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	There Are Enough Monuments to Our Shame By Shane Dunphy Irish Independent May 20, 2009 http://www.independent.ie/opinion/analysis/there-are-enough-monuments-to-our-shame-1746321.html The first recommendation from the report from the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse is that a memorial be erected, upon which would be inscribed the following words, spoken by the then Taoiseach Bertie Ahern when he apologised to abuse victims: "On behalf the state and all citizens of the state, the government wishes to make a sincere and long-overdue apology to the victims of child abuse for our collective failure to intervene, to detect their pain, and to come to their rescue." The report found that the Church was aware, over a prolonged period of time (incidents spanning 70 years), that children in its care were physically, sexually and psychologically abused. It also states that child protection was simply not taken into account, with the various religious congregations, particularly the Christian Brothers, weighing the potential scandals of correctly dealing with serial abuse against the reality of moving offenders on to other locations, where they could sate their sick appetites. A monument, the commission suggests, a statue or pillar to remind us all of what has happened and the terrible crimes of the past -- as if we do not have enough reminders. There are many stone and brick edifices to bring back the horrors that were perpetrated in the name of God and State. They sit in almost every town and village in the country. One such keepsake sits in a small village in the southeast, where the Church left scars that will not heal for many generations. The house is a bungalow, less than a kilometre from a beach where children play and families went to walk their dogs. Everyone in the community was aware who lived in the house -- that within this picturesque place, something dark resided. I was asked by the authorities, once, to enter this place and interview the priest who lived there. He had abused numerous children at the institution where he worked, and it was suspected he was aware of many more abuses perpetrated by other clerics. Even as I approached the front door, a neighbour came out, shouting at me to leave the man alone, that he had served his time in prison and should be allowed to spend whatever time was left to him in peace. I was struck by the fact that, despite the awfulness of what this man had done -- had admitted to -- he still had supporters. His house was almost a shrine to be protected. Another monument sits in Waterford City -- the old industrial school and Magdalen Laundry, now the humanities department of Waterford Institute of Technology (WIT). The old laundry rooms are now the college canteen, the grim silence those poor, abandoned women worked in now replaced by the vibrant chatter of students. On my first day as a lecturer in WIT, I met an elderly woman walking in the grounds. She informed me she had been a resident of the industrial school, and had graduated on to the laundry as an adult. She still lived with the nuns, who had moved to a house nearby. That she was not one little bit bitter amazed me. That she held herself with such dignity was a testimony to the strength of the human spirit. This woman was a living monument to the lives the Church had taken away. She drove home to me, better than any poorly worded apology, just how deeply the actions of the religious orders affected countless lives. There are many like her. They should be celebrated and valued, for they have stories to tell, and we all need to listen.
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