It's not an Irish thing, nor yet a minority thing. It happened in English Catholic schools too.

I spent my teens at one of the best boys' Grammar schools in London, which was run by Jesuits (God's Storm troopers we called 'em), and they had a strange notion of education and discipline.

1. They established an understanding of the school rules with a big stick as the default option.

2. It wasn't a punishment unless it left marks.

3. It was insufficient if the master inflicting said punishment did not need a rest break on completion.

4. Once they had inculcated a healthy respect for the consequences of disobedience, they went on to demonstrate that the same system was in operation in pursuit of the goal of teaching. Mistakes, omissions, or sub standard work, whatever the reason or excuse, invited beatings.

One master in particular, who was in charge of discipline for the whole school and also taught Latin, had his own special method for driving home the lesson for pupils who had difficulty assimilating the data.

He would pick one of us up by the shirt front with his right hand, step toward the nearest wall, and then repeat the lesson in a sing-song chant, emphasising the tempo with alternate slaps with the left hand to the face, and banging the back of the head against the wall. When he felt the knowledge had penetrated, he would, without warning, release his grip, whereupon you would hit the floor on your heels from three feet in the air. The shock would send a shaft of pain up your back to the base of your skull.

I have been giddy for as much as four hours after an interview with him.

This was not a peculiarity of this particular school, as new Jesuit teachers arriving during my five years as a pupil were on message from day one.

I believe that physical abuse, in the guise of education and discipline, were endemic in the catholic church as a whole, and in the Jesuit brotherhood particularly. I don't find it too much of a stretch to believe that sexual abuse, which is generally about power and control, was similarly endemic.

I have stayed out of this discussion because I would prefer not to remember those days, but you, Joe, have been casting doubt on the authenticity of several posters' accounts as anecdotal.

Believe me, there is nothing anecdotal about the foregoing account.

Don T.