In Reply to: Re: Physical abuse in Castlebar posted by Calk on June 06, 2009 at 21:33:48:

The accounts on this post brought tears to my eyes - I couldn't send my young children to school knowing that they could be subjected to such barbarity from people who should have known better.

The discussion, both nationally and on this site, has brought back memories (and not as far back in time as some of the other posters) of a classmate being singled out by a newly qualified lay teacher for daily beatings. The image of that young girls face will stay with me for the rest of my life and I have often wondered what became of her (as she, not surprisingly, left the school before we went to secondary school).

This girl did nothing to deserve what was done by someone who, despite outward appearances, had a very dark soul.

I discussed this recently with someone and said how lucky we were when we moved up further in the school to have a nun teaching us, who while a bit of a tartar, never abused anybody. My friend said something that had never occurred to me - why did such good people stand by and not intervene when it had to be obvious that some of their colleagues were little less than monsters?

I believe it was Edmund Burke who said that 'all that is necessary for evil to triumph is that good men do nothing'.

The inaction of those that stood on the sidelines through the litany of abuses that have come to light over the past number of years is surely as shameful as the the actions of the wicked people that caused so much pain and suffering to children in their care.