Free Children Of The Poor Clares by Mavis Arnold, Heather Laskey

Chairman intervened :   ‘Who gave the fire drill in St Clare’s for the past twelve months?’
    Answer:   ‘Sister Clare.’
    Mr McLoughlin:   ‘Did you know how to get out on the fire escape?’
    Answer:   ‘Yes, I had been out there to chase pigeons.’
     
    For the purposes of the inquiry, the fire escape door was the most important. That was why the nocturnal pigeon-chasing was emphasised. Yet all the girls who walked out of the building did so down the wooden stairs and did not attempt to go out the fire escape door until Mary Caffrey went up the wooden stairs, and unlocked it with a key. But this, according to Sister Clare, could have been done without a key. Why, then, was Mary given one? The question must have arisen in other minds too. The day after Mary had given her evidence, Mr Roe made a statement: ‘To avoid embarrassment we must point out that Mary Caffrey is not and never has been a pupil at the Industrial School.’ The embarrassment, as he implied it, was of a social nature. The point, however, was that non-pupils, according to the regulations, were not required to take part in fire drill. Thus, she would not have had to know how to open the door without a key.
     
    (The authors asked two women who were in the orphanage up to a short time before the fire whether or not they had done fire drill. They had no recollection of it. They also knew nothing of pigeon-chasing, and thought it would not have been possible.)
     
    Clare Shannon, one of the older girls, was cross-questioned by McLoughlin about a statement she had made earlier to the police in which she had said that she saw Louis Blessing on the fire escape stairs. She now withdrew this.
     
    McLoughlin :   ‘Do you have a good memory?’
    Clare :   ‘No’
     
    McLoughlin then gave her simple questions to test this and demonstrated that indeed her memory was poor. It appears that Clare was being used to discredit Louis Blessing’s role in the rescue. The reasons for this became clear when, thirty years later, the authors met two of the nuns who had been in the Orphanage at the time of the fire. At the mention of his name, one of them said sharply, ‘Louis Blessing wasn’t there at all. He had nothing to do with the fire.’ When we repeated this comment to another of the outside rescuers, he was incredulous: ‘Louis Blessing nearly walked up the walls to save the children. He was furious with the nuns. When we first got in, he’d heard John McNally imploring them to get the children out.’ Louis Blessing’s criticisms must have been outspoken, widely known, and not forgotten. In the transcript of the inquiry proceedings, the following words are recorded at the end of Blessing’s evidence: Chairman: ‘You did a man’s job that morning. That is a Statement of Fact with which members of the Tribunal are in agreement.’
     
    The most extensively cross-questioned person at the Inquiry was seventeen-year-old Veronica MacManus. She had spent her childhood at the Orphanage, was now working in the laundry, and had been in charge of St. Clare’s dormitory. Although she had nearly died from injuries received when she jumped out of the window, Veronica was asked a total of five hundred questions, far more than anybody else. At one point the chairman repeatedly asked her how the children in the dormitory were behaving, and then the questioning was taken up by Mr Roe.
     
    Mr Roe:   ‘Did you hear anybody calling out to come down by the stairs?’
    Veronica:   ‘Yes, I can remember someone shouting, “Come down by these stairs and you will be safe”.’
    Mr Roe:   ‘Why didn’t you go out then?’
    Veronica:   ‘I could not move. I was so weak.’
    Mr Roe:   ‘You said there that you were weak and that is why you did not go out, but after that you kicked out the window, didn’t you?’
    Veronica:   ‘Yes.’
    Mr Roe:   ‘When you heard that voice did you say anything to any of the children?’
    Veronica:   ‘No, I could not