Witnesses tell of what they suffered at Kircubbin home

15 October 2014

A HOME where violent and humiliating punishments were the norm. That is how Rubane House has been described by the latest witnesses to give evidence to the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry (HIA) in Banbridge.
For the most minor of infractions — smoking, playing soccer instead of Gaelic football, or for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time — boys could find themselves victim to vicious beatings with electrical cables, hurley bats and canes. Bones were allegedly broken.
The HIA is currently examining alleged physical and sexual abuse at the De La Salle order run home which was based in Kircubbin. Around 200 former residents have made allegations of abuse and 55 are to come forward to the inquiry.

Voice beyond the grave

A witness who died earlier this year described Rubane in the late 1950s as a “cruel place”. He remembered having to work outside in his bare feet — “or I got a smack in the face, or I would have been caned on the hand and to the tips of my fingers.
“I also had my trousers pulled down on occasion and was held down by the older boys and got caned on my backside. My head was hit hard against a board and I had my ears pulled many times.”
In his statement made before dying from cancer, he said three brothers in particular were very cruel and he was very afraid of the brother in charge.
“He would bring some of the residents to his office at night time and he would ask ‘Did any of the brothers touch you?’ I thought at the time he might be trying to trick me so I never said a word.”
Referring to another brother, the man said: “He was also a very cruel man. He would roll up wiring for an electric fence and hit me hard with it, which made me feel dizzy. On one occasion he made me kneel down with my hands above my head with no pyjamas on for an hour as a form of punishment. I was 13 years old at the time.”
Outlining abuse that was also emotional, he added: “I recall the brothers telling you that you were mental and that you would never get anywhere in life. No-one ever encouraged you or helped you or cared for you and it was painful never to have anyone take an interest in your development.
“The older boys at Rubane House helped the brothers. They were often put in charge of the younger boys and they were called prefects. They were the brothers’ favourites and they allowed them to be in charge of everyone. They often did things that the brothers knew they should not be doing but the brothers did not stop them. I called them the brothers’ pets and they were really privileged.”
The inquiry heard the Order disputes the implication that older boys were put in charge of younger boys.
“Throughout my lifetime I have suffered episodes of trauma in the form of intrusive memories, flashbacks and nightmares,” the man added.

Pensioner in Perth

One pensioner giving video evidence this week via videolink from Perth in Australia described the actions of two De La Salle brothers at Rubane during the 1950s as “brutal, vindictive and intimidating”.
“They hit you across the face, on the back of the head and legs regularly and at times the force of their blows was so great and the punishment so excessive that it knocked you off your feet,” he said. “These two Brothers often beat the boys in the home that way for minor misdemeanours.”
He added: “I continue to have vivid and recurrent flashbacks of the humiliating and degrading attacks during my time at Rubane House.
“Unfortunately my past has now caught up with me and I’ve recently been diagnosed by my doctor as suffering from post traumatic stress disorder.”
The man claimed there was also a poor standard of education at Rubane and said they were expected to carry out “heavy, heavy work”.
He also spoke of his distress at being split up from his sisters when transferred to a boys’ home in Australia, where he says he was also abused. He said he was never allowed to keep in contact with his relatives in Belfast.
“I am not complaining that I came to Australia, but I do believe I have missed out on a lot with my family back home, and I know this caused a lot of hurt to my sisters, particularly a couple of them,” he said. “They have now passed on, and that really took its toll on them.”
When asked what he thought the Northern Ireland government could do redress what happened, the pensioner said: “What amount of money can fix up what they did to my family? What can fix up anything? It will never come back.
“We have lost it, and maybe because of a few decisions made by those people in charge with no regard whatsoever, and maybe they thought we were never going to grow up.”

Witness to ill to attend

One resident was sexually abused by one of the brothers while he was in the sick bay with ‘flu, the inquiry heard. The allegation was made in a witness statement by a man too ill to attend the Banbridge hearing.
It is an allegation which the De La Salle order say they do not accept.
The man also spoke of disturbing physical abuse.
“The brothers whipped us with things like hurley bats,” he said. “There was one lad who ended up in bed for three months. I think they broke his arm. They wouldn’t take us to the hospital if we were badly beaten. One time I saw [a brother] holding one of the wee lads and another brother beating him with hurley sticks...I think he was beaten because they had caught him smoking.”
He said he was hit himself while waiting to play hurley, as he was kicking a ball at the time with a friend.
“We could only play Gaelic football,” he explained.
The man said one brother also kneed him in the ribs, causing him to have breathing problems. He said later in life he was he told must have had some ribs broken when young.
The former resident said he was also whipped by an electric lead: “One time the boys were all waiting in a room outside the dining hall to go in for dinner, [one of the brothers] came in.
He had an electric lead and started to use it as whip, swinging it widely. He hit me across the neck. It made me bleed. I didn’t receive any treatment.”
He also complained of “stinking food” and workhouse like conditions while the brothers enjoyed the best of food.
“We generally didn’t have to wash our own dishes, but during the big freeze in the winter of 61/62 the water was off, so we were made to clean the plates by licking them,” he said. “We didn’t keep our own plates, so we would have been eating off a plate that someone else had licked clean.”
The inquiry heard that while the De La Salle order remembered the cold spell, it felt this allegation was “bizarre”.
Referring to farm work the boys sometimes carried out, the man said: “It was a long day. We had to stay out even in cold and we and were paid 30 pence a week for the work, 2/6 in those days. We all went in the brothers’ sweetie shop and spent all the money, so they got the money back. Your 2/6 never left the place.”
The Order disputes what the boys were paid and said they were not allowed to work in cold or wet conditions.
In his account the man also said the brothers watched boys in showers for their own sexual gratification.
He remembers, however, the kindness of one brother.
“Not all the brothers were bad,” he said. [One of the brothers] was good to us. He took us out on summer days and he gave us money for St. Patrick’s Day.”
Referring to being approached by police in the mid 1990s and not telling them everything then, he said he “only gave the briefest of details them, because to be fair I just wanted to get on with my life”.

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