Sir, - Interviewing Professor Tom Garvin on September 26th last, Eileen Battersby quotes him as saying, "Having read Todd Andrews, his boyhood in Terenure sounds a bit like mine, forty years on, except he didn't write about being beaten up by the priests - I am sure he was everybody was."
Now, I was at school with the Jesuits from 1939 to 1945 including four years a boarder was punished at times, never in anger or without just cause. The most severe punishment I received was for throwing stones. Years later, when I came across young lads who had lost an eye though such injury, I thought to myself what a cheap lesson I had learnt, so that I did not have to go through life knowing that I had blinded another boy.
I cannot confirm the professor's sweeping statement to be true in my time. If it was, such news would have spread like wildfire through the school and to other schools as well. Even in those days, we had quite an effective bush telegraph.
As I approach my 70th year, I have quite a clear recollection of my school days and have nothing but admiration for the men, lay and religious, who taught me and for the quiet example of their lives. - Yours, etc.,
MD.,
FRCPI, FRCPEd, Tyone, Nenagh, Co. Tipperary.