Artist and writer Gerard Mannix Flynn gave a dramatic glimpse of the harsh life in Letterfrack Industrial School here yesterday, when he performed the official opening of Ireland's pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale.
The Irish entry for the exhibition "Metamorph", which has transformation, or metamorphosis, as its theme, is the partially completed transformation of Letterfrack reformatory in Connemara into a furniture college. It is the project of Dublin-based architects O'Donnell and Tuomey.
Holding an international audience spellbound, Mr Flynn - a one-time inmate of Letterfrack - railed against "those Christians who call themselves brothers" for the abuses perpetrated against boys in the remote, harsh reformatory.
The Christian Brothers had "said nothing" about what had happened there, even though some of their members had been imprisoned for it. But Letterfrack was not unique, it was happening "across the length and breadth of Ireland".
Mr Flynn, who was incarcerated in the industrial school for 18 months at the age of 11 and later served time in other penal institutions, said he had since managed to rebuild his life in "a process of transformation".
"There was a time when I wanted to blow Letterfrack to smithereens," he said. But he was glad now that the old reformatory was in the process of being transformed into a community-based furniture college by Connemara West.
Mr Shane O'Toole, Irish architecture critic and commissioner for the pavilion, said it had been built by Timber Structures of Ireland, which had also worked on the new buildings at Letterfrack.
The first Italian translation of Gerard Mannix Flynn's autobiography, Nothing To Say, was published on Thursday. Mr Flynn will also be performing another of his works, James X, during the Dublin Theatre Festival.
Mr Frank Cogan, the Irish Ambassador to Italy, said Ireland had been "going through quite a metamorphosis in recent years", not all of it good. It had also been "painful for us to face up to old ghosts" such as Letterfrack. The Ambassador was deputising for the Minister for Arts, Sport and Tourism, Mr O'Donoghue, who cancelled his participation in the official opening because of the pending Cabinet reshuffle.
Mr Peter Murray, deputy chairman of the Cultural Relations Committee, said the new college in Letterfrack was supplying the furniture for the courthouse in Cork, currently being renovated at a cost of €25 million.
Tributes were paid to property developer Mr Terry Devey, who provided most of the sponsorship to build the Irish pavilion, which includes a timber "Scary House", representing Letterfrack's worst days.
Although Ireland was in contention, Belgium won the Golden Lion award for its pavilion, which focuses on its colonial history in the Congo and is more about anthropology than architecture. The biennale runs until November 7th.
