IRELAND
Irish Independent
EAMON DELANEY – PUBLISHED 16 MARCH 2014
Christine Buckley was one of those who lifted the covers on an ugly chapter in Ireland’s history and forced the country to confront the reality of its reputation as a Republic which protected children and the vulnerable.
The physical and sexual abuse of children supposedly in care in religious and state institutions had been known for decades, but the abuse was either ignored or denied by the authorities. Christine was determined to put this right and to tell the world about her own torment and that of countless others.
In 1992, she did an RTE radio interview with Gay Byrne in which she first publicly described how she was physically abused as a child in Dublin’s Goldenbridge orph- anage, which was run by the Sisters of Mercy.
The early Nineties were a time of momentous change and confrontation in Irish society in these areas and in matters of Catholic and state conservatism. 1992 was also the year of the X Case, in a divided State in which family planning, divorce and homosexuality were all illegal. The fact that the religious ethos that informed such conservatism was also harbouring a pattern of secretive, systematic abuse was especially strange and galling.
In 1996, Christine’s story featured in Louis Lentin’s ground-breaking drama documentary Dear Daughter which shocked the nation with its detailed account of the abuses at Goldenbridge. In one incident a kettle of boiling water was poured over the legs of a 10-year-old Christine. On another occasion, she had to get almost 100 stitches in her leg, after being beaten so badly by an unidentified nun.
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