User talk:Theknitter

I've removed the sections you added to Congregation of Christian Brothers. Please do not add material of this sort without providing verifiable, reliable sources to support it. Shimgray | talk | 22:09, 7 September 2006 (UTC)

Patsy Flanagan
A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Patsy Flanagan, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice explains why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may contest the proposed deletion by removing the  notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you endorse deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please add db-author to the top of the page. Fabrictramp 23:12, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Christian Brothers
And again with your Brother-bashing (and yes, I know that may you see that to be an ironic statement...). I will simply refer you to what I've written on this topic on the Christian Brothers talk page. Look, the website you added does actually look reasonably credible, but then as usual your true colours come out with the title you gave to the link - "The True Nature of the Christian Brothers". That title suggests that the basis and motivation for all their charitable and educational works is the desire to provide an outlet for men to abuse innocent children - a premise that is utterly ridiculous and ignores the tens of thousands of Christian Brothers who have lived productive and selfless lives over the past 200 years.

That said, I think the website has value as a reference source. My suggestion to you - write a balanced summary on the Industrial school abuses and other abuses in Ireland (ie without all the emotive language), and use this site as a source if you wish (I would do so myself if I had the time). If anything I have said raises any questions, I'll be happy to answer any thoughts you may have on the matter. Cheers. Rob Lindsey 06:17, 9 November 2007 (UTC)

My Reply.

Believe me I am of the one colour as regards the Irish Christian Brothers.

A Wikipedia Page cannot be written overnight, and if you had waited there would have been links to the Irish Department of Education files regarding Inspections of Artane Industrial School, Parliamentary Debates in the Dail on the suffering that was present not only in Artane but in other Industrial Schools managed by this religious Order. Indeed one of these debates concerned the beating of one particular boy by two Brothers and the subsequent cover-up of that horrendous beating. In the files of the Irish Education Department are pleas from the Christian Brothers for more boys to be incarcerated, letters complaining about the leniency of District Court Justices who were refusing to have children taken from their families in order to increase the capitation grants of the Christian Brothers ( ... and yes I am using the term "Christian" advisedly.)

Also included would have been links to the Irish Department of Justice. From here files relating to Court case could have been viewed. There are Christian Brothers in jail here in Ireland for appalling abuses against children in care. Testimony from Government ministers would have been included concerning their apprehension about the incarceration of poor children and their detention in Institutions managed by Religious orders including the Christian brothers.

One of the references that would have been cited would have been a book (really a series of letters) written by a victim of this child incarceration policy: Founded on Fear – Peter Tyrrell. He committed suicide on Hampstead Heath in April 26, 1967. His body was charred and burnt beyond recognition. Initial investigation found that the man had deliberately set fire to himself – a terrible act of self-immolation. This book contains letters written between Peter and Dr Owen Sheehy Skeffington (1909-1970), a former Irish Senator (1954-1961), was a lecturer in French at Trinity College, Dublin. He was the son of the famous pacifists and socialists Francis and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington.

This book is only recently published but up to that time the Christian brothers were denying all and everything leveled against them - yet these letters, which only came to light recently, are word for word exactly the same as the people who gave evidence under oath to the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. Peter's voice is now being heard but Patsy Flanagan's is being further silenced by you.

You won't be successful, the days of the hegemony of the Christian Brothers here in Ireland is well over.

My own reply
Don't give me this "you won't be successful" rubbish - you're not the first person to typecast me as a biased "pro-Christian Brothers" editor, and I'm bloody sick of it. Read my contributions and thoughts again - my objections are completely based on your poor handling of a sensitive issue. You seem to forget that there are living people associated with a lot of these cases, with potential legal implications for Wikipedia.

My association with Christian Brothers in my own life have no repercussions on my opinions on the disgraceful criminals we are talking about here, simple as that. I'm not stopping you from writing a properly referenced section on Artane and other issues - in fact, I encourage you to do so. However, anyone with any association with Wikipedia knows the expected standards of verification that need to be maintained, so don't you dare blame me if you're not meeting those requirements.Rob Lindsey 23:17, 15 November 2007 (UTC)


 * And if you are genuinely unsure as to what those standards are, there are links leading off from the WP main page - for more specifics on how to reference and how to write impartially you may ask me (the material you seem to have at your disposal sounds useful, so let's not waste it), but I won't accept any more of your baseless accusations. Regards, Rob Lindsey 23:30, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

Usergroup:DeathinArtane
A proposed deletion template has been added to the article Usergroup:DeathinArtane, suggesting that it be deleted according to the proposed deletion process. All contributions are appreciated, but this article may not satisfy Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and the deletion notice should explain why (see also "What Wikipedia is not" and Wikipedia's deletion policy). You may prevent the proposed deletion by removing the  notice, but please explain why you disagree with the proposed deletion in your edit summary or on its talk page. Also, please consider improving the article to address the issues raised. Even though removing the deletion notice will prevent deletion through the proposed deletion process, the article may still be deleted if it matches any of the speedy deletion criteria or it can be sent to Articles for Deletion, where it may be deleted if consensus to delete is reached. If you agree with the deletion of the article, and you are the only person who has made substantial edits to the page, please add  to the top of Usergroup:DeathinArtane. J Milburn (talk) 15:05, 30 December 2007 (UTC)