The God Squad (2 page)

This book spans just six years of my life. There was almost consistent trauma, ranging from the death of both my parents, to the isolation of hospital wards and brain surgery. Such surgery was not just traumatic, but debilitating also. One procedure could not be completed because of the breakdown of the apparatus, prompting me to wonder why it was not attempted again when the apparatus was repaired.

It is important to point out that interspersed with this trauma were moments of great love and affection. From the gentle kiss of a young nurse to the soft hand of a caring nun. It may well be the case that these were the moments which preserved my sanity and gave me something to live for.

This book is not an attempt to point the finger, to blame, or even to criticize any individual or group of people.
Neither is it intended to make a judgement on what happened to me. It is about a society’s abdication of responsibility to a child. The fact that I was that child, and that the book is about my life is largely irrelevant. The probability is that there were, and still are, thousands of ‘mes’.

Paddy Doyle,
Dublin,
Sept. 1988.

I lay flat on my back on the narrow cast iron bed in the dormitory of St Michael’s Industrial School in Cappoquin. The thin horse-hair mattress was barely adequate to separate my thin body from its taut criss-cross wire springs. My eyes were fixed on the ceiling, the paint flaking just above the bed. From a room below the sound of children singing seeped through the floorboards.

In the distance a train hooted, heralding its imminent arrival at the station just beyond the high granite walls of the school. I turned towards the tall sashed window a few feet from my bed. Through watery eyes I noticed the sun was shining, though the dormitory was cold and dark. The train hooted again, louder as it drew nearer the station, panting and hissing through the stillness of the day.

It had been three weeks since my uncle had driven me here in the black Morris Minor owned by his employer. In his pocket he carried the order of detention from the District Court in Wexford sentencing me to seven years in custody. The charge against me was of being found having a guardian who did not exercise proper guardianship. I was then four years and three months old. I remember being terrified of the nuns from the moment I entered the
Industrial School and clinging to my uncle, pleading with him to take me home. A tall, thin evil-looking nun had come towards me and forced my hand away from his before gripping my jumper at the neck to ensure that I could not grab hold of him again. I’d screamed and kicked in an attempt to free myself, but the more I struggled, the tighter her hold became. She told my uncle that I would settle down just as soon as he left. I can remember trying to get free of her and follow my uncle. But the nun held me firmly by the ear lobe and warned me to stop, otherwise I would receive a ‘good flaking’.

Three weeks had taught me the meaning of that phrase. I rose cautiously from my bed, rubbed my eyes and cheeks with my knuckles and went towards the window. I stood back, frightened that I might be seen from the yard below. I moved as close to it as I felt it was safe to do.

The granite wall glistened in the sunlight like a million jewels. I pressed my face against the window and watched the approaching train. The sun shone onto its black rounded front like a spotlight. The shiny, black funnel belched out a mixture of smoke and steam that hung above the tender in a large plume of grey and white, and when the colours merged to black and soared into the sky the cloud cast a dark shadow across the grey concrete of the school yard. Behind the glossy tender, the wagons laden with sugar beet rattled along, zig-zagging awkwardly in contrast to the graceful, steady movement of the engine. A screeching of the wheels on the tracks and a loud prolonged hissing brought the engine to a halt. I noticed the sparks made by the wheels as they skidded along, igniting in the dark shadow of the underframe. A final banging of the wagons as each one buffeted into the one ahead of it, then silence. Total silence. Two men in blackened boiler suits jumped cautiously from the tender and stood briefly in the hot
sunshine as both rubbed their foreheads with a sleeve. Before leaving the train each in turn slapped the great tender on its belly as a farmer would a cow, or a jockey a horse, a sign of affection, the beast had done her job well.

