Ireland: Carriglea industrial school — internal Church tribunals found 'criminal or indecent assault' proven, twice, and never once called the Gardai

Proceedings

1. 1946-01-01 · official findings, internal Church tribunal only — no criminal proceedings found anywhere in the chapter

   Ireland — Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (Ryan Report, 2009), Vol. 1 ch. 10. Br Tristan, transferred to Carriglea under a cloud in the early 1940s, was tried by the Christian Brothers' General Council in Rome on 16th October 1944 after 'a series of accusations by boys ... indicating criminal or indecent assault'; he was found guilty and unanimously expelled, but the Commission recorded that this internal verdict never became a police matter — he simply applied for and was granted a dispensation from his vows. Br Lancelin, transferred to Carriglea in 1944, was accused of 'immoral conduct' by written statements from multiple boys; at a General Council hearing on 19th January 1945 he admitted the substance of the allegations and was dismissed from the Congregation. Separately, the Investigation Committee heard direct testimony from two complainants: one alleged he was made to perform oral sex by Br Vic on two occasions in the early 1950s and was punished for reporting it to a priest; the other alleged repeated sexual abuse by an older boy from the late 1940s. No Garda referral, charge, or court proceeding appears anywhere in the chapter for any of these cases.

Documented coercion mechanisms

• internal canonical trial substituted for criminal prosecution despite the Commission's own finding that the allegations were understood at the time as 'criminal or indecent assault'
• dismissal or dispensation from vows used as the terminal sanction in place of a police referral
• children's inability to resist an institution that 'owned you body and soul once you were inside them walls'