Sir, - We are puzzled by your remarks concerning our book Suffer the Little Children - The Inside Story of Ireland's Indus- trial Schools (footnote to article by Breda O'Brien, Opinion, January 10th). Breda O'Brien objects to some aspects of our book. She has now expressed these objections not just in The Irish Times, but also on radio and in her own opinion column in the Sunday Business Post. We have responded in that newspaper in great detail to the points she raised and have, we believe, comprehensively refuted her points. We are happy to do so again.
In The Irish Times, Ms O'Brien inaccurately paraphrases the section of our book dealing with what has become known as "the bad apple theory". On page 16 of Suffer the Little Children we specifically state that "by no means all nuns or Brothers were cruel to the child detainees. However, it is equally clear that those who did not either beat or abuse children did not stand in the way of the often sadistic excesses of their fellow religious."
This is the nub of a most serious question to be posed to the religious orders concerned. Ms O'Brien's contention that to pose such a question is to display too narrow a focus is simply unsustainable.
As regards her other criticisms, Ms O'Brien clearly disagrees with our interpretation of the facts. That she chooses to do so is entirely her prerogative, but in no way invalidates the enormously detailed research undertaken by us in the writing of Suffer the Little Children.
In her article, she makes two specific criticisms of our book. Firstly, with regard to the report of the coroner into a boy's death in Artane Industrial School during the 1950s, it should be noted that this (and other) information was supplied to Ms O'Brien by the Christian Brothers.
This order has so far declined to open its archival material on industrial schools to public scrutiny. We were most anxious to include any relevant material from its archive in Suffer the Little Children, but the Christian Brothers refused to allow us access to it.
However, concerning the tragic death in question, we did in fact include in Suffer the Little Children the statement which the Christian Brothers had publicly made confirming that a boy had died following a fall over banisters at Artane and that this had been as a result of an accident. We further included the order's own explanation as to what had occurred.
Despite this, the fact remains that several former inmates of Artane, eye-witnesses to the tragedy, continue to believe that questions need to be answered with regard to this death. The coroner's report sheds no new light on this issue; it states that a boy died as a result of internal injuries following a fall over banisters at the school.
It is relevant to note that this particular incident now forms part of the extensive Garda investigation into the hundreds of allegations of severe physical and sexual abuse of boys by Christian Brothers at Artane up to the late 1960s.
Ms O'Brien's second point of criticism relates to whether or not Sr Stanislaus Kennedy was aware in the late 1970s that boys in St Joseph's Industrial School, Kilkenny were being sexually abused. As we have already repeatedly pointed out, our source in this area was never the individual social worker to whom Ms O'Brien refers.
Our primary source is none other than Sr Stanislaus's own statement to gardai, made when they interviewed her in 1995 in the course of their investigations into the abuse of boys at the Kilkenny institution. In this, she stated that she was told that the boys were being physically abused by a care worker at the institution, and she continued: "I picked up on it that he [the care worker] might have been sexually abusing them as well."
Later in her statement she said the following: "With regard to what happened in St Joseph's, you simply did not ask." This statement was signed by Sr Stanislaus in the presence of her solicitor. It is important to note that we also included in our book Sr Stanislaus's subsequent denial that she was aware of such sexual abuse at the time.
Your contributor Ms O'Brien is perfectly entitled to defend the record of the religious orders with regard to their activities in this country. However, attempting to shoot the messenger is no substitute for a proper debate on the very serious issues and questions which we seek to analyse in Suffer the Little Children.
We believe that in general The Irish Times has been both fair and thorough in its coverage of the appalling legacy of the country's industrial schools. Providing space, as you did last Monday, to allow Ms O'Brien to articulate her perspective is testament to this. However, we remain puzzled by your own rather generalised and, we believe, somewhat unfair remarks questioning unspecified aspects of our book. - Yours, etc.,
Mary Raftery, Eoin O'Sullivan, (Authors of Suffer the Little Children), Dundrum, Dublin 14.
It was not the intention of The Irish Times to take from the credibility of the book or to diminish its conclusions in any way. - Ed, IT.