Sir, - The response of Mary Raftery and Eoin O'Sullivan (January 13th) to even the slightest criticism of Suffer the Little Children has become not only excessively defensive, but dangerous. It is little wonder they should believe that The Irish Times has been "both fair and thorough" in its coverage of their book when some of your columnists have supported a position which has led us into the dangerous cul-de-sac where it seems the only things that can now legitimately be said about States of Fear and Suffer the Little Children must be uncritical.
The implication of Fintan O'Toole's and Medb Ruane's responses to the book and to the issues raised by Breda O'Brien is that the raising of any questions is viewed as denying that abuse went on, even as supporting a system of child slavery, and trying to defend the Catholic Church - or, in Fintan O'Toole's words (Opinion, December 10th), "going out to bat for the religious orders". In the Sunday Tribune (December 5th), Susan McKay referred darkly to "attempts to discredit an overwhelming body of evidence", a perspective also taken by Colm Toibin when launching the book. Mary Raftery continued this line of argument on Today FM's The Last Word (January 13th) by dismissing Breda O'Brien's criticisms as "a smokescreen put out by people who want to defend the religious orders and who don't want to hear the truth".
The implication is clear: there is but one truth here and the rest of us should just shut up and be suitably humble in the presence of Raftery and O'Sullivan.
This dangerous kind of posturing is all the more disturbing and ironic given that these so called liberal commentators are critiquing a closed system of power and knowledge which led to appalling abuses of children by creating, in effect, a closed system of power and knowledge of their own, where anyone who dares speak with an alternative voice is silenced and even demonised as occupying the kind of low moral ground which supports child abuse.
This alarming closure of debate and intolerance of other views and evidence are in danger of damaging the cause of justice more than advancing it. The fate of religious orders and individual childcare practitioners pales in comparison to the justice and healing issues which surround the systematic abuses of children; but if new information comes into the public domain, then this needs to be treated seriously so that due process and justice are made possible for all concerned.
However good, the series and the book are not the full story and in places have even got it wrong. For instance, on the basis of my own extensive research into the history of child abuse, I have argued (see January edition of Doctrine and Life) that the central contention of Suffer the Little Children that the reason children were admitted to the industrial schools was because of poverty is far too one-dimensional. This completely ignores the relationship between the industrial schools and child protection, the fact that some children welcomed the opportunity to leave home for a place of safety, and found it in the schools, and that the Irish public - even in poor communities - supported the removal of children from cruel and neglectful parents.
Thus it is perfectly reasonable to accept the compelling evidence that such appalling child abuse went on while subjecting Raftery and O'Sullivan's work to critique. This is how knowledge and understanding develops and how the process of healing and justice-making can be advanced for survivors and all those implicated in this appalling episode in our history. - Yours, etc.,
Harry Ferguson, Department of Applied Social Studies, University College Cork.