Thursday 16th November 1967
ARTANE - THE PLACE THAT GOD FORGOT
The testimony on this page is by Patrick Walsh, a former Artane Boys Band member who spent 6 years in Artane Industrial School, until its closure in 1969.
Patrick Walsh in Blackpool
This photo is from 1966 (Blackpool) when I was 12 years old -
It may look like the Cote d'Azur but was simply a sunny picture backdrop. The colour photograph was available for collection from the fun arcade the following day - price 5/- (25p) or thereabouts. These things were quite novel at the time and colour photographs were seriously impressive.
The reason for the smiles is simple - on this one occasion our Mother was granted informal (unrecorded) (after 11 years) access and was allowed to put us up in a local Guest House on condition she lived in a separate place. She took us all over the amusements in Blackpool where we frittered away her money on dodgems - ice cream et cetera.
This was the first time in 11 years that we had been allowed out alone with our mother.
It may look like the Cote d'Azur but was simply a sunny picture backdrop. The colour photograph was available for collection from the fun arcade the following day - price 5/- (25p) or thereabouts. These things were quite novel at the time and colour photographs were seriously impressive.
The reason for the smiles is simple - on this one occasion our Mother was granted informal (unrecorded) (after 11 years) access and was allowed to put us up in a local Guest House on condition she lived in a separate place. She took us all over the amusements in Blackpool where we frittered away her money on dodgems - ice cream et cetera.
This was the first time in 11 years that we had been allowed out alone with our mother.
A DAY AT ARTANE - NOVEMBER 1967
Thursday 16th November 1967 at Artane Industrial School was cold as ever and the plan to spring my brother Frank from Ireland’s notorious child prison was under way. Seven days earlier I was told by the sneering yard-manager ,Mister O’Shea, that my brother, Frank, was to be transferred to Letterfrack Industrial School – a desolate place on Ireland’s west coast with an awesome reputation for extreme violence.
Twelve years earlier in August 1955 and without any notice or warning to our mother, the Police applied to have us three boys and my younger sister committed by a “Judge” at the Children's Courts at Dublin Castle on complaint by our own father that his wife was disobedient and unfaithful – she was not brought to Court or charged or even contacted by the so-called authorities – the law didn’t require such a thing and we were simply handed over into the 'care' of the law. As children we were seen as 'his' property and we were processed under the oppressive provisions of de-Valera’s notorious 1941* Children Act. We had done nothing wrong but, like thousands of others, we had fallen into the trap carefully crafted by the heroic leaders of Church and State – we hadn’t a chance. Our sentences ranged from 12 to 16 years.
As a woman in Ireland in the late 1950tys my mother had no rights. Our mother was cruelly denied access for eleven years and only once, for a short period of three days, when two of us were beyond the jurisdiction in 1966 on an England tour with the Artane Band, were we allowed to be with her.
This was a time when the law belonged to those who crafted it and ordinary Irish women were powerless in a Free State theocracy where the Roman Catholic Church held sway over the political elite.
Including myself, my two brothers in Artane headed up the woodwind section of the Band playing clarinet and oboe during the 1960’s (1961 – 1969) and in June 1967 our older sibling left for England which coincided a few weeks later with Frank’s expulsion from the Band that left him highly vulnerable to management violence.
Because Frank was under constant surveillance it fell to me to contact our older brother and seek assistance for an escape plan and very soon our mother telephoned to finalise the details. Since I was a trusted member of the Band I was allowed to accept some incoming calls in the General Managers office without being overheard.
The plan was that our mother would fly to Dublin and insinuate her way past the yard-manager on the day – a Mister Furlong. Our Frank was to be conveniently positioned at a certain place close to the Artane main gate. The detail and timing was, as they say, absolutely essential.
When our mother arrived Mister Furlong (Flung-dung )was so charmed he allowed her to put Frank into a taxi and drive away on the pretext she would be right back to see me - making great play of not wanting to disturb the Band practice. Once outside she produced replacement clothing and the institution clobber was dumped as they rushed to the Airport for the London evening flight. Mister Furlong (Flung-dung) was still waiting for her return hours later and by the time the alarm was raised it was too late because Frank had landed in London and was free. This was the only successful home-run during 1963-1969 – we had learned from the mistakes of the many others who had tried and realised that any break-out was pointless unless it included provision for simultaneous escape from the country.
Because I had been at Band practice I could not be linked directly to the escape but they weren’t fools and the manager of the shoe shop old Mick Noble informed that he had seen me cut out and destroy postmarks and addresses from letters with English postage stamps the previous week. These were letters from our mother I had accumulated over two years and secreted in my Band-room locker naively believing they were safe but they were soon discovered and because I had contrived to keep the stamps, I looked guilty. I did love the stamps – they were aesthetically perfect and from our mother - this was all I had of her in there.
