Scars that Run Deep (9 page)

Being free from Artane Industrial Christian Brothers School was in many ways just like being set free from a state prison. Looking back to that time, I believe that to be true. I was set free from a state-run institution where I'd been kept for eight years from the age of eight to the age of sixteen. I had been taken from a normal loving home in the hillside to a very violent and physical, brutal life of prayer, punishment and sexual abuse.

When I slept my dreams were shattered and turned to incredible nightmares. The nightmares, as I recall, seemed so real. The faces in them were of the same hard core of Brothers I feared most of all. The men in black chasing me in my awful dreams-turned-to-nightmares were not simply my demons: they were real men such as the Sheriff, the Bucko, Hellfire, and the Macker. Christian Brothers who so
often inflicted excruciating pain and abuse to so many boys in their care.

Life outside of Artane Industrial Christian Brothers School was more difficult to come to terms with than I ever imagined. In reality I was a very naive and gullible young man, totally ignorant of the facts of life, who was sadly very institutionalised. I harboured visions of me joining a sheltered life in a big way. The shadow of Artane I soon realised was to be a long one and would haunt me wherever I travelled.

The main reason I hated the Catholic Boys' Home was quite simply because of bullies such as Brown Tango and a total lack of any privacy. It was nothing more than a Catholic boys' sex club where decent young lads were abused.

I found the first year away from Artane the hardest. I honestly had too much to learn about a normal life, the way to behave, how to act normal. I was always acting as though I was somebody else. Perhaps in reality I was, because I really didn't know who I was or where I came from. I still don't.

I WAS HAVING
a fair number of problems in the Catholic Boys' Home towards the end of my first year there. I knew I had to start looking for digs, but I had another problem, one that was to cause me a great deal of bother throughout my life, and that was money, or the lack of it.

I was looking for digs with Fatser. We were up near the Phoenix Park, at a big red-bricked house. I got frightened and told Fatser to go up to the house without me. He shouted, ‘Paddy, we're up, come on, will yeh!' The big hall door opened, and a tall woman with a Cork accent said, ‘It's two pounds, seven shillings and sixpence per week sharing for full board. Laundry will be two shillings a week extra.' Well, I roared laughing and ran. I was earning only two shillings less than that for working six days, even though it was rarely more than six hours a day. I knew I could never afford to move into fancy lodgings.

Carmella O'Grady, who acted as my adopted godmother
and brought some hope and light while I was in Artane, was an educated and elegant woman, as were her daughters, Joan, Carine and Elizabeth – far and away too educated for Minnie and my other pals. I visited them almost every Saturday since I left Artane and I was allowed to bring pals from the Catholic Boys' Home. After each visit to them I came away feeling I'd learned something.

It was January 1959. Christmas had not been great, but a visit to the O'Gradys in Ballsbridge was a highlight, and, like all visits before, it was a lovely occasion. Whenever Minnie came out with me he generally broke down laughing, so much so that Carmella was amazed one Saturday as she served tea to see Minnie laughing so hard that tea came out his nostrils! I was just as bad. I remember the tall, dark-suited Dr John Francis standing there looking at the pair of us. He was a fine, well-built and elegant man. Carine was concerned now as she spoke to us. ‘What's so funny, Patrick? Is it us, or something we said?' How could I tell her that it was? Our inexperience to communicate was the problem!

I explained that Minnie and I tended to laugh at a lot of things that were strange to us, and indeed the whole concept of having tea served to us ex-Artaners on the lawn was simply too much to take. As I look back on the style of things at the O'Grady home in Dublin 4, it does make me smile. In some ways they did help me to be ambitious and to style myself like
them. I knew I could never be like them, but at least I found that the more time I spent in their company, the more I would learn from their ways.

In the early spring of 1959 I was lonely and sick with toothache and gum disease, which I had suffered a lot with in Artane. I was sleepwalking often too, as were many other lads. I regularly woke up in some other chap's bed. On one occasion I woke up lying naked on top of this chap who slept at the far end of the dormitory. He was known as Danno, a fine, dark-haired, handsome chap, not an ex-Artaner. He had his arms wrapped around me and he was talking in his sleep. Well, I was scared, yet I felt good. I had never had any sexual experience or desires, nor ever had an orgasm, and I was almost seventeen. I was scared of Danno from my previous experience of him.

