was never a time when I was out of order or didn’t know my place or was falling all over the place. I dispute that,” she told the commission. She acknowledged having one intimate relationship with a nun and said there were occasions outside the home “when it wasn’t appropriate” but she denied having a relationship with another nun. The report also criticised Ms Wall’s behaviour in dealing with the reported sexual abuse of a resident in the mid-1980s. The child had an intellectual disability and did part-time work in a hotel, where he was sexually assaulted by a colleague.
The boy’s house parent discovered the abuse, went to gardaí and confronted the abuser who admitted it. The boy later told his house parent that he would not be pursuing the matter with gardaí. She noticed he had a new radio and he told her Ms Wall had given him a radio and a bicycle. Ms Wall was removed from her post as the home’s resident manager in 1990.
The report said Ms Wall was told to stay away from the group homes after her removal but she continued coming to work every day initially and later would wait for the children on their way to and from school. The report also noted “a glowing reference” for Ms Wall from a health board official. The health board offered her the job, which involved caring for a young man, despite having been informed of her dismissal.
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Monday, May 25, 2009
Nun was so drunk she fell over on child in her care
Lesbian nun was so drunk she fell over on child in her care
By Clodagh Sheehy
Monday May 25 2009
A lesbian nun, in charge of children as young as six months, was so drunk on one occasion that she fell into the playpen on top of one of the children-- the child abuse commission found. Nora Wall, who was given the name of Sister Callida in the report, often went away with her nun lover and left a 20-year-old in charge of the children. She could go for days at a time without giving any prior notice and without leaving any contact address or number.
Two different nuns instructed to keep an eye on her ended up in lesbian relationships with her, according to the report. Ms Wall was in charge of a group care home run by the Sisters of Mercy in Cappoquinn, Co Waterford, with about 16 children from the ages of six months to 16 years. Then known as Sister Dominic, she was resident manager from 1978 until the early 1990s when she was removed. The Commission concluded Ms Wall was unpredictable and irrational, bullied staff, beat the children, drank to excess and put children at risk by leaving junior staff in charge.
Details of parties held in the home, men who stayed overnight, older boys sexually abusing younger ones and being drunk in front of the children have emerged in the report of the Commission to Inquire Into Child Abuse. According to Judge Sean Ryan's inquiry report, Ms Wall regularly drank whiskey in the sitting room of the home in front of the older children.
It has also emerged that the former Mercy nun had her conviction for the rape of a child quashed in recent years. Ms Wall was convicted in 1999 for the rape of a 10-year-old girl in the home, however, this was declared a miscarriage of justice by the Court of Criminal Appeal in 2005.
The conviction was struck down by the court after it emerged that evidence had been given by a witness who was known to be unreliable. Her co-accused, Pablo McCabe, also had his conviction for the same offence overturned. Mr McCabe, a homeless man, has since died. The report found that older former residents and total strangers were allowed to stay overnight at the house even though the children were frightened by some of these visitors. One of the workers at the home told how "there was a lot of drinking going on. Parties were held in the home and former residents and student priests came and stayed overnight" A second nun, "Sister Melita", appointed to the house to report on events subsequently formed a lesbian relationship with Sister Callida and instead protected her from scrutiny, according to the report
The order then appointed a "Sister Serena" as Superior to the convent in Cappoquin, instructing her to keep an eye on Sister Callida and report back on her behaviour. This nun also became sexually involved with Sister Callida. The pair went away for holiday weekends together and would take "three or four children with us", said Sister Serena who described how they would all sleep in the same room, the two nuns in the main bed and the children in pairs in other beds in the room. Asked by the Commission about her drinking Sister Callida accepted there were times when she drank a lot but "there was never a time when I was out of order or didn't know my place or was falling all over the place".
She also insisted she only had a relationship with one of the two sisters mentioned and said when they slept in her room at the care house "we had a bed each and that was that ... but there was an occasion or two outside of the home when it wasn't appropriate".
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Most complaints concerned physical abuse
Most complaints concerned physical abuse
ALISON HEALY
SISTERS OF MERCY: THE SISTERS of Mercy ran 26 industrial schools during the period investigated by the commission, making them the largest providers of care by nuns.
