Unfair charges against Artane

Sir

Recently, there has been a lot of criticism of the industrial school system. Artane Industrial School, in particular, has come in for very severe criticism. Among the allegations levelled at Artane are: (1) standard of education was poor; (2) students were given very little time for recreation. Such assertions are inaccurate.

One significant feature of the media coverage of Artane is the refusal on the part of the vast majority of writers and presenters to deal with the positive aspects of life there. The usual `justification' for such failure is that journalists and researchers were unable to come across evidence of a positive side.

Perhaps nowhere is this lack of balance more evident than in Suffer the Little Children, by Mary Raftery and Dr Eoin O'Sullivan. Chapter Seven states that ``two overwhelmingly consistent aspects of the testimony emerging from the experience of industrial schools'' are the enormous workload on the children and the ``almost universal lack of proper education''.

The chapter presents a picture of these institutions as places where children were used, as the title of the chapter puts it, as child labourers.

Such a picture of Artane is so far from the truth that one must query the quality of the authors' research. Complaints by the authors about lack of access to some records only reinforce the fact that they were aware of the inadequacy of their data. Yet they drew very dramatic conclusions from this inadequate data.

The authors give a time-table which was in operation in Artane during the 1940s. This timetable is then used to demonstrate that the Department rules ``were being flagrantly breached in several areas specific recreation was allowed for only 20 minutes''.

Actually, the timetable quoted in the book contains the following: ``11.40-12.00 recreation; 2.30-3.00 recreation; 3.00-5.00 trades drill and recreation.'' Dr O'Sullivan and Ms Raftery seem to have a problem with arithmetic.

A look at the standard of education in Artane Industrial School in the 1940s proves very interesting. The report on the General Inspection (Primary) of 1940 states: ``This is a highly efficient school. The members of the staff are earnest and devoted to duty, discipline is very good and there is an excellent spirit of work.''

The Primary Certificate Examination results during the Forties illustrate even more clearly the high standard of education. In the school year 1942/43, 39 boys sat arithmetic, English and Irish. All students passed, most of them achieving very high marks. The average mark in arithmetic was 86 per cent, English 65 per cent and Irish 79 per cent. Four boys obtained full marks in arithmetic. The highest mark in English was 93 per cent and in Irish 97 per cent. No boy failed the Primary Certificate in Artane from 1943 to 1949, inclusive.

The assertion that the pupils were not given adequate time for recreation is also inaccurate. Artane had its own tiered cinema, where films were shown to the boys up to the end of the Sixties. By then, it was one of the few schools in the country to have an indoor heated swimming-pool.

Artane had its own playing field and pavilion. School teams won Corn Fianna F?il from 1937 to 1942, winning it again in 1944, 1945 and 1947. What a sporting achievement for a school of undernourished, overworked, poorly educated child labourers! Besides their prowess on the fields of play, the Artane boys were also noted for their musical ability. This is not just confined to the Artane Boys' Band. Newspapers frequently carried accounts of the annual concerts.

Because the timetable reproduced in the Raftery/ O'Sullivan book relates to the Forties, this letter has confined itself mainly to that decade. Similar claims could be advanced and supported for achievements in the Fifties and Sixties.

The facts speak for themselves. One must ask why they have been omitted in media coverage of Artane. Was this omission due to sloppy or lazy research methods? Or was it due to a mindset which had already prejudged the case without regard for the evidence, indeed in blatant contradiction of the evidence?

The above information is easily available from Cumann na mBunscol and newspapers of the time.

Bro Michael Reynolds, member of St Mary's Province Leadership Team, Christian Brothers.