When I say that tradition was very important at Violent Hell
I’m not referring to the simple act of attending that school or playing and
excelling at certain sports or academic subjects. No.
When I say tradition I mean the nasty tricks that the older boys played
on the younger ones, the unwritten rules and codes that were passed down from
generation to generation. And as a
prospective Master Candle Maker I was to be shown them all
When I arrived at the school, on a Sunday afternoon, I was
taken to my dormitory. It was known as
‘the top dorm’, why, because it was at the top of the school. This was he dormitory for the first years,
the new boys. It was a barn of a room,
bare light bulbs, no carpets and no curtains.
Beds were separated into groups of three or four by rows of lockers and
at each end of the dorm was a door.
By the main entrance door were two single bedrooms where the senior
prefect and his deputy lived. At the far
end of the dorm was another door which we were not allowed to use as a priest
lived there and he didn’t like being disturbed.
Everything was regimented, so on our first night at school we were held
back in the chapel, after night prayers, by the dean. This was a new dean the priest I knew, Father
Byrne, the nice man I cleaned chickens out with was gone and replaced with a
chain smoking priest from Newry, the Wee Scut.
He spoke to us in the chapel and then took us to the
refectory for milk and biscuits, the first and last time this would ever happen
while at Violent Hell. Then we were ordered
to go to our dorm. That was the only night
for a first year that they had a clear and unopposed route to their dormitory. We followed our instructions and with jammies
on got into out beds. The senior boy
came, head boy, senior prefect whatever you like to call him. He welcomed us to the school and then
explained that while first years he would protect us. I began to wonder about an uncle who had died
while at Violent Hell. I had always been
told that he had died by picking a spot on his head.
The head boy then turned out the lights and with the light
from the small landing pouring in around him he continued to talk. He pointed to a large plaster statue of Our
Lady that was above the main door into the dorm. The statue was missing a hand. He then began to explain why the hand was
missing.
One night he said, very much in the manner of that great
Irish comedian Dave Allen, One night the Devil himself came into the dorm to
see if there were any wee souls that he could take back to Hell with him. Now this was an Irish Catholic boarding
school in the late 1960’s so you can bet that what he was telling us we found quite
believable. He explained that the Devil
picked on one poor wee boy and the statue came to life. Our Lady and the Devil fought, and again for
us it was easy to imagine Our Lady in her long flowing robes going for two
falls and a submission with the Devil like Mick McManus and Big Daddy on a
Saturday afternoon.
Our Lady won the fight, saved the wee boy and sent the Devil
packing but she lost a hand during the encounter and now the hand, a hairy
hand, came back to the dorm and would sniff out little souls to take back to
Hell. He would then wish us a goodnight
and close the door.
As you may imagine, thirty little pairs of eyes peered into
the darkness. The sheets and blankets
would be pulled up to cover as much of our body as possible, I think that would
have been the ‘if I can’t see him he can’t see me’ principle. This is when a noise rang out. A snap, somewhere in the distance. We would all strain to listen trying to
determine what it was. Then there would
be another noise followed by another.
After a sufficient number of these cracks we began to understand what it
was. Hoof beats. Now we could see the Devil as a great hairy, hooved,
horned, beast snorting and panting as he pulled himself up the stairs to our
dorm.
The door burst open and in came the beast. We could hear its laboured snorting and we each
prayed to God that he wouldn’t pick me.
Now the light flicked on in the dorm and the priest who lived
at the other end came in. There was a clattering
of footsteps of the senior boys running away from the other door but standing
somewhat bewildered at the main door of our dorm was a cow from the school
farm.
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