I once had a shower with Danno. He spoke with a soft, educated Dublin accent. ‘Hold mine and I'll hold yours.' I have to admit that I did as he requested, for good reasons too. The last time I had refused to come to a lad's aid was my first meeting with the Brown Tango, and I was badly beaten up by him. What astonished me about this new guy was that he was a Jehovah's Witness. He never came near me again, though. I could not have pleased him, as I was still very naive in those matters. I realised I had to get out of this awful place.

Because of my toothache I stayed out of work for the first
time in the twelve months I was in the bakery. I went back to bed after my visit to the dentist, having had two or more teeth extracted, and I lay there listening to the sound of the traffic below my window in Middle Abbey Street. My face was out of shape and I felt alone and dumped, like a little boy in the woods.

I was gazing at the high ceiling when I heard heavy footsteps. It was my boss, Mick Bradley. I felt awful. Tears were never too far away; and as I write this I can still see the big man from Derry, so tall and straight, looking down at me; and his look said it all. ‘I was concerned, Pat. You never miss work. Damn it, Pat, someone could have let us know. Pauline was very concerned, so I dropped in. The lads will be in later.' I just cried. I loved that big, affable man.

He pulled up an old green steel chair. He spoke quickly now, as though he wanted to go. ‘Look, Pat, this is no fit place for a lad like you. I'll see to it you get a nice homely person to put you up, preferably in Fairview.'

Suddenly a few big lads entered the dormo, shouting. I recognised at once the loudest voice. It was Brown Tango. ‘You sick or somethin', Collie?'

He stood a few feet from my boss. I just nodded. I hated the sight of him. Brown Tango got smart and shouted, ‘Who's the big redneck, Collie?'

I responded, ‘He's my boss.'

‘I hope he's fuckin' payin' for you bein' out sick!' He came closer now, and the gang came with him. ‘We'll have a nice warm shower together, Collie, perhaps when you're better. I need it badly.'

At that my boss stood up in front of Tango, who looked surprised at how tall he was. He backed off. Suddenly the caretaker appeared, shouting at the lads to get out and find a day's work and not be seen in the dormitory during the day.

Mick looked down at me. ‘I'll have you out of here within a week, Pat. I'm glad I saw you like this.' As he left, I cried and smiled. I was happy.

A few days later I was on the move, thanks to Mick Bradley and his wife. Later in the bakery Mick gave me an address: 17 Cadogan Road, Fairview. After being told how close it was to the bakery, I couldn't wait to get there. As I went to leave that day, Pauline called me into the house. She began to advise me on how to behave, and told me that it would be a new start for me. She never asked me if I would like tea or something to eat: she was the sort of person who would simply prepare the food and put it in front of you. She had a lovely way about her, homely and caring: a real down-to-earth Dublin woman.

As I got up to leave, her words were most encouraging. ‘You'll like the Mooneys. They're Dublin folk. Let me know
how you get on, and if you have any problems come to me, Pat.' I was away on a hack to find my new home.

Number 17 Cadogan Road was only a few hundred yards from the Bradleys in Windsor Avenue, Fairview. As I entered the road I stood gazing down along the rows of red-brick terraced houses, with their six-foot front gardens all fenced off with neatly coloured painted gates and lace curtains in the windows. Number 17 had a cream-coloured door, with small panes of beautifully coloured leaded glass. The door opened and I was greeted by Mrs May Mooney. She hugged me and led me into the sitting room, saying, ‘You're most welcome. You're home now, son.'

Mrs Mooney spoke with a nice soft Dublin accent and quickly made me feel at home, and I was treated like one of the family. She had one child, Lorcan, who was doing his finals in St Joseph's, Fairview. I shared a room with him, and he got so annoyed with my early rising that he once threw my alarm clock out the window. He hated the sound of loud ticking clocks in his bedroom – so did I. I had to find all sorts of hiding-places for the clock. Sometimes when it went off at half four I would have forgotten where I had hidden it.

