By David Hennessy
Fiona Ryan, the first Northern Ireland Commissioner for Survivors of Institutional Abuse, is reaching out to victims and survivors.
She wants victims and survivors of the Northern Irish institutions based in the UK to get in touch before the 2 April deadline for claiming compensation/ redress.
Fiona’s role was established under the Historical Institutional Abuse (Northern Ireland) Act 2019.
The role is there to represent the interests of victims and survivors of historic institutional child abuse and thus she has been engaging with victim and survivor groups, including those over here.
Northern Ireland Commissioner for Survivors of Institutional Childhood Abuse Fiona Ryan told The Irish World: “Survivors of non-recent, historical institutional child abuse have been fighting their whole lives: Have been fighting to survive, have been fighting to grow up, have been fighting to survive again, and then have been fighting to get authorities to acknowledge what happened to them.
“Because now we have very powerful victim and survivor advocates, sometimes it would be easy to forget just what a long, hard road it’s been.
“I think it’s fair to say there’s an element of all authorities not perhaps wanting to acknowledge the full scale of what occurred.
“I think when the inquiry came out and it found systemic abuse, there was a real sense of validation for victims and survivors who had battled, who really had to put forward a full campaign to get what had happened to them in these institutions recognised.
“This report came out in 2017 in Northern Ireland.
“In the Republic, we had had earlier reports but this came out in 2017 in Northern Ireland.
“What it found was that there had been massive, systemic abuse in children’s institutions and it was abuse almost on every level you can imagine.”
Although she has engaged many survivors, Fiona is reluctant to speak for them.
“My office, which I set up when I was appointed in 2020, has engaged now with over 1,000 survivors and every person’s experience is their own.
“Every person’s experience is individual but there are some commonalities.
“Sometimes I get reluctant when people say, ‘What are victims and survivors thinking?’
“Everyone’s experience is their own and people don’t like being generalised but what you can say is that the suffering, and I use that term really carefully- the suffering of the victims and survivors, the men and women who were the boys and girls in those institutions- was profound.
“I think I’ve heard- I don’t want to use the term ‘stories’ because a lot of victims and survivors don’t like the term stories because they were told, ‘You’re telling stories’.
“A lot of the times they went into the Catholic institutions and they were stripped of their identity.
“Sometimes it’s the details that really stick in your head.
“There’s a lady I met who was separated from all her brothers and sisters when she was very young but she was the eldest so she had a real sense of responsibility so she used to lie there in the dark reciting their names and ages so that she would never forget them.
“And eventually after the whole family being separated, she and another sibling worked to get her younger siblings out of ‘care’- I don’t want to use the term care because, again, victims and survivors don’t like that term- but out of the institutions that they were in.
“You’re talking about a 16 or a 17 year old taking on that level of responsibility effectively to save her brothers and sisters, and that humbles you.
“That’s incredible, you’re just lost in admiration for what it took to survive and to keep on surviving, but also the devastation that was perpetrated on these children.
“Another lady told me that that she felt like she had ceased to exist when she went into the institution, you know the way a child has magical thinking, and actually didn’t know if she existed anymore.
“So she would run up to windows and fences and wave at people passing so that they would wave back so she know that she still existed.
“That is a massive level of trauma: A child has been pulled away from everything that she knows and is looking for that kind of, ‘Do I still exist or not?’
“Obviously the horrific abuse that was done to children has been very detailed.
“You’re talking about physical abuse, sexual abuse, psychological abuse, you’re talking about neglect, malnourishment, you’re talking about reduced education or no education.
“That’s all well catalogued.
“Whenever I meet with victims and survivors, the important thing is not to generalise.
“Everyone has their own experience but it’s to realise that there is a legacy of the abuse they experienced in institutions.
“It doesn’t go away.
“The idea of things like financial redress, compensation are important but that doesn’t make that legacy go away.
“People live with it and what a lot of survivors have said to me is they’re so conscious of the survivors who didn’t make it, the ones who have passed, who never got to hear ‘I’m sorry’, who never got financial redress, compensation, never got access to services but the ones who were lost to homelessness, to addiction.
“That’s why I feel so strongly about reaching victims and survivors: Northern Ireland victims and survivors of institutional child abuse who left Northern Ireland and might not even be aware of the entitlements that they have in Northern Ireland.
“That’s why I’m really grateful to yourself and to the Irish World to be able to reach out and say, ‘We’re here now in terms of financial redress/ compensation’.
“There is a deadline for that, 2 April so you have a very small window to apply and I am very, very concerned that people may miss the window.”
Just like those traumatised by mother and baby homes and other institutions in the south, many people left Northern Ireland institutions for the UK. However, the question of identity makes it harder to reach some.
“There were children in the Catholic institutions but there were also children in state institutions and also juvenile justice institutions so you have Catholic and Protestant survivors.
“I think then that’s where you start getting into issues around identity.
“You may have people who left Northern Ireland who self-identify as Irish and may be in touch with the wider Irish community but then you may have people who self-identify as being British and would not necessarily be in touch with a wider Irish community.
“These are big generalisations but what we do know is that people flee trauma and in Northern Ireland, you had the trauma of institutional abuse intersecting with the trauma of the conflict so people may be leaving for a number of different reasons.
“Then there’s the shame and it was real shame and stigma about being in these institutions.
“I’ve met victims and survivors again who’ve told me the most incredible stories.