I counted the wagons as the tender took water from the great red-oxide tank overhead. There were fifteen, and a guard’s van at the rear. Each one filled with sugar beet, mud baked by the combination of hot sun and drying breeze. The stillness of the moment was broken by a sudden rush of feet into the yard below the dormitory window. I backed away from the window though I still looked out as the other children ran about the yard screaming their excitement. Some of them tried to climb the wall to get a better view but their efforts were brought to an abrupt halt by the swish of a cane from one of the nuns patrolling the yard like a black shadow. One boy who was midway up the wall fell to the ground writhing in pain having felt the full force of Mother Paul’s cane across his calf muscles. He lay curled up, on the ground screaming and gripping his leg tightly. The other boys stood still, frozen in terror.

I watched. I knew the pain of the bamboo and the horror of being beaten until it was no longer possible to stand it. As blow after blow landed, I trembled, fully convinced that I would receive similar punishment when Mother Paul came to the dormitory. I went back to bed and pulled the covers over my head in an attempt to escape the piercing, painful screams. Finally the screaming stopped. I lay waiting for the footsteps.

‘Well, Master Doyle . . . are you finished now or would you prefer to spend more time here on your own?’

Startled by the sound of Mother Paul’s voice, I turned down the bedcovers. Her tall black-clad figure stood beside my bed, her wrinkled hand carrying the cane that she kept partially hidden up the long loose sleeve of her habit. She
stared coldly down at me, her icy-blue eyes seeming magnified through the thick lenses of her rimless spectacles. Her long pointed nose threatened to drip its watery contents onto my bed but was halted by the swift use of her check-coloured handkerchief. Her wicked-looking face was gripped tightly in the habit of the Sisters of Mercy. The black habit was pulled tight at the waist by a leather belt.

‘Get up out of that bed then this instant,’ she roared, ‘and I don’t want to hear another word from you about a man hanging from a tree. It’s not good for the other children and, besides, people don’t do that sort of thing.’

‘But there was . . .’

The nun’s mouth tensed visibly. ‘That is enough, I warn you. Get dressed and get down to the assembly hall immediately.’

‘Yes, Mother,’ I said.

She left as I started to dress. Once I had my boots laced up I walked slowly through the dormitory stopping as I reached the door that led to the room where Mother Paul and Mother Michael slept. Gripped by curiosity, my eyes fixed on the large oak door with a big iron key protruding from its lock. On the tips of my boots I approached, gripped the key and turned it, trying to ensure it would make no sound. It clicked, the noise sounding much louder than it really was in the emptiness of the large room. I cupped the knob in my hands and turned it slowly before gently pushing the door open. I walked into the carpeted room, its whiteness glaring when compared to the drabness of the dormitory. Walls and ceiling were painted in a gloss white and the only thing hanging on the wall was a large wooden crucifix. On a press beside the white quilted beds was a statue of the Virgin Mary, a golden rosary beads entwined in her hands. I looked at the statue. Its pale blue eyes appeared to be watching my every move. I moved uneasily
back out of the room, closing the door gently before locking it and walking down the wooden stairs to the assembly hall.

The hall was a big room with bare floorboards and large sashed windows that rattled whenever there was even the slightest breeze. The walls were wood-panelled and painted black to about three feet above floor level. The remainder was painted dark grey. The only furniture was two chairs which were used by the nun who was in charge of the children or by another nun who played the piano, thumping out chords and shouting at us to sing. In a sudden movement she would stop playing and jump to her feet, usually knocking her chair over as she did. Her finger wagged and in a voice that rose in pitch with each word she would say, ‘There is a crow in amongst you and when I find out who it is he is going to have sore ears.’

‘What kept you?’ Mother Paul snapped. I hesitated before answering, ‘I couldn’t get my boots tied, there was a knot in the laces, Mother.’

‘I sincerely hope that is the truth,’ she leered.

‘Yes, Mother.’

‘Get over here and learn this song before Miss Sharpe comes back from her holidays, she will expect you all to know it.’

As I approached the piano she suddenly slapped me in the face.

‘Where were you?’

I looked at her, surprised by the question and the sharpness in her voice.