It became a unified congregation in the 1980s but before that, all convents operated independently of each other. Most complaints from former residents of these institutions concerned physical abuse but there were a number of serious incidents of sexual abuse perpetrated by lay staff in the schools. The commission report noted that the Dear Daughter documentary on Goldenbridge Industrial School had “an enormous impact” on the way the congregation viewed itself.
Sr Breege O’Neill, former congregation leader, told the inquiry the programme had “shattered” the image the Sisters had of their involvement in childcare. The order issued a public apology in February 1996 and made a second one in May 2004 when former residents said the first apology was conditional and insufficient.
Goldenbridge Industrial School
Inchicore, Dublin
Opened: 1880
Status: Closed 1983
Management: Sisters of Mercy
GOLDENBRIDGE INDUSTRIAL school and orphanage, known as St Vincent’s Industrial School, opened with an intake of 30 children and rose to a high of 193 in 1964. When it closed in 1983, there were 46 pupils.
The report paints an extremely bleak picture of the institution where life was full of drudgery, punishment was pervasive and children were treated brutally by “wholly unsuitable” carers. Some carers were former pupils who were incapable of living independently. One complainant said a helper had broken her arm after she tried to stop her hitting her brother. “The regime in Goldenbridge, which was flawed from the outset, did not change for 30 years,” the report notes.
Former residents said they lived in “a climate of fear” where corporal punishment was the norm and emotional abuse was rife. They said the regime had “scarred them in every aspect of their lives”. A manager, given the pseudonym Sr Alida in the report, was described as “extremely cruel” by complainants. Witnesses told of formal beatings, where they were lined up on the landing, usually late at night, and beaten with a stick, or what what Sr Alida called her “slapper”. Beatings were also given by nuns and lay staff for “offences” such as bed-wetting or being too slow when making rosary beads.
The school ran a bead-making enterprise and the children had a quota of 60 decades per day and 90 on a Saturday. They said they were beaten if their work was not satisfactory. The committee said the claim by Sr Helena O’Donoghue, provincial leader of the south central province, that the bead-making was a pleasant activity, was “inaccurate”. The work constituted “drudgery” and “exploitation”. A complainant said the beatings seemed to be for “very, very menial things, like maybe you stole a slice of bread, or you ate out of the rabbit’s cage or you drank water out of the toilet”. Children who wet the bed were denied water and drank out of toilet cisterns to quench their thirst. Underwear was changed weekly and two complainants said that if marks were found the underwear was paraded on a pole. Abuse by lay staff featured largely among complaints. One witness told how he came to the school when he was five years old, after the death of his mother. When he arrived he was “a happy young little kid” but was constantly beaten for being a bed-wetter and for being left-handed, and he developed a stutter. Complainants said they were always hungry and recalled how scraps of bread or cake were thrown out of a window into the yard and they had to scramble for them.
Sr O’Donoghue told the hearing that while the regime would be described as “harsh and severe” by today’s standards, the Sisters of Mercy would not accept that the regime was cruel, abusive or neglectful.
St Michael’s Industrial School
Cappoquin, Co Waterford
Opened: 1877
Status: Closed 1999
Management: Sisters of Mercy
THE STORY of St Michael’s Industrial School in Cappoquin is characterised by physical and sexual abuse, a dysfunctional managing nun with an alcohol problem and severe underfeeding in the early years. The Sisters of Mercy school opened in 1877 as a conventional industrial school but became a group home in 1974. The inquiry found that the children were “severely underfed for a long period in the 1940s and 1950s”. However, it was the era of the group home that gave rise to the most complaints. A nun with the pseudonym Sr Callida was put in charge of Group Home A in 1975 but staff became “increasingly alarmed” at how she ran the home. She had an alcohol problem, drank in front of the children and went absent for days without notice, leaving a young woman in charge of 16 young children.
