Mammy’s banana sandwiches 

By Breda Nathan 

For years my mother thought she was a miracle sandwich maker.  

Every day after school she would have two large plates of turnover slices with thick butter and bananas on a shelf in our large hallway.  

I remember the gas meter was under that shelf and you had to get in under the food to put a shilling in the gas to make the dinner.  

What she didn’t know was that the children eating that bread were starving.

It’s probably just as well we were all in ignorance… what could she have done to change the savage system of the times.  I know that… but I feel so guilty reading and listening to the surviving people’s stories now.  

I was there, I saw it every day for those years.  

I have to keep reminding myself I was a kid… but I was always quick to speak up and out. 

We lived opposite a school which was divided by a block of houses.  

The primary one side and the secondary and living quarters on the other.  

Every day at four o’clock the ‘boarders’ as we knew them, would dash into our hall and literally savage the food.  

I can recall an aunt of mine saying, “those children will be in trouble, if they don’t eat their dinner when they go into the dining room at school.”. 

What she or we, never knew was… there was no dinner.  

They were starving.  

Thinking of it now, it’s so clear, they would pile into the hall, half close the door and eat as if they were racing each other, then run back out.  

My mother would remark on the fact they were so refined.  

Never eating outside in the garden like us.  

She loved feeding them, enjoyed their enjoyment of her efforts.  

What did they eat at weekends?  

They were locked up never allowed to mix with the day students or neighbours.  

Not one of those kids ever complained about their living conditions, some were orphans, but quite a few went home at weekends and still no disclosures.  

I feel so guilty this week, reading and listening to the people’s stories.  

I was a child when I witnessed this, but I had the most caring parents and they never realised what was going on.  

Why? How?  

The one incident I never forgot was being told by a nun I was going to hell, for looking out a window at a drill display in the school grounds.   

Thinking the priests and nuns were in charge of heaven and hell, I was distraught. I came home in tears and my Daddy, who was not overly religious, put my fears to rest.  

“If there is a God, and he loves us… like I love you. He is not going to set fire to you. We will do our best to live right and help out where we can.

“We will make mistakes and we may do and say the wrong thing. That means we are human.

“We won’t do anything really bad and when we slip up, he will understand and forgive us, because he knows we will try to put things right and learn from our mistakes.

“That nun is wrong. I would never burn anyone, and you wouldn’t either… So you will never be in danger while I am around.” 

I was satisfied and went to bed happy.  

Not all children were so lucky.  

The recent scoping inquiry has left us all in shock and horror.  

The school I lived beside and watched the tortured boys, is named in it. I keep telling myself I was a child… No one saw what was going on… but I still can’t shake off the picture of those children eating in our hall and none of us thinking anything of it.  

Those named people, who are still alive, should be made to answer.  

They were living in luxury and treating innocent unfortunate kids so badly. 

That feeling of guilt is overpowering me while I talk about it.  

I can only hope that those unfortunate kids forgive us.