Hunger Strike

national | crime and justice | news report

Tuesday May 04, 2004 11:43

by Ferganoid - none

Hunger striker bears witness to Ireland's dirty secret

For decades, the physical and sexual abuse and slave labour of children in industrial schools was Ireland's dirty secret. Mr Sweeney's case echoes the horror stories that began emerging in the 1990s as a generation of often semi-literate survivors recounted experiences described by one victim as "torture and perversion from the middle ages".

Outside the Irish parliament, a dangerously ill man lay on a camp bed behind a wall of placards denouncing paedophiles. Swaddled in blankets and a rain sheet, he was too weak to stand up, retching as he tried to sip water. As night fell, the Archbishop of Dublin sat holding his hand.
Tom Sweeney, 57, a Dublin-born painter and decorator, suffered five years of physical and sexual abuse by religious orders in Ireland's industrial schools in the 1960s. Enraged by the government's procedures to deal with the country's grim past and offer compensation to the survivors, he today begins his 20th day on hunger strike.

As Mr Sweeney's health rapidly deteriorates, crisis looms for the Irish government. Officials might have thought the protest would peter out over the weekend of European Union celebrations: the road where Mr Sweeney lies was sealed off and the international media stayed away. But if a man is allowed to die on the parliament's doorstep, large numbers of Irish child abuse survivors, including hundreds resident in the UK, will rise up in revolt.

Mr Sweeney's 32-year-old son, Mark, a former boxer, has joined him on hunger strike. His hands are chapped and purple from nights sleeping outside.

He said GPs had refused to come and check his father, but an ambulance crew last week warned he could survive five more days before his health turned.

"Those days are now up," he said. "My father is prepared to fight to the death."

When he was 10, Mr Sweeney was called before a child court and "put away" for five years for playing truant. He was sent to two industrial schools where he was given a number and never referred to by name. He was physically and sexually abused for five years.

The government's child abuse commission to investigate cases and compensate the victims has been dogged by controversy since it was set up following Mr Ahern's state apology to victims in 1999.

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Comments (9 of 9)

survivor solidarity

by haggis

Tue May 04, 2004 13:13

We should all express solidarity with this brave man! What kind a country / government show such blatant contempt to the vicimised throughout the land. The Redress board is an almighty sham where victims are put on trial............

the children who remember, & the government that forgot

by safe as houses

Tue May 04, 2004 14:03

God bless, Mr Sweeney, who is standing up, for all those who've suffered sexual and physical abuse at the hands of adult s and authortarian carers.

Shame on those who take the side of rich adult bullys and professional adult abusers, against the witness testimony of the children of the poor.

Lack of coverage in mainstream media

by JB

Tue May 04, 2004 19:20

I did find it odd that I have not seen or heard anything about Mr Sweeney, the victim in the mainstream media, yet I have heard lots about Judge Brian Curtin, for example, lately - every day, in fact.

It would seem that here is a victim's story that is newsworthy, yet I don't hear or read anything about it.

Perhaps journalists don't actually care all that much about victims as individuals....or perhaps Mr Sweeney and his supporters did not want to talk to the press.....I don't know.
It still does not seem to be normal to hear nothing at all about this hunger strike, though.

It seems, on the face of it at least, rather odd, that I don't hear or read reports about it every couple of days. I wonder why.

made the Guardian

by random input

Tue May 04, 2004 19:45

http://tinyurl.com/398yw

Tom Sweeney

by Vera Lustig

Sat May 08, 2004 00:25

vera24lustig at aol dot com

I am sickened by the way the Irish government is treating survivors of institutional abuse. I researched the issue for an article I wrote 4 years ago, so I know the extent of the abuse.

I am shocked, too, that the congregations responsible have got off scot-free. True, one of the congregations has apologised, but I feel that at the very least they should have their funds sequestered, and handed over to their victims in the form of long-overdue compensation.

I live in the UK and believe that we should protest against the Irish authorities' stalling. A consumer/tourist boycott, plus picket outside the Irish Shop in London's busy Covent Garden might not come amiss.

Even though I personally have a family connection with James Joyce, I have no intention of coming to Dublin for Bloomsday 100. Moreover I intend to write to the Irish President & Taoiseach expressing my sense of outrage.

Keep on campaigning. You deserve justice.

Vera

Vera

by Paddy Wagon

Sat May 08, 2004 10:55

The last thing Irish people need is an uninformed racist in the UK organizing boycotts of anything Irish. Not coming for Bloomsday - such narcissism. Like anyone cares.

Ineluctable modality of the visible

by iosaf the ipsiphi who now shall say Night night my babies - Tuckoo, for my credit is ended and the world must now rest quietly in its sleep

Wed May 12, 2004 22:49

me if there's an "emergency".

Might I just remind the reader that James Joyce never came to Dublin for Bloomsday either.

if you never read a word of the great man, all you really need to know is

He left.
and he
didn't go back.

http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/ulysses/
http://www.trentu.ca/jjoyce/
http://fusionanomaly.net/jamesjoyce.html

don't want 2 spoil the bloomsday thing, but he didn't even want to be buried there either

it looks more online.

by 3 lines

Wed Jun 16, 2004 22:36

Ineluctable modality of the visible: at least that if no more, thought
through my eyes. Signatures of all things I am here to read, seaspawn and
seawrack, the nearing tide, that rusty boot. Snotgreen, bluesilver, rust:
coloured signs. Limits of the diaphane. But he adds: in bodies.

Lost in care

Fri Jul 23, 2004 16:37

Ireland is not the only country with dirty laundry. We live in an abusive society, it used to be all hidden away but slowly the facts are coming out. Perhaps the saddest abuse issue, in the UK, is of children in the "care" system. Some kids spent their entire childhood going from one abusive institution or foster home to the next. Many suffered years of systimatic abuse and cruilty.

In recent years social service has been exposed again and again as an abusive organisation. The list of scandals is endless. The victims, many who are to disturbed and damaged to function properly, get no help from the mental health service and no answers or compensation from social services.

Besides the abuse itself, treating kids like cattle to be moved from one field to the next is cruel. These children never learnt to trust anybody and they had to constantly readjust to new people. When they reached eighteen they where simply dumped, quiet often literally on the streets. Why where they never adopted?

In recent years all this has come out and we are told things will change, this however remains to be seen.The fact of the matter is that survivors are still being abused and neglected, because many have mental health problems.The Mental Health Service is also an abusive organisation and like social services they police themselves. Nether organization has a duty of care towards survivors, many of whom are diagnosed with "personality disorder."

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Comments (9 of 9)