‘I asked you a question and when I ask someone a question I expect to get an answer. Is that clear?’

‘Yes, Mother.’

‘Now tell everyone where you were and why you were late.’

‘I was in the dormitory.’

She slapped me viciously across the face again. Then at the top of her voice Mother Paul shouted, ‘I was in the dormitory . . . What?’

‘Mother,’ I responded, my voice trembling. ‘I was in the dormitory, Mother.’

‘Louder,’ she demanded.

‘I was in the dormitory, Mother, then.’

‘Why? Tell everyone why you were sent to the dormitory,’ she demanded.

‘For making up stories, Mother,’ I said.

She hit me again.

‘For telling lies, that’s why. Is that the reason?’

‘Yes, Mother.’

‘What were the lies you were telling? I want everyone to hear.’

I could barely speak, my voice shook and tears welled in my eyes. My bottom lip quivered and I began to cry.

‘Speak up, child,’ she demanded.

‘I said I saw a man hanging from a tree.’

I stood there shaking.

‘This little pup is a liar,’ Mother Paul said to the other frightened children as she held me by my ear. ‘And everyone here knows what happens to people who tell lies.’ There was silence.

‘What happens to children who tell lies?’ she asked.

‘They go to hell,’ they all answered. The nun smiled.

‘Not only that,’ she continued, ‘but they burn in its flames for ever and ever. That is what is going to happen to this little liar. He is going to burn for ever in hell if he doesn’t stop. Always remember to tell the truth.’

She pulled me over to the piano and struck the chords of a song I knew well, one which the nuns began to teach me shortly after I entered the school.

‘Stop whinging immediately and sing,’ Mother Paul ordered.

As I did my voice trembled. I stood straight, with my hands crossed in front of me as I had been taught to do whenever I was asked to sing for visitors. My voice was a pleasant boy-soprano type which the nuns appeared to take great pleasure demonstrating for visitors to the school.

‘A Mother’s Love is a blessing,
No matter where you roam,
Keep her while she’s living,
You’ll miss her when she’s gone,
Love her as in childhood,
Though feeble, old and grey,
For you’ll never miss a Mother’s Love
till she’s buried beneath the clay.’

Mother Paul waved her hand and the rest of the children joined in the remaining verses.

When we had finished singing Mother Paul reminded us that as we had no parents it fell to the nuns to give us the guidance and grace that would make us into fine young men. Nuns were married to God she said as she raised her right hand to show a thin silver ring. Nuns did not have children in the way mothers had. ‘Each of you was sent to St Michael’s by God and you will be trained in the manner He would like. Mark my words, you will all one day be proud to have been a part of this school.’

Two years after being admitted to St Michael’s I had become familiar with its routine. The official report on me for that year says: ‘A bright little lad. Made his first Holy Communion when barely over 6 years.’ For the year 1958 the same report remarks: ‘A very bright little boy, quiet
and intelligent. Able to serve Mass in the Parish Church. Promoted in school.’ I found it easier to mix with the other children as each day passed and I joined in whatever games I could.

One day, as I heard the beet train pulling into the station I climbed the wall to get a better look at it and to see if I could get either the driver or the fireman to throw some sugar beet over. I shouted, and a lump of beet sailed over the wall, landing in the school yard. There was a rush to get it but I decided that as I was the one who had asked for it I should have it, and furthermore I would decide who I was going to share it with. Because the mud was so dry it was easy to remove from the beet. My efforts at breaking it up for distribution among my friends proved more difficult than I had expected. I put it on the ground and banged the heel of my boot down hard on it hoping it would break but it didn’t. A jagged edge of the wall proved more useful. Soon lumps of beet were being scattered around the ground. Hungry grasping hands picked up the pieces and if they were small enough they were stuffed into waiting mouths. Those who did get some of it moved to a secluded part of the yard to suck and chew large bits of the creamy-coloured beet.