In the late 1970s, her superior asked a nun, given the pseudonym Sr Melita, to act as her companion and keep an eye on matters but Sr Melita became compromised when she and Sr Callida developed “a close intimate relationship”. Sr Callida denied that her drinking was problematic and did not accept that she had a relationship with one of the nuns named. The inquiry also heard that Sr Callida entertained past pupils and student priests in the home and allowed them to stay overnight. There was a lot of drinking. Sr Callida was dismissed in the late 1980s or early 1990s, after complaints by a house mother in Group Home A. However, the manager who replaced her found that she had a close friendship with the senior social worker and the pair blocked his efforts to make changes.
A senior social worker – it’s not clear if this is the same person – gave Sr Callida “a glowing reference” after her dismissal. The South Eastern Health Board offered her the job she sought, which involved caring for a young man, despite having been informed of her dismissal. The report found that the children were “let down by poor supervision and monitoring from the Departments of Education and Health” and said the Department of Health was negligent. One boy recalled a nun beating him because he did not hear the bell ringing. His ears were bandaged as he had just had an operation. He had to return to the hospital after the beating. Some witnesses said the lay staff were more abusive than the nuns.
The inquiry also found that a childcare worker, given the pseudonym Mr Restin in the report, should never have been employed at Cappoquin. He had abused children in another Sisters of Mercy school in Passage West. In 2003, he was sentenced to 10 years for pornography offences and indecent assault of boys in Cappoquin and Passage West. In the early 1970s, a complainant said he and two other boys told the resident manager at Passage West that Mr Restin was abusing children. The nun, with the pseudonym Sr Vita, lined up the boys he named and all but one denied the abuse. The complainant and the other boy were then beaten so severely that the other boy needed stitches. Mr Restin told the inquiry he abused three boys in Cappoquin.
St Joseph’s Industrial School
Clifden, Co Galway
Opened: 1872
Status: Closed 1983
Management: Sisters of Mercy
THERE WAS a “climate of fear” in St Joseph’s, the report found. The Sisters of Mercy originally set it up as a home for girls in 1861 but later accepted boys. The report found that the corporal punishment regime was “pervasive, and on occasions excessive”. Former residents told of being hit with implements such as a bunch of keys and a towel roller, as well as a ruler and a cane. One woman told how, when she was 12, she and a boy were confronted by a nun for coming back late one afternoon. The nun asked if they had had intercourse but they did not understand her. She made the boy pull down his trousers and she beat him with a cane in front of the girl.
The girl tried to escape but the nun pushed her through a glass door. Her hand went through the glass and she injured her chest on the brass knob. The nun continued to hit her with a bamboo cane. She was hospitalised for 2½ weeks but her family was never told. The school record claimed hospitalisation due to mastitis. One complainant told the inquiry the children were “filthy, black eyes, dirty clothes or torn clothes . . . the hair was sore, and the fleas used to eat right through the hair, all scabbed”.
She never had a toothbrush in Clifden and she got a bath about once a month when all the children had to queue up naked. The water was filthy by the time the last of the girls took their bath. One witness told how children stole food from each other’s plates because they were so hungry. Another recalled how a kind nun would allow children to eat the left-over food destined for the pigs.
Our Lady of Succour Industrial School
Newtownforbes, Co Longford
Opened: 1869
Status: Closed 1969
Management: Sisters of Mercy
NUNS AND children suffered in Our Lady of Succour because of the large number of children and small number of Sisters caring for them, the inquiry found. Only two nuns worked full-time in the Sisters of Mercy industrial school from the mid-1940s to the 1960s at a time when numbers of children varied from 175 to fewer than 100. Most of the children sent to Newtownforbes came from Dublin, with 60 per cent committed through the Children’s Court. Former residents who appeared before the committee complained of severe physical abuse. Children who wet the bed had to display their wet sheets to the nuns and they would then be hit around the head or beaten with a stick. One witness told how a nun swung her around by her hair after class because she did not know her Bible passages. This caused her to be late for dinner and she was beaten with a cane.
The same witness spoke of her upset at the death of a child that she had looked after. “It haunted me all my life wondering where that child was buried because there was no funeral.” Records show that the child died of cardiac disease. The order apologised for the distress caused to the woman and said they would tell her where the child was buried. One of the biggest grievances from residents concerned lack of education and the view they were only good for domestic service.
