DUBLIN (IRELAND)
The New York Times
October 26, 2018
By Ed O’Loughlin
For 30 years, she struggled with secret memories of beatings and other abuses, as well as most of the classic symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder: chronic anxiety, social isolation, compulsive behavior, depression, flashbacks, nightmares and suicidal thoughts.
Finally, 20 years ago, convinced the pain would never subside unless she acted, Elizabeth Coppin, now 69, walked into a police station in her native County Kerry, Ireland. She filed a complaint relating to the 12 years she had spent in an Irish “industrial school,” one of a now-defunct network of state-funded orphanages and reformatories run by religious orders on behalf of the state.
Her statement, which the on-duty police officer typed up and signed, was accompanied by two letters that Mrs. Coppin had written in support of her case.
“I need answers,” one of them pleads, adding: “The emotional scars I carry with me today are still very real. Please check out everything, please don’t be put off by the nuns. Check everything, dig deep, especially records.”
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