Madam, - It was with amusement that I read the letter from Father Val Peter, executive director of Girls' and Boys' Town, in which he referred to my "limited review" of the Boys' Town archive (Oct 4th).
In the summer of 2003 I travelled to Omaha with the sole and clearly articulated intention of seeing all of the material relating to Father Edward Flanagan's 1946 Irish visit. The archivist, Mr Tom Lynch, showed me a number of files; I examined these, and photocopied their contents. On January 26th, 2004, Mr Lynch wrote informing me that he had "come across several more files containing Father's Irish correspondence from the 1940s". Two days later he wrote, "the files I came across contain background information on Father Flanagan's trip to Ireland in 1946, and include the meeting he had with de Valera. I will make copies of the material and drop it in the mail. The material appears not to contain anything earth-shatteringly different from the documents you have already reviewed."
This material, promised nine months ago, has never been made available to me. Since the publication of my article on Father Flanagan in History Ireland, in March, my e-mails to the archivist have gone unanswered and specific requests for information refused. More recently, I have written directly to Father Val Peter seeking his assistance; my request was simply forwarded to the archivist. My last correspondence with Father Peter was in response to his letter to The Irish Times. I asked again for the promised material and offered to return to the Boys' Town archive during the Christmas break. To this request I received an emphatic response from the archivist that "no further access will be provided" to me.
The behaviour of the Boys' Town authorities in this matter is indefensible.
Historians rely upon the professionalism of archivists; without this trust, research becomes impossible. It is inexcusable for an archivist to withhold material and then to enter into public debate in order to undermine a researcher who has depended upon their good faith.
Father Val Peter may dismiss my argument as "a rationalisation of semantics rather than a factual portrayal of Father Flanagan's feelings" (Oct 4th), but his decision to close the archive is a crude act of censorship, which serves only to undermine his argument.
Fortunately, the newspapers for the period are beyond Father Val Peter's censorious reach and are freely available in libraries throughout Ireland. I would invite interested readers to examine the press coverage of Father Flanagan's Irish tour of 1946. What is immediately apparent is the huge contradiction between what Father Flanagan said publicly about industrial schools during his visit and the subsequent criticism contained in his private correspondence. Rather than blowing the whistle on the industrial schools, Flanagan's visit to Artane and his subsequent praise of the school perpetuated the notion that Artane was "Ireland's Boys' Town". How else could readers interpret his references to "the great work being done there by the good brothers" and to the "magnificent training" the boys received there (Irish Independent, 24 June, 1946)?
I am not sure that if I were a poor boy in Artane in the summer of 1946 I would have drawn any hope from the priest's visit. - Yours, etc.,
DAIRE KEOGH, History Department, St Patrick's College, Drumcondra, Dublin 9.