Somebody’s Child Site, Temple Bar

Posted on August 23, 2018 by mannixflynn

Protective netting used to cover existing site to enable us to erect a temporary installation for the Pope’s visit.

Last night the protective netting that I placed on the site at Exchange Street was torn down deliberately. This netting was to allow us to put up a new response to Pope Francis’s visit.

See the panels below and above. This temp piece of work sends out a clear message and is in keeping with the 15-year project that we have been working on on this site.

A lot of hard work went into last nights work and it all has to be redone today. You are all welcome to visit the site today as we will be erecting the new piece at 9am this morning and we hope to be finished by this afternoon.

I appreciate the concerns of people who thought that someone was covering up ‘Somebody’s Child’ work and Disband the Artane Band panels but the person who took the image and put up the blog last night inciting people to tear down the protective netting never bothered to ask me, as I was on the site putting up the net, what was happening.

Instead, they chose to incite others to attack the site. This is all time consuming and costly. So again, I invite anybody who has any concerns to come to the site today as we inaugurate the new temporary work.

I monitor this site every day as it has been attacked a number of times. Indeed Dublin City Council Planning Department is legally threatening me to take down some of the work but that’s another issue. I will be seeking your support on that.

Get out there now and provoke the Pope and his followers in a nice way and let us get on with the work.

Go raibh míle maith agat.

Mannix Flynn

A Message to Pope Francis

Temporary installation for Popes visit

Explanation text, new installation Essex Street, Temple Bar, August 2018

New Temporary panels being placed on Essex Street West, Temple Bar, Dublin August 23rd 2018

Repeal the patronage of the present Artane Band

Posted on March 6, 2017 by mannixflynn

Tonight before Dublin City Council meeting a motion will be tabled to discontinue the Lord Mayor of Dublin’s patronage of the Artane Band. This band form part of the institutional gulags that are directly connected to the Tuam mother and baby home, the Magdalene Laundry system, the Industrial and reform school system, the orphanages, Bethany Home and the many other sites and centres of injustice to children and women that are scattered around this country.

Please support our campaign to disband the Artane Band.

www.disbandtheartaneband.com

Bon Secours grounds Tuam

DUBLIN CITY COUNCIL

Emergency Motion on behalf of Independent Cllr. Mannix Flynn (IND)

That this meeting of Dublin City Council calls on the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Brendan Carr, to withdraw the patronage of the Lord Mayor’s Office from the Artane Band.
This patronage causes grave offense and insult to the many who suffered child sexual abuse in the Artane Industrial School, Artane Boys Band and other such Christian Brother Institutions.

It is important to note that the present Artane Band was founded in the Artane Industrial school and continues to wear the insignia and uniform of that industrial school. Its origins are firmly rooted in the industrial school system and its legacy of crimes against children, further it is still connected to the Christian Brothers organization.

Reasons;.

The Lord Mayor, Cllr. Brendan Carr, has continued to ignore the many who are campaigning for justice with regards to what happened in their childhoods in the Artane Industrial school and indeed the Artane Boys Band, where many young children were sexually, emotionally and physically abused, their suffering continues to this day

For the Lord Mayor and chairman of Dublin City Council to continue to be the patron of the Artane Band is an outrage and will bring Dublin City Council’s reputation into disrepute by supporting the legacy of child abuse that took place in Artane Industrial School and the Artane Band. It is important that Dublin City Council and the office of the Lord Mayor distance themselves from this band and its history, which are well documented in the Ryan Report.

It is not the children who are in the band at present, but rather the band that the children are in, and its association with crimes against children. The institution of the Artane Industrial School and the Artane Band are directly connected to the likes of the Tuam Mother and Baby Homes, the Magdalene Laundry system, the Industrial and Reform School system, the Bethany Home and Orphanage system and form a central part of the architecture of containment that was so unjust.

Dublin City Council in this instance is facilitating further harm and suffering to the many victims of child rape and cruelty perpetrated on them while in the Artane Industrial School, home of the Artane Boys Band.

It is a fact that many of those who were abused and child raped by Christian Brothers were members of the Artane Boys Band, now known as the Artane Band.

