Documentary record Bound by Fear
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Other Christian institutions & contexts Catholic Artane, Dublin, Ireland · 1969

Artane: Ryan Report finds Brothers who admitted abusing boys were retained and transferred

Record class

Institutional event

Evidence status

Official finding

Authority role

Christian Brothers holding total custodial and spiritual authority over committed boys, Congregation leadership that retained admitted abusers

Organization

St Joseph's Industrial School, Artane, Congregation of Christian Brothers

Spiritual nexus

Boys were committed to Artane by court order into the total custodial and spiritual authority of the Christian Brothers; that religious authority is what made the abuse unrefusable, and the Congregation's own authority structure is what moved admitted abusers between institutions instead of out of them.

  • Institutional obedience or isolation
  • Pastoral or clerical authority

Evidence structure

Proceedings

  1. 2009-05-20 · statutory inquiry finding

    Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (Ryan Commission), Ireland — statutory inquiry. The Ryan Report found that a Brother it names 'Br Herve' was 'accused of having kissed, fondled, embraced and meddled with boys in his class' and 'admitted that the charges were substantially true', yet was subsequently transferred to Artane rather than removed from ministry to children. A second Brother, 'Br Platt', 'voluntarily confessed to the Superior that he had abused a boy and acted immodestly with him' and was likewise retained. Artane, the largest industrial school in the state, held boys committed by court order from 1870 to 1969.

Documented coercion mechanisms

  • court committal into the Congregation's custody
  • transfer of known abusers between institutions rather than removal

Primary record

Sources

official statutory inquiry report inquiry report Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, 'Report' (Ryan Report), Vol. I, ch. 7 (Artane), paras 312–339 (20 May 2009).

The statutory inquiry records the admitted abuse, the confessions to superiors, and the retention and transfer of the Brothers concerned.

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