Children Of The Poor Clares (9 page)

Answer:
  ‘Yes, I had been out there to chase pigeons.’

For the purposes of the inquiry, the fire escape door was the most important. That was why the nocturnal pigeon-chasing was emphasised. Yet all the girls who walked out of the building did so down the wooden stairs and did not attempt to go out the fire escape door until Mary Caffrey went up the wooden stairs, and unlocked it with a key. But this, according to Sister Clare, could have been done
without
a key. Why, then, was Mary given one? The question must have arisen in other minds too. The day after Mary had given her evidence, Mr Roe made a statement: ‘To avoid embarrassment we must point out that Mary Caffrey is not and never has been a pupil at the Industrial School.’ The embarrassment, as he implied it, was of a social nature. The point, however, was that non-pupils, according to the regulations, were not required to take part in fire drill. Thus, she would not have had to know how to open the door without a key.

(The authors asked two women who were in the orphanage up to a short time before the fire whether or not they had done fire drill. They had no recollection of it. They also knew nothing of pigeon-chasing, and thought it would not have been possible.)

Clare Shannon, one of the older girls, was cross-questioned by McLoughlin about a statement she had made earlier to the police in which she had said that she saw Louis Blessing on the fire escape stairs. She now withdrew this.

McLoughlin
:   ‘Do you have a good memory?’

Clare
:   ‘No’

McLoughlin then gave her simple questions to test this and demonstrated that indeed her memory was poor. It appears that Clare was being used to discredit Louis Blessing’s role in the rescue. The reasons for this became clear when, thirty years later, the authors met two of the nuns who had been in the Orphanage at the time of the fire. At the mention of his name, one of them said sharply, ‘Louis Blessing wasn’t there at all. He had nothing to do with the fire.’ When we repeated this comment to another of the outside rescuers, he was incredulous: ‘Louis Blessing nearly walked up the walls to save the children. He was furious with the nuns. When we first got in, he’d heard John McNally imploring them to get the children out.’ Louis Blessing’s criticisms must have been outspoken, widely known, and not forgotten. In the transcript of the inquiry proceedings, the following words are recorded at the end of Blessing’s evidence: Chairman: ‘You did a man’s job that morning. That is a Statement of Fact with which members of the Tribunal are in agreement.’

The most extensively cross-questioned person at the Inquiry was seventeen-year-old Veronica MacManus. She had spent her childhood at the Orphanage, was now working in the laundry, and had been in charge of St. Clare’s dormitory. Although she had nearly died from injuries received when she jumped out of the window, Veronica was asked a total of five hundred questions, far more than anybody else. At one point the chairman repeatedly asked her how the children in the dormitory were behaving, and then the questioning was taken up by Mr Roe.

Mr
Roe:
  ‘Did you hear anybody calling out to come down by the stairs?’

Veronica:
  ‘Yes, I can remember someone shouting, “Come down by these stairs and you will be safe”.’

Mr
Roe:
  ‘Why didn’t you go out then?’

Veronica:
  ‘I could not move. I was so weak.’

Mr
Roe:
  ‘You said there that you were weak and that is why you did not go out, but after that you kicked out the window, didn’t you?’

Veronica:
  ‘Yes.’

Mr
Roe:
  ‘When you heard that voice did you say anything to any of the children?’

Veronica:
  ‘No, I could not speak at all at that time.’

Comerford:
  ‘After the call at the landing were the children shouting?’

Veronica:
  ‘They had ceased shouting at that time.’

Chairman:
  ‘When do you remember first hearing the children shouting?’

Veronica:
  ‘I think it was while we were saying the second decade of the rosary’.

Comerford:
  ‘How long after that did you notice anything wrong with any of the children?’

Veronica
:   About ten minutes after that.’

Comerford:
  ‘When first did you feel frightened?’

Veronica:
  ‘When I first went over to sit on the window.’

Comerford:
  ‘Did you remain frightened all the time?’

Veronica:
  ‘I just felt I was going to die at that minute, sir.’

Veronica was cross-questioned by all the members of the tribunal including Mrs Hackett, who said virtually nothing else, and by nearly all the counsel.

Sixteen-year-old Polly Doyle was also asked similar and numerous questions.

Chairman:
  ‘When was it that the children started shouting?’

Polly:
  ‘The shouting started when the smoke came in.’

Chairman:
  ‘When did the shouting stop?’

Polly:
  ‘When I was out on the window-sill all the blazes were in the dormitory. It was then they gave up shouting.’

Chairman:
  ‘Did you see the fire getting near any of the children?’

Polly:
  ‘I saw it coming up nearer every time, sir.’

Chairman:
  ‘Did you see anybody that the flames got near?’

Polly:
  ‘I could not say really.’

Chairman:
  ‘But was the fire actually getting near all the children?’

Polly:
  ‘I do not know that.’

The Chairman persisted with this question.

Polly:
  ‘I could see all the flames, but I did not see any children.’

Chairman:
  ‘Did the children at any time go to the end corner of the dormitory and try to huddle together in any way?’

Polly:
  ‘I do not know…’

Chairman:
  ‘Were you excited? Did you get hysterical?’

Polly:
  ‘Yes.’

Chairman:
  ‘You know what I mean—were you shouting and shrieking?’

Polly
:   ‘Yes.’

Chairman:
  ‘Were you afraid that you would be burnt alive?’

Polly:
  ‘Yes.’

Mr
McLoughlin
:   ‘It is fair to say that this girl’s recollection of events is not too sound. She has done her best of course.’

Thirteen-year-old Theresa Brady was repeatedly questioned by both Mr Roe and the chairman, who asked her about the actions of the older girls who had died. Finally she said, ‘Please, sir, I don’t remember.’ He still persisted with questions about whether or not she was frightened and about the behaviour of the smaller children, to which she eventually replied, ‘When the lights went out and the children saw the blazes coming they all started crying.’

