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.