Sir, - It was with mounting shame that I viewed Mary Raftery's TV documentary States of Fear. Journalists of the 1940s and 1950s had their suspicions of the industrial schools. We knew, in particular, that a stay with the Christian Brothers was to be avoided, the main reason being the brothers' reputation for excessive corporal punishment.
Even in a climate of acceptance that brothers and nuns were beyond repute, we should have tried harder to find out the real truth. In the defence of journalists of that time, we would not have been believed and managements and editors would never have held out against a massed attack by the all-powerful Irish Catholic Church.
From first-hand experience I witnessed one of the worst of the Christian Brothers break into the office of the manager and demand that a court case that mentioned Artane should not be used. Before the manager could lift a phone he would push open the editorial door to tell us the manager had instructed that the case be dumped. He got away with this just one more time. On the third time of demanding, the manager, who was most honourable and dedicated to ethics, said no, as he was not going to interfere with the editors any more on behalf of Artane. Those requests should have alerted journalists to start inquiries into what was happening in Artane. That we did not is a heavy burden.
There was also the matter of ignorance. That the Christian Brothers were indulging their passion for sexual abuse on their captive boys was something that I admit would not have occurred to me. In addition, the Irish Catholic Church was held in awe, particularly after the triumphalist Eucharistic Congress of 1932.
Mary Raftery is to be congratulated on, at last, pulling down the edifice of lies and evasion that flourished for so long.
Journalists of that time were trapped in a carefully designed plot that mixed lies with official evasion and ecclesiastical terror. Nevertheless, I for one, believe that we allowed cowardice to rule. - Yours, etc., Brian Quinn,
Editor of the Evening Herald, 1969-1976, Kincora Grove, Dublin 3.