A few days later her letters were placed on a long table in the General Manager’s office by two members of the State Police – called An Garda Síochána (pronounced Sheerkauna) in Ireland who said I had broken the law and could be charged with conspiracy in assisting a criminal act. The envelopes looked odd now with the identifying postmarks removed but with Battle of Britain anniversary stamps intact depicting Spitfires and Stukas as well as Battle of Hastings 950th year specials and 1966 World Cup winner stamps too. These were small things, but precious to a 13 year old for all that, because they seemed to indicate a better world beyond the awful precincts of Artane and its pitiless brutality.
For almost an hour I was subjected to a “good cop - bad cop interrogation” with the bad-cop making all the threats and the good-cop saying they only wanted to know that my brother was safe and well –I told them nothing except that he was okay now and that he had to get away because of the horrific abuse and of the nasty plan to exile him to Letterfrack where he would be destroyed. Then the coppers looked at each other and closed their note books – I hit a raw nerve they were not prepared to investigate or even listen to and they left the office – I never saw them again. A short while later the general-manager came back and threw all my mother’s letters onto a blazing fire – he had assumed I would be impressed by the men in uniforms with their air of authority and the like – I was not.
I was happy my brother made a clean home-run – but I remember the time as one of high anxiety and dreadful fear.
I cannot forgive the destruction of the letters because it demonstrated such ignorance and revealed their true philistine credentials - burning that which is most valuable in life, those essential expressions of love and feelings of tenderness between human beings. The outside world thought these Brothers were men of God, how wrong they were.
There was absolutely no room for love or humanity at Artane – it was the place that God forgot.
Patrick Walsh ©
Former Artane Band Member & Inmate Nr 14435
ABUSER BROTHER 'JOBOY' O CONNOR
ENABLER - JOSEPH LYNCH
Patrick Walsh, (circled in red) heading to America with the Artane Boys Band in 1969
The flight was Dublin to New York via Shannon (June 69) this photo was taken by the Band's manager and serial paedophile Br Joseph O'Connor - I remember this photo call because he handed me his paper bag of whatever (duty free) and told me to mind it for him whilst he took photos at Shannon Airport - I was 15 (almost 16) – funny thing is that a variant of the very same photograph is being used over the past five years on the Artane School of Music website passing off as the“ post 1970 Band” very cheeky that.
An official press photographer has his back to the camera but to his right is notorious "paedophile-assistantant" Joe Lynch (Brown suit) who had a form of severe Rumkowski syndrome
Lynch was a child of the system himself but at age 16 he chose to remain a loyal slave-servant to the Christian Brothers and when I met him a few years before his death he insisted no abuse ever happened at Artane - "just a little slapping - that's all" he said - he was in complete denial.
Of course he had to say that because he worked a system at the time to identify boys in the Band whom Brother Joseph O'Connor wanted to have intimate sexualised contact but needed "a misbehaviour pretext" something Lynch could be relied on to provide. I would say that without Lynch, Brother Joseph O'Connor would have been a far less effective paedophile.
An official press photographer has his back to the camera but to his right is notorious "paedophile-assistantant" Joe Lynch (Brown suit) who had a form of severe Rumkowski syndrome
Lynch was a child of the system himself but at age 16 he chose to remain a loyal slave-servant to the Christian Brothers and when I met him a few years before his death he insisted no abuse ever happened at Artane - "just a little slapping - that's all" he said - he was in complete denial.
Of course he had to say that because he worked a system at the time to identify boys in the Band whom Brother Joseph O'Connor wanted to have intimate sexualised contact but needed "a misbehaviour pretext" something Lynch could be relied on to provide. I would say that without Lynch, Brother Joseph O'Connor would have been a far less effective paedophile.
Musicians have No Say and No Pay
Group photo from Blackpool in 1966 when the band was taken on a fund-raising trip to Liverpool and Blackpool for the local Order of CB’s (England) and the Artane Christian Brothers.
The Christian Brothers in Blackpool needed repairs to their school roof or a new library and decided the best way was to organise a series of concerts down-town and for the public to buy tickets.
The Christian Brothers at Artane were contacted and agreed to place their band at the disposal of the Blackpool CB’s (or Cork, Limerick, Portlaoise, etc) on a split-revenue basis.
This was a neat arrangement for globalised Christian Brothers everywhere.
The musicians have no say and get no pay!
The Christian Brothers in Blackpool needed repairs to their school roof or a new library and decided the best way was to organise a series of concerts down-town and for the public to buy tickets.
The Christian Brothers at Artane were contacted and agreed to place their band at the disposal of the Blackpool CB’s (or Cork, Limerick, Portlaoise, etc) on a split-revenue basis.
This was a neat arrangement for globalised Christian Brothers everywhere.
The musicians have no say and get no pay!