St Joseph’s
Industrial School
Dundalk, Co Louth
Opened: 1881
Status: Closed 1983
Management: Sisters of Mercy
PRACTICALLY EVERY child who attended St Joseph’s during the 1940s had a “verminous and nitty head” and a “neglected” appearance, the report states. The school for girls, and later some boys, run by the Sisters of Mercy, was described as “peculiar” in medical inspectors’ reports because there never seemed to be “any lively interest taken in the children” and there was an “apathetic air about the place”. Former residents told the inquiry team that they were subjected to beatings, emotionally abused, neglected, separated from their families and lost their sense of identity during their stay. However, the report says that the small number of children living in the facility was an important factor in making it a less abusive place than other institutions. Former staff acknowledged that “moderate corporal punishment” was used for “misdemeanours, disobedience, insolence and bullying”, but they denied it was ever “deliberately excessive”.
The report concludes that the children’s family contacts were not maintained and that they were “deprived” of crucial information that would have helped them form ties and establish an identity.
ALISON HEALY
SISTERS OF MERCY: THE SISTERS of Mercy ran 26 industrial schools during the period investigated by the commission, making them the largest providers of care by nuns.
It became a unified congregation in the 1980s but before that, all convents operated independently of each other. Most complaints from former residents of these institutions concerned physical abuse but there were a number of serious incidents of sexual abuse perpetrated by lay staff in the schools. The commission report noted that the Dear Daughter documentary on Goldenbridge Industrial School had “an enormous impact” on the way the congregation viewed itself.
Sr Breege O’Neill, former congregation leader, told the inquiry the programme had “shattered” the image the Sisters had of their involvement in childcare. The order issued a public apology in February 1996 and made a second one in May 2004 when former residents said the first apology was conditional and insufficient.
Goldenbridge Industrial School
Inchicore, Dublin
Opened: 1880
Status: Closed 1983
Management: Sisters of Mercy
GOLDENBRIDGE INDUSTRIAL school and orphanage, known as St Vincent’s Industrial School, opened with an intake of 30 children and rose to a high of 193 in 1964. When it closed in 1983, there were 46 pupils.
The report paints an extremely bleak picture of the institution where life was full of drudgery, punishment was pervasive and children were treated brutally by “wholly unsuitable” carers. Some carers were former pupils who were incapable of living independently. One complainant said a helper had broken her arm after she tried to stop her hitting her brother. “The regime in Goldenbridge, which was flawed from the outset, did not change for 30 years,” the report notes.
Former residents said they lived in “a climate of fear” where corporal punishment was the norm and emotional abuse was rife. They said the regime had “scarred them in every aspect of their lives”. A manager, given the pseudonym Sr Alida in the report, was described as “extremely cruel” by complainants. Witnesses told of formal beatings, where they were lined up on the landing, usually late at night, and beaten with a stick, or what what Sr Alida called her “slapper”. Beatings were also given by nuns and lay staff for “offences” such as bed-wetting or being too slow when making rosary beads.
The school ran a bead-making enterprise and the children had a quota of 60 decades per day and 90 on a Saturday. They said they were beaten if their work was not satisfactory. The committee said the claim by Sr Helena O’Donoghue, provincial leader of the south central province, that the bead-making was a pleasant activity, was “inaccurate”. The work constituted “drudgery” and “exploitation”. A complainant said the beatings seemed to be for “very, very menial things, like maybe you stole a slice of bread, or you ate out of the rabbit’s cage or you drank water out of the toilet”. Children who wet the bed were denied water and drank out of toilet cisterns to quench their thirst. Underwear was changed weekly and two complainants said that if marks were found the underwear was paraded on a pole. Abuse by lay staff featured largely among complaints. One witness told how he came to the school when he was five years old, after the death of his mother. When he arrived he was “a happy young little kid” but was constantly beaten for being a bed-wetter and for being left-handed, and he developed a stutter. Complainants said they were always hungry and recalled how scraps of bread or cake were thrown out of a window into the yard and they had to scramble for them.
