In Termonbacca I became a number. I wasn’t Jon McCourt. I wasn’t a human
being. I was just a number. Everyone was given a number when they
arrived in that place.
“It sounds hard to believe but it was years before I knew that my brothers were in the home as well. They kept us in separate parts of the institution and we never actually met. It was all about control.
“There was some horrific physical abuse that went on in there. Once I had my skull bashed in by a nun with a wooden towel-holder. That was the kind of thing that happened and sexual abuse by some of the older boys who were put in charge at times was also commonplace. You had all these boys in a dorm with just one nun supposedly supervising them. The nun was in a small room in the corner from where she couldn’t possibly see what was going on.”
http://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/20953
“It sounds hard to believe but it was years before I knew that my brothers were in the home as well. They kept us in separate parts of the institution and we never actually met. It was all about control.
“There was some horrific physical abuse that went on in there. Once I had my skull bashed in by a nun with a wooden towel-holder. That was the kind of thing that happened and sexual abuse by some of the older boys who were put in charge at times was also commonplace. You had all these boys in a dorm with just one nun supposedly supervising them. The nun was in a small room in the corner from where she couldn’t possibly see what was going on.”
http://www.anphoblacht.com/contents/20953