“One of the things that sticks with them was the idea that somehow, by being in an institution, you had done something wrong.
“That shame was internalised.
“I think the idea of maybe going to Britain and starting over, and I’ve actually met survivors in Scotland, in England. And I think for many of them, they’ve built amazing lives but I’m also conscious that I am meeting survivors and even though they’ve built amazing lives, doesn’t mean they didn’t have struggles and challenges along the way.
“But I’m also conscious that I haven’t met with survivors who were lost along the way and the issues that we know were in the Irish community, particularly with earlier generations.
“I think it’s almost like there is that sense of sadness or grief but I think they still need what happened to them to be acknowledged.
“We don’t know the numbers and that’s one of the really difficult challenges for my office.
“We don’t know the numbers of the children who went through the institutions and we don’t know the numbers of the children who eventually left to go to Britain but we do know that Britain was probably the main place that they did go.
“They obviously went to other places as well following traditional migration routes.
“That’s why we’re reaching out.”
Fiona is working with organisations based over here like London Irish Centre and Fréa.
“We are very, very grateful to those Irish organisations that are working in communities, Fréa, the London Irish Centre, the other Irish centres.
“Frankly, if it wasn’t for their help and support, we wouldn’t have been able to reach the survivors that we have reached.
“I think that’s what shows the benefit and the strengths of working on that community and collaborative basis.
“I’m hugely grateful to Patrick (Rodgers) and Fréa.
“I’m so grateful.
“I’m going over as well in a couple of weeks’ time again to meet with survivors again, to meet with agencies because even though redress is finishing on 2 April, our services are continuing. It’s just to get that message out to victims and survivors who may be out there that there are services there for them, to support them and that they can make contact with my office and we will be delighted to hear from them.
“I mean one of the real privileges of my job is to meet with survivors and hear of their experiences and feel from their perspective that they know that they can talk to me and that I will listen, and we will represent their interests.”
Northern Irish survivors received an official apology in 2022.
“We know that the vast majority of adult survivors of child abuse, and particularly child sexual abuse, don’t disclose their experiences so it takes courage for someone to come forward and disclose their experiences is huge.
“And then imagine you come forward and your experiences are either denied, ‘That didn’t happen’. Or minimized, ‘Well, it wasn’t that bad’. Or you’re isolated, ‘Well, that was only you’.
“The fact is the scale of child abuse that happened in these institutions- It did happen. It was that bad. It is as bad as the survivors are telling us.
“And there is no minimisation in this.
“There is no denying this and I think that’s the power of speaking out.
“There was systemic abuse and it was across these institutions.
“That’s very powerful because you are seen and heard in terms of the apology that happened in Northern Ireland.
“Again you can’t talk about victims and survivors as they’re one homogenous group.
“There were some victims and survivors who desperately wanted a state apology.
“There are other victims and survivors who frankly said, ‘I don’t care how many times they say sorry, it will never be enough’.
“And they viewed a state apology as irrelevant to what had happened to them.
“I was asked to provide the keynote speech, and I did.
“It was really important to me to reflect that, as much as people wanted this apology, some people would regard it as inadequate.
“But again, other people did not want the apology so I suppose, as an advocate, as a commissioner, it was so important to get across that spectrum of views.
“I think there is a lot happening in this wider area around victims and survivors.
“I would imagine that for people from Northern Ireland affected by these issues who are living in Britain, I would be concerned that they are not necessarily aware that this is happening which again goes back to why it’s so important that we talk to the likes of yourself, that we talk to the likes of those other community based agencies.
“I’ve been very concerned about victims and survivors going forward because I think there’s this sense that we focus on victims and survivors and their past and the trauma, and that’s important.
“Well, victims and survivors are alive now and they have futures as well so one of the things that I’ve been really working on with my team is engaging with victims and survivors on this.
“We’ve just done a big consultation on what have people’s experiences of services been including general services like the NHS, and what do they want in the future?
“Because the reality is you’re talking about a legacy of abuse that happened as children in institutions.
“People are getting older and that’s going to intersect with their needs as they get older so how do we make sure that the right supports are in place for victims and survivors?
“And one of the ways that I’ve done that is to find out from victims and survivors themselves what it is they actually do want, what would be their experience so we’re hoping to come up with that consultation and probably towards the end of March.
“We also have a situation where people can disclose their experiences.
“Sometimes as they’re nearing end of life and sometimes it can be the full extent of what happened to them as they’re nearing their end of life.
“I mean I’ve been told, particularly men of that age who found it very difficult to deal with, say sexual abuse, have often as they’re coming to the end of the life, felt the need to unburden themselves because they were too ashamed.
“You can imagine, a man in their 70s, 80s.
“It’s not that it was worse for men or women but one gentleman said to me, ‘I thought that only happened to women. I thought that only happened to girls’ what happened to me.
“I think talking again to the London Irish Centre, it’s so important that culturally appropriate services are provided so that people can have a context and understanding, whether that’s therapy or whether we are moving towards end of life care.
“They are the issues as well going forward.
“2 April is the deadline for applying for redress but ourselves and our services will be there beyond 2 April.”
You can talk to the Office of the Commissioner for Survivors of Institutional Childhood Abuse in complete confidence on 028 9054 4985 (+44 28 9054 4985 if dialling internationally) or by emailing [email protected].