Sr O’Donoghue told the hearing that while the regime would be described as “harsh and severe” by today’s standards, the Sisters of Mercy would not accept that the regime was cruel, abusive or neglectful.
St Michael’s Industrial School
Cappoquin, Co Waterford
Opened: 1877
Status: Closed 1999
Management: Sisters of Mercy
THE STORY of St Michael’s Industrial School in Cappoquin is characterised by physical and sexual abuse, a dysfunctional managing nun with an alcohol problem and severe underfeeding in the early years. The Sisters of Mercy school opened in 1877 as a conventional industrial school but became a group home in 1974. The inquiry found that the children were “severely underfed for a long period in the 1940s and 1950s”. However, it was the era of the group home that gave rise to the most complaints. A nun with the pseudonym Sr Callida was put in charge of Group Home A in 1975 but staff became “increasingly alarmed” at how she ran the home. She had an alcohol problem, drank in front of the children and went absent for days without notice, leaving a young woman in charge of 16 young children.
In the late 1970s, her superior asked a nun, given the pseudonym Sr Melita, to act as her companion and keep an eye on matters but Sr Melita became compromised when she and Sr Callida developed “a close intimate relationship”. Sr Callida denied that her drinking was problematic and did not accept that she had a relationship with one of the nuns named. The inquiry also heard that Sr Callida entertained past pupils and student priests in the home and allowed them to stay overnight. There was a lot of drinking. Sr Callida was dismissed in the late 1980s or early 1990s, after complaints by a house mother in Group Home A. However, the manager who replaced her found that she had a close friendship with the senior social worker and the pair blocked his efforts to make changes.
A senior social worker – it’s not clear if this is the same person – gave Sr Callida “a glowing reference” after her dismissal. The South Eastern Health Board offered her the job she sought, which involved caring for a young man, despite having been informed of her dismissal. The report found that the children were “let down by poor supervision and monitoring from the Departments of Education and Health” and said the Department of Health was negligent. One boy recalled a nun beating him because he did not hear the bell ringing. His ears were bandaged as he had just had an operation. He had to return to the hospital after the beating. Some witnesses said the lay staff were more abusive than the nuns.
The inquiry also found that a childcare worker, given the pseudonym Mr Restin in the report, should never have been employed at Cappoquin. He had abused children in another Sisters of Mercy school in Passage West. In 2003, he was sentenced to 10 years for pornography offences and indecent assault of boys in Cappoquin and Passage West. In the early 1970s, a complainant said he and two other boys told the resident manager at Passage West that Mr Restin was abusing children. The nun, with the pseudonym Sr Vita, lined up the boys he named and all but one denied the abuse. The complainant and the other boy were then beaten so severely that the other boy needed stitches. Mr Restin told the inquiry he abused three boys in Cappoquin.
St Joseph’s Industrial School
Clifden, Co Galway
Opened: 1872
Status: Closed 1983
Management: Sisters of Mercy
THERE WAS a “climate of fear” in St Joseph’s, the report found. The Sisters of Mercy originally set it up as a home for girls in 1861 but later accepted boys. The report found that the corporal punishment regime was “pervasive, and on occasions excessive”. Former residents told of being hit with implements such as a bunch of keys and a towel roller, as well as a ruler and a cane. One woman told how, when she was 12, she and a boy were confronted by a nun for coming back late one afternoon. The nun asked if they had had intercourse but they did not understand her. She made the boy pull down his trousers and she beat him with a cane in front of the girl.
The girl tried to escape but the nun pushed her through a glass door. Her hand went through the glass and she injured her chest on the brass knob. The nun continued to hit her with a bamboo cane. She was hospitalised for 2½ weeks but her family was never told. The school record claimed hospitalisation due to mastitis. One complainant told the inquiry the children were “filthy, black eyes, dirty clothes or torn clothes . . . the hair was sore, and the fleas used to eat right through the hair, all scabbed”.
