Boy’s contract of servitude...
Legal row over rare documents which show how Christian Brothers made cash out of ‘apprenticeships’
at the centre of a legal row between the Christian Brothers and a former inmate of an industrial school reveal how the religious order made substantial amounts of cash by exploiting children as indentured servants.
The grim collection includes hundreds of signed apprenticeship contracts issued by the order when boys aged 16 left St Joseph’s Industrial School in Glin, Co. Limerick, as well as pages and pages of letters penned by children in the school that were never sent to their families.
These documents – some of which the Irish Mail on Sunday has seen – show the lengths to which the religious order went to ensure that not only did the youngsters lose contact with their families, but would also provide the Christian Brothers with a lucrative income long after the boys left the school.
The records were salvaged by author Tom Wall during a clean-up when the school was closed in 1973. He was the last three-yearold child to be admitted to the Limerick industrial school. Now 68 years old, Mr Wall is keen that the treasure trove of documents, records, ledgers, letters and photos be archived, preserved and retained by the University of Limerick.
But he is being sued by the Christian Brothers and as a result the rare collection – which gives an unprecedented insight into how industrial schools were run and how children living there were treated – cannot be displayed by the University of Limerick.
Meanwhile, the controversial legal move taken by the scandalhit order will be raised in the Dáil next week by Limerick Fianna Fáil TD Niall Collins.
He said: ‘I’ve been informed that some of these documents reveal that children were effectively sold into slavery by the Christian Brothers. If this being the case, then the minister is duty-bound to get to the bottom of this scandal.’
Mr Wall has accessed the entry in the school ledger that refers to his own admission. This week he said: ‘I was the last boy of three years of age to be admitted to Glin and I wasn’t allowed to mix with the other boys so I was locked up in the infirmary.’ The document reveals he was admitted as a ‘destitute’ whose mother couldn’t afford to support him – and he was labelled ‘illegitimate’ from the start.
Mr Wall added: ‘When the Christian Brothers were leaving Glin in 1973, I was ordered by Superior Brother Murray to burn all the documents that he gave me, but was told that I could keep any that I particularly wanted.
‘As I was looking for my own file I therefore held back some of the documents that I had been told to burn and I put them in the attic of a house in Glin, where they remained for the next 40 years. In 2015, I donated this collection to the University of Limerick. It’s a very rare collection and the only one we know of in existence; it’s very important these documents are preserved for the public in UL. ’
In one document seen by the MoS, a boy called Myles Daly is contracted as an indentured servant for three years to his ‘master’. And records show that throughout their apprenticeship, boys such as Myles Daly, were unpaid servants. The legal contract states that Myles was provided with ‘board, washing, lodging and repairs of clothes’.
However, the wages he earned were paid directly to the manager of the industrial school who would then use the money for ‘the said apprentice as he may need it’.
It is clear that the rights of the boy’s ‘master’ superceded those of the youngster.
Responding to the document, Mr Wall said: ‘To me it’s total exploitation to have young boys out working as apprentices. They had absolutely no rights, they were actual slaves. The boys got absolutely nothing.
‘When they left Glin they were given a suit of clothes, a pair of shoes and nothing else from
the Christian Brothers.’
‘Children were effectively sold into slavery’