No objections were raised during the proceedings to the nature of the cross-questioning of the girls. Clearly they were fair game.

During the fire, many of the girls had shown remarkable courage. Theresa went ‘back into the blazes’ to drag out a younger child. There was Una Smith, who went back up the stairs and into the Sacred Heart, felt all the beds and found Dolly Duffy still asleep; Dolly herself, whose shoes had been alight when she came down the wooden stirs and who then picked up a badly injured child whom the teacher, Miss Harrington, could not bring herself to touch. There were those older girls, like Mary Lowry, who died trying to get the little ones out, and Mary Caffrey, the sixteen-year-old ‘non-pupil’ given the key to the fire escape door by Sister Clare, who then struggled up the wooden stairs to the top storey through terrible smoke and opened the door. The only reaction to their bravery from the members of the tribunal was in a comment by the chairman to Mary Caffrey at the end of her evidence: ‘You did your bit anyway, and you deserve praise for it.’

*       *       *

The tribunal’s report was published in September 1943. It was found that the fire was probably caused by a defective flue in the laundry and that the loss of life was caused by a combination of circumstances:

1.   Fright or panic resulting in faulty directions being given.

2.   Want of training in fire-fighting.

3.   Lack of proper leadership and control of operations.

4.   Lack of knowledge of the lay-out of the premises on the part of on the part of persons from outside.

5.   Inadequate rescue and fire-fighting service and absence of light at a critical period.

A note was appended: ‘While we are satisfied that more efficient and safer permanent means of escape could and should have been made available, we are not justified in finding that the absence of these contributed materially to the loss of life in the circumstances of this fire.’

Commenting on the role played by the fire brigade, the report acknowledged that ‘it is unfortunate that the members of the council and its advisers did not give fuller consideration to the rescue aspects. We are satisfied that if they had done so it would have been possible to make a proper and timely effort to save the lives of the children.’ Nonetheless, the tribunal added, ‘we do not wish to suggest that the council was in any way avoiding its duty.’

In considering the evidence of the nuns the report stated: ‘We feel bound to say that having heard the evidence of a number of the children trained and being trained in the institution, the relationship between them and the sisters seemed exceedingly happy, and that their demeanour and conduct… reflected credit on the Sisters in charge. We are satisfied that… the Sisters did not consciously or willingly fail in any duty.’

The nearest the tribunal came in their report to laying blame for the disaster was in its comments on Miss O’Reilly’s actions. Estimating the period of time during which the children could have been safely evacuated to be sixteen minutes from the discovery of the fire, they were ‘satisfied’ that, at the time when Miss O’Reilly returned to the upper two dormitories, it would have been possible for her and the older girls in St Clare’s to have brought the children in both dormitories to safety either down the wooden staircase or through the emergency door exit. ‘Unfortunately, Miss O’Reilly in the excitement of the moment and in a state of fright, failed to do this. She committed a grave and critical error of judgement. The circumstances were such as may have frightened a very timid person. She lost her head.’ The report later recommended that the Department of Education should have a veto over the appointment of any teacher in an institution where ‘such a person is proposed to be given charge of children at night.’

Finally, the report recommended that the rules for industrial schools and other government-regulated institutions should include provisions for proper fire escapes and more effective fire drill, and made proposals for covering the country with a modern fire-brigade network.

*       *       *

During our researches in the 1970s, we found many people in Cavan and elsewhere who remembered the fire. They remained aware that members of the tribunal avoided the questions at the heart of the disaster: why did the nuns fail to get the children out of the dormitories themselves? Why did they not give immediate orders to others to do so while there was still time?

All the people to whom we spoke in the town, and all the girls we met who had spent their childhood in the orphanage, both before and after the fire, always had the same answer. They said that the first reaction of the Sisters, before they realised the seriousness of the situation, was to prevent themselves or the girls being seen in their nightwear. For this reason, it was believed, the girls were to be kept out of the way, and Miss O’Reilly was instructed to leave them in the dormitory. Thus it is possible that the children might have been taken out alive had the rescuers not appeared on the scene as early as they did.

Many local people believed that the dormitory doors were locked. It would not have been considered unusual, at that time and in such a place. It was, after all, an Industrial School, and an element of confinement was expected, particularly within a closed order. The report stated categorically that the dormitory doors were unlocked.
11
It was apparent, however, from the evidence of the nuns, as well as from the girls and outside rescuers, that nearly every other door was indeed locked and that the finding of keys and the unlocking of these doors took up much valuable time.

The memory of Miss O’Reilly continued to arouse a hostile reaction. One of the rescuers who had been present at the inquiry persisted in his belief that she was ‘covering up’. ‘They kept asking her why, why did she put the children in the other dormitory, and she’d say, “I don’t know”. She must have been told to do it but wouldn’t say so. Everyone thought that.’ Contrary to the admonition in the tribunal’s report, Miss O’Reilly remained in St Joseph’s for the rest of her life, sometimes in a supervisory capacity over the children when the Sisters went on retreats.

According to one of the rescuers, the opinion of the townspeople was that the girls should not have been put through the ordeal of the inquiry: ‘Everyone thought it was awful that the children and not the nuns should be cross-examined. Everyone was asking “why didn’t the nuns go up to the dormitories?”

Two other men who gave evidence at the Inquiry recalled for us their memories of the girls. ‘There was a big girl in the dock with the mentality of a child of five. She didn’t know what to answer. She had to be taken away. All of them behaved younger than their years. Immature, that’s what you’d call them, almost simple. There was one we knew because she used to run errands in the town for the Sisters. We congratulated her on the way she had given her evidence. “We were all rehearsed,” she told us.’