Fair Street orphanage was living hell for abuse victims

RYAN REPORT BRINGS BACK BAD MEMORIES FOR FORMER RESIDENTS

Wed 3 Jun 2009 at 10:31

A LIVING hell is how two former residents of the Sisters of Charity orphanage in Drogheda have described their time in the Fair Street home.

The publication of the Ryan Report into the abuse of children in Catholic run institutions has brought back terrible memories of his Drogheda childhood for Patrick Walsh.

He and another man ‘Michael’ have spoken out about the abuse they suffered at the hands of staff in the orphanage.

This week recalled the Patrick ‘sadist’ whose beatings and psychological torture made his young life a misery.

While Michael (not his real name) spoke about his rape as an eight-yearold boy by a male staff member at the orphanage.

‘During my time in Drogheda I was sexually and physically abused. I remember when I was eight I was taken to hospital because I couldn’t go to the toilet. It was after an incident when ***** had abused me and I was in so much pain. That was brushed under the carpet and never spoken about again. I was told to get on with it. The nuns were absolutely emotionless, cruel and callous beyond belief.’

Patrick too remembers the nuns as ‘very cold’ women who never showed ‘a scrape of affection’ to the children in their care.

But for him it was the nuns’ ability to ignore the cruelty inflicted by a lay sister which really rankles.

‘She terrorised the children and the nuns knew it. They handed over discipline to someone who in Nazi Germany would have made a concentration camp guard.’

Both Patrick and ‘Michael’ have had their complaints upheld and have received settlements from the redress board.