Time to repeal the patronage of the present Artane Band in the interest of justice

Cllr. Mannix Flynn

SNAP support Artane Band Disbandment

Posted on October 3, 2016 by mannixflynn

SNAP (SURVIVORS NETWORK OF THOSE ABUSED BY PRIESTS)

snapheader5 The group at the centre of the recent Oscar winning film, Spotlight have today issued a statement in support of our motion to have the Artane Band disbanded. www.snapnetwork.org/

Barbara Blaine, the founder and president of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP), an international advocacy group for survivors of clerical sexual abuse, has come out in support of a campaign to have the Artane School of Music disbanded.

SNAP is supporting a motion by Dublin councillor Mannix Flynn for the disbandment of the music school, an establishment jointly run by the Christian Brothers and the GAA. The band in its current form wear the original and traditional insignia and uniforms worn by the band from when it started at a time when children attending St Joseph’s Industrial School in Artane were subjected to sexual and physical abuse at the hands of the religious.

Speaking from Chicago in support of councillor Flynn, Blaine said: “I believe that so much suffering and pain has been caused to those who lived through the horrors of the industrial school in Artane. They have been through enough. We should be doing all we can to prevent any further pain and suffering.”

Petition to Disband the Artane Band

Posted on October 3, 2016 by mannixflynn

I just started a petition: Disband the Artane Band.

It is no longer appropriate, with what we now know, about residential institutional child abuse at St Josephs Artane, that this band, should be still in existence, wearing the uniform of that institution – St Josephs Industrial School Artane, and making statements that they are proud of their history when in actual fact, the vast part of that history was engulfed in horrendous human rights breaches upon children, including child sex abuse at St Josephs Industrial school, Artane, where the band was founded.

We who are the survivors should not have to endure the ordeal of this band in that uniform, parading around Croke Park, or any other public place. This is a constant active reminder of our ordeals and every effort should be made for this to stop.

Our lives, in those institutions, matter. What happened to us matters. We have a right to get on with our lives to recover and to heal. The Artane Band, in its present form, is a major obstacle to that process. No other band of its type would be allowed to get away with what they are getting away with. The band is still under the control fo the Christian Brothers through the Artane Music School.

If enough people sign my petition, we can make a difference.

Here’s a link to the petition: http://www.care2.com/go/z/e/Awo8W/zoyY/CRT_0
And here’s a link to share it on Facebook: http://www.care2.com/go/z/e/Awo8x/zoyY/CRT_0

If there’s anyone you know who might be able to help me spread the word, please let me know. Thanks so much — I really appreciate your help!

Kind regards, Gerard Mannix Flynn
Artistic Director,
Farcry Productions

www.farcryproductions.ie

disband-the-artane-band

Rest in Peace, Christine Buckley

Posted on March 11, 2014 by mannixflynn

Christine Buckley gave hope and living voice to the many who suffered in silence in Ireland’s Residential Institutions and throughout their lives. She will be greatly missed but her strong voice will be heard forever. Rest in Peace.

Then they put me into a car zoom zoom, beep beep over O’Connell Bridge, past the Ha’penny Bridge, along Capel Street Bridge. All alone all along the Liffey I cried like the canal to the gates of Goldenbridge. At Goldenbridge, the nuns said that they were my sisters now. ‘Now, now, stop that crying or we’ll give you something to cry about. Christ didn’t cry. Christ wasn’t a whinger.’ I cried, I screamed for me ma, yelled for me da. Then all the kids there started to cry like me. We screamed through the clatters in the face, the lashes across the back of our legs, the smashing of our heads against the doors.
‘Mary is our mother now and God is our Father. Repeat, Mary is our mother now and God is our Father. ‘Tis the Divil that has you all crying. ‘Tis the Divil so that we’ll be getting out of here, only the Divil. James, that’s a lovely boy’s name. Stop that crying now. Silence is golden, boys and girls. Silence is golden. St James, a lovely saint.’
I rocked back, I rocked forward. I rocked in silence for a day, for a week maybe two. I cried until I was dry. I bit my lip; I bit my nails; I pissed the bed; I rubbed my eyes; I bit the boy beside me, I bit the girl beside me. They both bit me back. The nuns and the priest battered us all. Screamed at us that we were bold and evil and that they were going to put us into the washing machine to wash our souls of sin, souls of sin, souls of sin. I rocked back and forth till one day somebody came and picked me up into their arms and took me back home, to my ma, to my da and all the family and another new baby. Silence is golden, golden, in Goldenbridge. Ssssssh. (James X)

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