Kathleen O’Shea - Little Drifters - Kathleen’s Story

Little Drifters is dedicated to Grace, a very special person who was always there in my time of need. Rest in peace.

And to all the survivors in all the institutions and to all those who sadly did not make it. This is for you.

When we were young, wild and free

The happiest times for all to see

Had its moments of sorrow and pain

But I would live them all again

Brothers and sisters sticking together

Mother and father in all kinds of weather

Life can be cruel and often unkind

Now it’s a memory engraved on my mind.

(‘Memories’, Anon.)

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries.

Without them, humanity cannot survive.

(Dalai Lama XIV)

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Epigraph

Prologue

PART I: Bonded

Chapter 1: The Cottage

Chapter 2: Life on the Road

Chapter 3: Harsh Reality

Chapter 4: A Birth and a Death

Chapter 5: Needles and Haystacks

Chapter 6: A New Home

PART II: Broken

Chapter 7: Gloucester

Chapter 8: Daddy

Chapter 9: North Set

Chapter 10: Despair

PART III: Betrayed

Chapter 11: Watersbridge

Chapter 12: Grace

Chapter 13: Losing Tara

Chapter 14: Abuse

Chapter 15: Drugged

Chapter 16: Attacked

Chapter 17: Love

Chapter 18: Losing It

PART IV: Survivors

Chapter 19: Escape

Chapter 20: A Child in London

Chapter 21: Moving On

Chapter 22: Reunion

Chapter 23: Loss

Chapter 24: Redress

Epilogue by Katy Weitz

Further Reading and Support Groups

Acknowledgements

Exclusive sample chapter

Copyright

About the Publisher

I never had any intention of returning to St Beatrice’s Orphanage. And yet here I was, standing in front of the house I had called home for five years. A home filled with misery, cruelty and abuse.

My eyes scanned the large black front door rising up from the path, the heavy wooden gates, the tree in the front garden, and I felt anger swell inside me. It was just a house. From the outside, you would never have guessed the secrets and sadness this place had hidden for so long. Now, nearly 20 years after my escape, it was no longer one of the houses run by the Sisters of Hope from St Beatrice’s Convent. It was no longer Watersbridge, a home for children made wards of the state from myriad different personal tragedies. It was just an ordinary house. You might pass by this house and not look at it twice. It was just like all the others in the road – two storeys, small front garden, large Victorian windows, nothing special. And yet that’s not what I saw.

I saw the children of my past in every part of the grounds, so real I felt I could reach out and touch them. So vivid, I could hear their voices. Here, on the roof, Jake squatted – keeping a watchful eye down the road for Sister Helen in case she came trundling down the road on her bicycle, ready to send up the signal to the rest of us that ‘Scald Fingers’ was returning. That’s when we’d all scurry through the gate to the garden at the back. There, sitting on the wall, was 10-year-old Megan, her bare legs swinging and kicking against the red bricks. Jake’s brother Miles clambered over the gate, one dangling leg testing the ground below before dropping into the front garden, where we loved to play, even though we weren’t allowed. Six-year-old Anne, the little girl I adored, sat in the crook of the tree’s branch, shouting and laughing at the children below, her pure white hair blowing around her pretty face like a halo. Shay, seven, rested on the ground, a look of fierce concentration on his face as his small, bony hands dug a hole in the earth with a twig. And scattered about, I saw others: James, Victoria, Jessica and Gina. I could picture every one of them – saw their fleeting smiles, their innocence, warmth and energy. Dead now. All of them dead.

‘You all right, Mum?’

My daughter Maya interrupted my thoughts and the visions started to recede from my sight. The voices drifted away and, as they left, I felt a familiar ache inside. I hadn’t spoken or moved in minutes. Maya stood at my side, concern in her voice and eyes.

‘Yes. Yes, I’m fine,’ I reassured her. I pulled my cardigan around me tighter, though it was a warm spring day.

‘Do you want to go in?’

I glanced again at the ghosts from my past as they played, carefree and happy. So much to look forward to back then. Now their voices would always be silent.

‘No.’ I shook my head. ‘I’d like to go now.’

I said goodbye to the children in the house and left them there – still playing, still blissfully unaware of their future. Too much pain, too much horror and torture went on in this house. I couldn’t bear seeing any more of those lost children.

The fact was, I had never intended to return to Watersbridge. It was purely by chance that my daughter and I, on a trip to visit my father, had decided to pass through this town again. But as I turned away, I realised that coming back was important.

You see, I made it.

Out of so many children that passed through these doors, I was among the very few that came out alive and in sound mind. I saw myself as no more than fortunate in that regard. I have struggled myself for years to fight down the demons from my past. I was lucky to come through the other side – many others did not.

So the fact that I was here at all was a symbol of defiance against this heartless place that tried to break us, my brothers and sisters, and those we came to look upon as our family. The fact that I came back with my own family was a sign that ultimately love won this battle for our souls, for our very survival.

But for those whom we lost along the way, I tell this story now.

For all the children who suffered in Catholic convent orphanages all over Ireland – the ones who died, the ones who lost their minds, the ones who drown the memories every day in a bottle of whiskey, I tell this for you. Because in the end we are all brothers and sisters – and if we don’t feel that, feel the bond of love between each other just as human beings, because we are human beings, then we are nothing. We are no better than the monsters who ran the orphanages.

I loved to hear the story of how my parents met. Sometimes at night, when we were all gathered around the fire, Daddy would entertain us with his music and stories.

‘Tell us about meeting Mammy!’ we’d beg him.

Mammy, standing by the big sink in the kitchen, would tut and shake her head: ‘Sure, you’ve heard it a thousand times already!’

But Daddy, now flushed with the drink, didn’t need encouraging. He loved to tell us stories. He’d take a long swig of his Guinness, wipe the foam from his lips, then fix us all with a roguish grin.

‘I had never set eyes on your mother before,’ he’d start, and we’d all smile in anticipation. ‘Not before this day. I was 23, getting on with my own life, engaged to be married to a local girl. And who should turn up in our town but your mother with her mammy and sisters.

‘I was out riding my bike one day when I caught sight of her in the chip shop window. I stopped then and there, right outside the window, and looked in. Jesus, but she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen in my life! Long golden hair, sparkling blue eyes – all of 17, she was a picture. That night I went home and I told my sister: “Mark my words, I’ll marry that girl!”