She never had a toothbrush in Clifden and she got a bath about once a month when all the children had to queue up naked. The water was filthy by the time the last of the girls took their bath. One witness told how children stole food from each other’s plates because they were so hungry. Another recalled how a kind nun would allow children to eat the left-over food destined for the pigs.
Our Lady of Succour Industrial School
Newtownforbes, Co Longford
Opened: 1869
Status: Closed 1969
Management: Sisters of Mercy
NUNS AND children suffered in Our Lady of Succour because of the large number of children and small number of Sisters caring for them, the inquiry found. Only two nuns worked full-time in the Sisters of Mercy industrial school from the mid-1940s to the 1960s at a time when numbers of children varied from 175 to fewer than 100. Most of the children sent to Newtownforbes came from Dublin, with 60 per cent committed through the Children’s Court. Former residents who appeared before the committee complained of severe physical abuse. Children who wet the bed had to display their wet sheets to the nuns and they would then be hit around the head or beaten with a stick. One witness told how a nun swung her around by her hair after class because she did not know her Bible passages. This caused her to be late for dinner and she was beaten with a cane.
The same witness spoke of her upset at the death of a child that she had looked after. “It haunted me all my life wondering where that child was buried because there was no funeral.” Records show that the child died of cardiac disease. The order apologised for the distress caused to the woman and said they would tell her where the child was buried. One of the biggest grievances from residents concerned lack of education and the view they were only good for domestic service.
St Joseph’s
Industrial School
Dundalk, Co Louth
Opened: 1881
Status: Closed 1983
Management: Sisters of Mercy
PRACTICALLY EVERY child who attended St Joseph’s during the 1940s had a “verminous and nitty head” and a “neglected” appearance, the report states. The school for girls, and later some boys, run by the Sisters of Mercy, was described as “peculiar” in medical inspectors’ reports because there never seemed to be “any lively interest taken in the children” and there was an “apathetic air about the place”. Former residents told the inquiry team that they were subjected to beatings, emotionally abused, neglected, separated from their families and lost their sense of identity during their stay. However, the report says that the small number of children living in the facility was an important factor in making it a less abusive place than other institutions. Former staff acknowledged that “moderate corporal punishment” was used for “misdemeanours, disobedience, insolence and bullying”, but they denied it was ever “deliberately excessive”.
The report concludes that the children’s family contacts were not maintained and that they were “deprived” of crucial information that would have helped them form ties and establish an identity.
Hard drinking nun
Hard drinking nun was well known in Cappoquin
By Marion O’Mara
IN the late 1970s a Sister of Mercy nun, given the pseudonym Sr. Callida, was appointed deputy house parent to what was known as Group Home A in St. Michael’s, Cappoquin.
When she took the job she had 17 children in her care. Though well known for her drinking and having children sleep in her bed she became Resident Manager and remained in that post until she was sacked in 1990s. The report, published by the commission to enquire into child abuse, highlights how Sr. Callida drank whiskey regularly and often in the sitting room in front of the older children. It was claimed she would be so drunk as to be falling all over the place.
A former staff member told the inquiry there were no proper routine and no timetables. Communication between management and staff was non-existent. She told how it was a frightening place to be for staff and children, and that she did not feel safe. Without giving prior notice Sr. Callida and Sr. Serena, who was in charge of another group house, regularly went away together. Sr. Callida had a little girl who slept with her at night and she would sometimes take that child or other children with her on her excursions.
“The fact that the kids slept in the bedroom, and she nearly always had a young child sleeping in the bedroom with her - it just became a habit over the years. Some of the staff used to try and get the child not to go in there but the child just always went in and she always brought her in. When she would go down to bed at night she would bring her with her,” the former staff worker said.
She recalled on one occasion Sr. Callida was so drunk she fell into the playpen on top of one of the children. There was, she added, no secret about Sr. Callida drinking. “That’s what I found very hard to understand, how everyone in the community knew what she was like and fellows knew that she was pissed going around the town and she would be out at nightclubs and different things.”