I soon realised how different home life was from sleeping with over forty boys in a dormitory in the hostel or with two hundred boys in the dormitories in Artane, which still cast its deep shadow on me. But I also realised that I was out of my
depth in the small terraced house. I found it difficult to relate to the family. The things I would talk about, I found they had no interest in whatsoever. At times I'd be told to shut up, though not aggressively, or unkindly. Lorcan often tried to help me change my ways but it had no real effect. I knew he meant well. And he was studying hard. He found less time to pay any attention to me. I suppose I annoyed people quite a bit in those days, yet Lorcan never really got angry with me. He regularly treated me to a one-and-one – fish and chips – for supper.

His father, Bill Mooney, was a tall, slim man. He liked his pint, and enjoyed it better when he shared one with my boss and the lads. Bill was to be seen quite a bit around the bakery, especially on a Sunday morning. I went to work on Sundays with Matt and Eddie, just for a few hours. I remember going up Windsor Avenue to the local shops and down Philipsburgh Avenue to the Pear Tree and along to Fairview Strand, delivering the pure hot buttermilk soda bread. Then I would be given a real Dublin fry-up by Mrs Bradley; it made Sunday work all the more special.

I began to enjoy life. The simple things pleased me most, like a walk in the park, which was only a hundred yards from the house. I enjoyed a game of football, hurling, or soccer. To these were added my new pastime of going to dances. The Irish Club became my favourite haunt; and I went to the
Theatre Royal on Sundays for my seat up in the gods. It was my joy, and I loved treating myself. On Sunday nights it was simply terrific to have your ticket and be one of the three thousand in the audience.

It was the custom to book a ticket for the cinemas on Sunday night; in fact, every cinema within two miles of the city centre would be booked out for Sunday nights. I was never one to be caught out without a ticket, as I could never have afforded to buy one on the black market. Cinema tickets were snapped up quickly by the black marketeers by midweek. But nothing has ever surpassed the Theatre Royal for pure entertainment; and no sooner was one show over than all I'd be talking and thinking about was booking for the next.

I began going out at night with lads I'd met in the Boys' Home but I soon realised that their company did not suit me at all. I was away from that system at last, and slowly I was beginning to change. I went to my first dance in the Irish Club in Parnell Square. I was awful with girls. I simply wanted to learn how to dance, and honestly I did not realise I could ask them out. I just believed they had to dance with me once I got up and asked them. Within a few weeks I was quite good at the old-time waltz, and I had the same partner I had begun with in the old-time waltz competition for the Mícheál O'Hehir Cup. It never dawned on me to ask my
dance partner out. I had no idea about dating girls, or about sex for that matter.

I was still sleepwalking and having nightmares. I woke up in the wardrobe on several occasions, and other times I found my sheets and pillow on the gas cooker, while I was fast asleep downstairs in the bath. I often woke up fully dressed in bed, although I had taken off my clothes before getting in. I was wakened at three by Lorcan Mooney one morning with a crack of his shoe for shouting, ‘Left, left, left right left! Lift them up, you pups, or you'll all face the wall!'

I was working very short hours in the little bakery. Approaching the end of my first year out of Artane, I believed I was on the road to nowhere in particular. The bakery business was not a great job to be in, working all hours or none at all. Bill Mooney decided to make a personal attempt to get me into the Bakers' Union. He had tried to explain to me why they could not accept Artane boys. ‘You see, Pat, the bakers who work in Boland's, Johnston Mooney's, Kennedy's and O'Rourke's have all served their four years' apprenticeship. They then went to the tech in Kevin Street a number of days or nights each week until they were finished and got their papers.'

It was a father-to-son closed shop, just like Bill Mooney's job. He was a printing worker, and, as he told me, no one could gatecrash into the Printers' Union.

Bill read out a letter he had received from Mr Flanagan, the secretary of the Bakers' Union, expressing his sympathy with me and how he felt so sad for ex-Artaners, who were indeed well trained but, as I thought, undesirables.

My boss's business was in trouble, and I had been told I might have to go. Matt had already left. I went to see Mr Flanagan in the union on a number of occasions after that to plead my case, but to no avail. Then one day as I stood before Mr Flanagan, he looked me in the eye and declared that perhaps he could do something for me. It was a great relief to hear him say so.