The Irish Gulag: How the State Betrayed its Innocent Children

by Bruce Arnold. Published by Gill & Macmillan June 5th 2009.

The recent report by the Commission to Inquire into Child abuse, instigated by Bertie Ahern in 1999, caused a furore in the Irish media and made headlines all over the world. Set in place as a reconciliation procedure for those who suffered at the hands of the notorious Irish industrial school system, it was chaired by Judge Sean Ryan. The Irish Gulag challenges the motive, purpose and direction of this supposed State process of reconciliation and it’s been creating quite a stir in the Irish media:

The Irish Gulag shows that, far from being for the abused victims, the commission was aimed at self-protection by the State. It involved a conspiracy between Church and State, demonstrated by the so-called ‘Secret Deal’ between the two. This was aimed at lessening the cost of independent legal action by victims and confining it within an imposed redress system that was made statutorily secretive.

Media Comments

‘...the most important book to be published in Ireland in the past ten years’ The Irish Independent

‘...a hideous public history written so honestly and courageously by one of Ireland’s finest journalists...brings us forward to a truth that will set us free...the truth of Arnold’s work will send you into shock and anger’ The Irish Times

‘...the most complete explanation of the system that has shamed us before the world and the society that allowed it all to happen. It should be required reading for all citizens’ The Irish Independent

The Irish Gulag also covers the history of child abuse in Irish penal institutions that masqueraded as Industrial Schools and Reformatories during the first half-century of the State’s independence. They were in fact juvenile prisons operating as slave labour camps in the service of religious orders. They were cruel, inhuman places and they damaged the lives of 150,000 Irish men and women.

The book is a compelling and shocking indictment of the worst abuse of power in Ireland’s history, now revealed in a catalogue of inhuman, cruel, neglectful and ignorant acts perpetrated against many thousands of innocent boys and girls over a period of more than half a century.

Buy The Irish Gulag from Irishbook.com

About Bruce Arnold

Bruce Arnold has covered, for the Irish Independent, the unfolding story over the last ten years, of major abuse of children in the Industrial Schools and Reformatories in Ireland. Arnold was the journalist who exposed the ‘Secret Deal’ made by the Irish State with the Catholic religious Orders, indemnifying them against cost and placing the One Billion Euro compensation bill on the shoulders of the Irish taxpayers. He also exposed serious misinformation by the Taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, about the origins and motives for his so-called ‘Apology’ in 1999, showing, with the support of confidential Cabinet papers, that it was primarily concerned with protecting the State against legal action by the abused.

He has analysed the workings of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, criticising its limited terms of reference and condemning the fact that it operated under the Department of Education, the main culprit in allowing the abuse over a period of six decades.

Arnold published articles addressed to the Archbishop of Dublin. These helped to persuade Diarmuid Martin to release the highly controversial Henry Moore Report on Artane. This was published in the Irish Independent against the wishes of the Commission, which sought to dissuade Martin and suppress publication of the Report. The Report was highly critical of the Christian Brothers and their administration of the largest Industrial School at Artane