Am I the only one who has fond memories of an industrial school, asks Evelyn Doyle. Since publication of a book on her father's battle against church and State in the 1950s to change the law on industrial schools, she has been accused of lying about her time in care

If there were black beetles in the porridge, I would have said so. If I had been paddled with a hurley stick then I would have recorded that also. But the truth of my stay in a church-run industrial school over two years is that I did not suffer any abuse whatsoever; apart from the usual strap on the legs and sore knees from hours of prayer on bare floorboards. (But then, didn't everyone in those days get the strap at school and at home?)

I am amazed that, out of the approximately 300,000 children who passed through the system, it seems that I am the only one, apart from my brothers, with some fond memories of the nuns who cared for us.

Since publication of my book, my publishers, and Irish Dreamtime, which made the film based on my story, have had to deal with complaints from people who have survived the system of industrial schools and Magdalene laundries, and seem to hold me personally responsible for their traumatic childhoods.

In writing my book, my only intention was to give recognition to my very brave father who was well aware of what could happen in these places - as was most of the adult population. Some passages were extremely difficult to write and brought to the forefront of my mind things I thought I had moved on from; none of which were related to my time with the nuns at High Park in Drumcondra, Dublin.

My father was forced to have my five brothers and I committed in 1954 when my mother left home. On the advice of the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, he agreed to the committal, being under the impression that he could take us back when circumstances allowed. However, when that time arrived eight months later, he was told that we could be released back to him only if he applied to the courts jointly with my mother. It was the law, the government insisted. But my mother had disappeared. Meanwhile, the Catholic church made it its business to find out that my father's housekeeper was an English Protestant, which of course made it even harder for my father to win his case.

Some survivors of industrial schools accuse me of faulty memory, others of outright lying. They say the facts are inaccurate and a "fanciful fairy tale". One person has suggested my personal memories are "more fiction than fact".

I am sorry if they feel this way. I wrote as honestly and as objectively as I remembered my time at High Park.

Attacking me on a personal level will not make the hurt, anger and pain they feel go away. They must accept that not everyone was abused.

It appears to me that there are two distinctly different issues that the survivors are attempting to deal with. There seems to be some confusion between the two. First, their detention in the industrial schools and the reason for that detention; and second, the abuse they suffered at the hands of the people who ran the schools.

In 1957, as a direct result of my father's law suit, the Dáil debated and declared the entire Children Act of 1941 invalid due to its being "unconstitutional" and it was re-written. The Minister for Education was thereafter obliged to release a child on one parent's signature if the circumstances since they were committed to State care had changed.

While it is impossible to know how many children were released in the aftermath of my father's legal victory, we know that approximately 300,000 children had been incarcerated between the 1920s and the1970s. Each family had the legal right to apply for the return of their child or children.

The "Christian institutions" fought tooth and nail to retain these children; they received a significant payment from the government per child. However, the Minister for Education was by law required to release children under the terms of the new Children Act of 1957.

I have personal knowledge of several people who, after their parents applied to the courts, were released from Artane and Goldenbridge. It would not be unreasonable to suppose that many more children were released under the same circumstances.

My point is that the survivors must find out what their own families were doing for them at the time. Did they apply for their release? Why were they there in the first place? And had the circumstances changed which necessitated their committal? Of course I am not blaming these people for being in the schools.

I do not place the burden of blame on the survivors' families. Who knows what misery or circumstances and social pressures led to them having their children committed to the State's "care"?

Was the fact that in 1957 the Children Act was rewritten as a result of my father's case, concealed from some who had no way of knowing that they could reclaim their children? I quote one survivor: "Hundreds of children were sent to places like Artane before, during and after the Doyle trial. The case did not lead to our freedom. In fact, my old man was inspired by the case to have my brother and me committed to Artane after our mother left Ireland".

This survivor, an active member of Survivors of Child Abuse (SOCA), is missing the point entirely, and is claiming that no one was freed from these schools because of the judgment; this is not true.

The second issue is an entirely different matter. My brothers and I suffered no abuse whatsoever in the schools we were in, and my brothers have very fond memories of the nuns in Kilkenny. Even had my memory played tricks on me with regard to my time at High Park, the loving reception I received 12 years ago and more recently by the Mothers there vindicated my reflections on that period of my childhood.

I know that in some schools there was the most abhorrent cruelty and abuse and the perpetrators must answer for this under the full extent of the law and the victims must be compensated in full for the loss of their childhood. If I was part of Irish SOCA or any survivor group, my main energies would be directed at making sure that the institutions responsible for the abuse were prevented from asset-stripping and hiding behind "bankruptcy" in order to limit their liability to their victims.

I am deeply sympathetic to the people whose childhood was cruelly snatched from them, and my heart goes out to them, but as long as they consider themselves to be victims, their abusers are going to continue to hold power over them, which of course is the prime motive of child abuse. This I learned during my time as a police officer and earlier as a psychiatric nurse.

The nuns at High Park are being traumatised by the revelations being aired at the moment in Ireland and are distraught at the thought that they are being "tarred by the same brush" and their life's work is being reduced to the level of sub humanity; it should be remembered that a lot of them were also victims. I have no particular religious persuasion and have not attended church since I was a young girl, except for weddings and funerals, nor am I interested in furthering the Catholic church's policy of defence in these matters. But I resent that some survivors are attempting to diminish my father's long and hard-fought battle against the might of the Irish State and Catholic church.

I am deeply offended when I am accused of lying about my time in the school, and yes, I am aware that they were "schools" and not orphanages. But it is not my intention to sell a few more books by hurting or causing offence to the sweet old ladies now living out their time in nursing homes up and down the country who, in all faith, give up their life to God. I pray that the survivors find peace and some healing, but in order to find that they must put these dreadful times firmly where they belong . . . in the past.

Interestingly enough, my brothers and I did not come out of the fiasco unscathed. My father changed forever through his bitter experience and during the early years afterwards many's the time I wished to be spirited back to the nuns. (Copyright Evelyn Doyle 2003)

Evelyn: A True Story by Evelyn Doyle is out in paperback on March 6th. The sequel, Nothing Green will be published by Orion in August 2003. The film Evelyn, based on her story and starring Pierce Brosnan, is being released in Ireland on March 28th