The report stated that from the time Sr. Callida became Resident Manager of the two group homes in the early 1980s, management problems arose almost immediately. One of the main problems was her lack of respect for care staff. On one occasion concern was expressed by a House Mother about two boys and a girl being alone in fields adjoining the home. Sr. Callida was asked, “What if the girl gets pregnant? She kind of laughed at me and said, ‘It wouldn’t be you that made her pregnant.’ I wasn’t getting anywhere...,” the House Mother said. There was further evidence of drinking going on in Group Home A. Parties were held in the home, and former residents and student priests stayed overnight.
Sr. Callida accepted to the Commission that there were times when she drank a lot but she denied her drinking was problematic. She accepted that some people stayed overnight in the homes but they were past pupils or her own brother. She did not accept evidence from the staff members that one past pupil, in particular, was a regular visitor and was often drunk. One of the Mercy sisters who gave evidence described Sr. Callida’s personality as one of great power that seemed to work towards negating the power of others. She was intimidating and forceful.
Following her removal in the early 1990s, Sr. Callida was told to stay away from the group home and children, in order to avoid confusion for the children. The congregation had great difficulty in getting Sr. Callida to comply with its wishes. She tended to stay around the grounds of Cappoquin, waiting for the children on their way to and from school. Sr. Callida remained defiant, and it took almost a year to resolve these problems.
By Marion O’Mara
IN the late 1970s a Sister of Mercy nun, given the pseudonym Sr. Callida, was appointed deputy house parent to what was known as Group Home A in St. Michael’s, Cappoquin.
When she took the job she had 17 children in her care. Though well known for her drinking and having children sleep in her bed she became Resident Manager and remained in that post until she was sacked in 1990s. The report, published by the commission to enquire into child abuse, highlights how Sr. Callida drank whiskey regularly and often in the sitting room in front of the older children. It was claimed she would be so drunk as to be falling all over the place.
A former staff member told the inquiry there were no proper routine and no timetables. Communication between management and staff was non-existent. She told how it was a frightening place to be for staff and children, and that she did not feel safe. Without giving prior notice Sr. Callida and Sr. Serena, who was in charge of another group house, regularly went away together. Sr. Callida had a little girl who slept with her at night and she would sometimes take that child or other children with her on her excursions.
“The fact that the kids slept in the bedroom, and she nearly always had a young child sleeping in the bedroom with her - it just became a habit over the years. Some of the staff used to try and get the child not to go in there but the child just always went in and she always brought her in. When she would go down to bed at night she would bring her with her,” the former staff worker said.
She recalled on one occasion Sr. Callida was so drunk she fell into the playpen on top of one of the children. There was, she added, no secret about Sr. Callida drinking. “That’s what I found very hard to understand, how everyone in the community knew what she was like and fellows knew that she was pissed going around the town and she would be out at nightclubs and different things.”
The report stated that from the time Sr. Callida became Resident Manager of the two group homes in the early 1980s, management problems arose almost immediately. One of the main problems was her lack of respect for care staff. On one occasion concern was expressed by a House Mother about two boys and a girl being alone in fields adjoining the home. Sr. Callida was asked, “What if the girl gets pregnant? She kind of laughed at me and said, ‘It wouldn’t be you that made her pregnant.’ I wasn’t getting anywhere...,” the House Mother said. There was further evidence of drinking going on in Group Home A. Parties were held in the home, and former residents and student priests stayed overnight.
Sr. Callida accepted to the Commission that there were times when she drank a lot but she denied her drinking was problematic. She accepted that some people stayed overnight in the homes but they were past pupils or her own brother. She did not accept evidence from the staff members that one past pupil, in particular, was a regular visitor and was often drunk. One of the Mercy sisters who gave evidence described Sr. Callida’s personality as one of great power that seemed to work towards negating the power of others. She was intimidating and forceful.
Following her removal in the early 1990s, Sr. Callida was told to stay away from the group home and children, in order to avoid confusion for the children. The congregation had great difficulty in getting Sr. Callida to comply with its wishes. She tended to stay around the grounds of Cappoquin, waiting for the children on their way to and from school. Sr. Callida remained defiant, and it took almost a year to resolve these problems.
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