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MANY CHILDREN HAVE positive stories from St Joseph’s School For Deaf Boys in Cabra, Dublin, from its 150-year history.
It was the chance for many to learn Irish Sign Language, allowing them to communicate and express themselves comfortably.
Others learned trades and were able to leave school and earn a living.
The school became known worldwide for its high standards of education – but it also has a murky history starting from the middle of last century.
“I didn’t know what to expect when I first arrived,” Larry Coogan recalls from his largely positive time at school between 1953 and 1958. He went on to become a master tailor.
He appears in a new RTÉ documentary, These Walls Could Talk by Garry Keane, which explores the history of the school, which was demolished in 2011. It is narrated by his daughter, performance artist Amanda Coogan.
“I wasn’t born deaf, and when I lost my hearing as a child it made me very lonely,” Larry said, “I was from down the country, and I could only communicate with my mother, my father, and my sister.”
“But suddenly I had all these people to communicate with at St Joseph’s. That was an incredibly feeling.”
For John Duggan, he was able to receive the training to work in a trade he loved.
“The Christian Brothers had a great influence on me, because of how they praised my work in class.”
“It was because of them that I picked carpentry as my career.”
If I hadn’t done woodwork, I probably would have been stacking shelves, or working on a production line in a factory. We would have been dependent on people.
We would have been like dogs, led about the place, being told what to do all the time, and that’s nothing something I would have wanted.
St Joseph’s changed dramatically in the 1950s, when oralism because widespread due to advances in electronics
This is where deaf students learn how to communicate using lipreading and mimicking mouth movements. Despite objections from Christian Brothers, the practice was introduced in Cabra.
When it gained more momentum in the 1970s, children began to be split depending on their hearing ability, even during sports.
Eddie Redmond, who attended the school during the time and who you might know as a news-signer for RTÉ, said it “encouraged” pupils to look down on each other based on their ability.
It was really sad, kinda like apartheid. We weren’t allowed mix, we weren’t allowed have tea together.
St Joseph’s has a more murky past than this; An entire chapter of the Ryan report was dedicated to the school.
The Commission of Inquiry found that physical and emotional abuse made the school a “a very frightening place”, and “said sexual activity was ignored or tolerated for some considerable time” until the Health Board eventually intervened.
The alleged abuse was carried out by a number of Christian Brothers but also lay people at the school between the 1950s and early 1990s. In later years, senior boys were also accused of abusing younger pupils.
Paul Keating, who has achieved success for Ireland at an international level for swimming, believes he could have gone much further if it wasn’t for the abuse he experienced.
He was abused by a lay member of staff, who would follow him into the dressing rooms when he went to practice his swimming.
“He used to come to my bed at around one or two in the morning. He would always have a torch and shine it on me when I was asleep. I was always thinking, what he’s going to do to me this week?”
“I would scream at nights, but everyone was deaf, so no one could hear me.”
Paul later revealed the abuse to older boys, who were later suspended for beating up the person. They told staff why it happened. Paul never saw the person again.
Noel Ball said he loved the school for the deaf, but his experience is overshadowed by the “horrible” abuse which started within a year of him starting at St Joseph’s.
The first time it happened, a Christian Brother took him up to a bedroom to read him a letter from his mother. There, he molested him.
St Joseph’s to me was like Auschwitz, it was like a prison camp. It was not a house a house of God, they were evil people.
“It was an awful experience, it ruined my life.”
Amanda Coogan makes it clear that this abuse must never be forgotten, but that the impact of the school on Ireland’s deaf community, educating thousands and providing opportunities that simply wouldn’t have been possible in Ireland at the time, must also be remembered.
These Walls Could Talk airs tonight on RTÉ One at 10.15pm. An Irish Sign Language version of the documentary will be available at the same time on the RTÉ Player at this link.
Originally published 6.03am
The Greens will be struggling to survive after the madness they have put us through since they got into power.
@Red Line: Can’t you not focus on the subject being discussed instead of taking potshots?
Take your frustration out in the polling booths instead of ruining the comments thread. The destruction of nature threatens our very existence.
@Ollie O’Cleirigh: The Greens are fake environmentalists. For example they approve of mass immigration, no matter of the impact on Ireland’s carbon footprint.
@Ollie O’Cleirigh: public discourse is far more important than voting even though both are important. The greens have set back the green agenda in Ireland for decades with lazy and incompetent political leaders and party members. They constantly commentate on our emissions and come up with no strategy as to how to mitigate them. Not one word from them on nuclear power and investment in our grid which cannot even connect new wind farms as its totally ineffective and at its capacity already. Then when asked about public they talk about hydrogen trains when electric trains would transform the islands public transport. Bicycle lanes painted on the side of roads and south facing window boxes. They are done. Get them out. Impoverishing the poor further particularly rurally will not help.
@Allora: 100%. There a bunch of amateur politicians that got lucky in the last election.
Malcom why is your so called Green party destroying wildlife habitats ,biodiversity killing trees wasting millions of taxpayers money at Lough Funshinagh flood crisis causing the demolition and flooding of homes farmyards and villages in a National housing crisis !! By not allowing the lake return to its natural level!!! Is there a hidden agenda ?
Well said Malcolm. Green policies are becoming accepted in most governments and we need a brave voice.
Just how committed is the government to preserving what’s left of our biodiversity? It allows coursing clubs to capture thousands of our native hares, supposedly a protected species, for the purpose of setting dogs on them. If that can happen to an iconic species that conservationists have dubbed the “Flagship of Irish biodiversity”, then how serious can our leaders be about saving our wildlife heritage? The image of a hare having its bones crushed or being tossed into the air by a coursing dog could aptly represent the attitude of this government to the wild creatures that share the island with us.
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