Mickey Harte quizzed by PSNI after accusations of physical abuse at school?

[Jinxy]

hold on lads, you cant strike kids who are in your care no matter who you are and no matter what they do. thats the law now and it was the law when the incident is alledged to have happened. what some posters are suggesting is that its ok to give kids a slap if you dont like how they're behaving do any of you coach at underage... think.. do any of you give kids a lift to underage games/training.. think.
  when i was at primary school our headmaster wasn't soft, once he pulled me by the ear i remember screeching  when i got home my father asked me why my ear was so red. so eventually i told him what happened. the next morning he left me to school when i got into class he ask the teacher outside all we could hear was the master squealing, when he came back in his ears were bright red. we still laugh at it now  and my da's near 70. but young mcconville hadnt got parents.
  nowadays children phone childline and the police move in. mickys innocent (i'm sure) he should counterclaim get his brief on to it right away. with all the young teams hes handled over the years his references should be brilliant and there will be hundreds of character wittnesses it wont be a problem.

He didn't pull your ear half enough!

[armaghniac]

Are you sure 'corporal punishment' was against the law in the 1970's?

It certainly was not. Straps and ash plants were routine in those times.

when i was at primary school our headmaster wasn't soft, once he pulled me by the ear i remember screeching

He was probably trying to teach you sentence structure.

[Gaffer]

Corporal punishment was abandoned as a form of punishment in 1987.

[johnneycool]

isn't the behaviour of the like of McConville Junior exactly the type of behaviour expected of one who had a lousy childhood.
Mother killed , Presumablt an implict threat of violence  hang over his family for much of his youth , likely bad behaviour in school at the time likely punished in a physical manner , wheter by M harte or some other teacher . its a classic case of violence breeding violence . this does not condone it but merely show the stupidity of inflicting violence on children as many here have advocated.
the original victim has to come first anfd Justice must be done and seen to be done  to try and break the cycle.
what we shoul have learned from the last few decades of abuse revelations is nobody is above suspicion. Priests teachers Parent, uncles grandparents siblings and indeed in severfal cases sport coaches.
Like may i was subjected to the odd slap in school and while i dont think it did me any long lasting damage who knows and what if i didnt have a strong family support to help deal with it.
I would be very wary casting stones.

Lets be clear on this, Rubane House was no ordinary school, it was more akin to a borstal where the children were locked in dormitories at night by the loving De La Salle Christian brothers and with men of the cloth like Fr Brendan Smyth and Br Florence prowling the corridors is it any wonder the lad was demented?

[Main Street]

Corporal punishment was abandoned as a form of punishment in 1987.

There was a high profile case in 1969 or 1970 against a so called Christian Brother. I think it was a private prosecution. He had battered a kid black and blue in a classroom  (somewhere north Dublin). The court case made the front pages. They published graphic photos of the abused scrawny kid. The CB was found guilty and had to pay a token fine of a few pennies. Corporal punishment was not outlawed. Nevertheless around the same time, the use of corporal punishment in secondary schools in the 1970's, in general, backed off. You could get formally slapped with a strap, but nothing more.   2 slaps -  up a maximum of 6 slaps on the hand with a leather strap. As a method of discipline, it had lost favour in early 1970's and was rarely used.
Out of 20 or 30 lay teachers in my secondary school, only a few used the strap - a few times -  before giving up on using it.
The unwritten rule was that once you got into 4th year, you were not hit, under any circumstances.
You had the right to square up/face down any teacher who wanted to hit you. You just stood up and refused to show your hands. That happened to me and one teacher in my class and after that no one had any respect for him. No sensible teacher would want to lose that much face in front of a class.
I regard as nonsense, anything written about physical abuse of kids in the 70's and 80's as just being just a part of the times, it wasn't a part of the time.  Corporal punishment was a clearly defined act of discipline, enacted with a strap. Abuse was abuse, then as now. If kids got beaten in secondary school, it was abuse. 

[ONeill]

Corporal punishment was administered with many an instrument from cane, slipper, strap, ruler or just the hand. I think it was abolished in the Republic of Ireland a few years before the north. Private schools in the north could use it up until about 5 years ago.

[tyssam5]

Corporal punishment was administered with many an instrument from cane, slipper, strap, ruler or just the hand. I think it was abolished in the Republic of Ireland a few years before the north. Private schools in the north could use it up until about 5 years ago.

Would any CCMS school count as private?

[under the bar]

We got seven shades knocked out of us until 1986,  Strap, cane, slipper, ruler, hose pipe, anything - on the hands and the ar$e.

[dublinfella]

Mr Anti Gaa Dublinfella won't be impressed with you. It will be harder for him now to try and discredit a top gaa personality.

My arse. All I am saying is was if this was the Dungannon Swifts manager, the reaction would be very different on here.

[haranguerer]

Mr Anti Gaa Dublinfella won't be impressed with you. It will be harder for him now to try and discredit a top gaa personality.

My arse. All I am saying is was if this was the Dungannon Swifts manager, the reaction would be very different on here.

Dublinfella is right in everything he has said. Very few on here can come on and state with surety the claims are a load of shite, no matter the character of the accuser. Most of those who are saying this are blinded by their opinions on the alleged perpetrator, which is very similar to the rape case in Kerry where locals let their personal judgements rule over the facts, and which had just about everyone on here up in arms. Btw, because no doubt someone will try to misinterpret, I know the perpetrator was found guilty in Kerry and Harte hasn't a case to answer (yet, and at all I hope), I'm just making the point that the emotions and logic are the same.

Personally, I doubt the accusations are true, and hope fervently they're not, for I've a lot of respect for Mickey Harte.

[BennyHarp]

Mr Anti Gaa Dublinfella won't be impressed with you. It will be harder for him now to try and discredit a top gaa personality.

My arse. All I am saying is was if this was the Dungannon Swifts manager, the reaction would be very different on here.

Dublinfella is right in everything he has said. Very few on here can come on and state with surety the claims are a load of shite, no matter the character of the accuser. Most of those who are saying this are blinded by their opinions on the alleged perpetrator, which is very similar to the rape case in Kerry where locals let their personal judgements rule over the facts, and which had just about everyone on here up in arms. Btw, because no doubt someone will try to misinterpret, I know the perpetrator was found guilty in Kerry and Harte hasn't a case to answer (yet, and at all I hope), I'm just making the point that the emotions and logic are the same.

Personally, I doubt the accusations are true, and hope fervently they're not, for I've a lot of respect for Mickey Harte.

And very few can come on here and say the allegations are true - doesnt stop a thread being started about it though! A mans good name can be sullied by allegations and there needs to be a level of protection incase the stories are all lies - because unfortunately mud sticks and I for one will rely on my personal dealings with Mickey Harte as the yardstick to which story i believe.

[supersarsfields]

Mr Anti Gaa Dublinfella won't be impressed with you. It will be harder for him now to try and discredit a top gaa personality.

My arse. All I am saying is was if this was the Dungannon Swifts manager, the reaction would be very different on here.

Dublinfella is right in everything he has said. Very few on here can come on and state with surety the claims are a load of shite, no matter the character of the accuser. Most of those who are saying this are blinded by their opinions on the alleged perpetrator, which is very similar to the rape case in Kerry where locals let their personal judgements rule over the facts, and which had just about everyone on here up in arms. Btw, because no doubt someone will try to misinterpret, I know the perpetrator was found guilty in Kerry and Harte hasn't a case to answer (yet, and at all I hope), I'm just making the point that the emotions and logic are the same.

Personally, I doubt the accusations are true, and hope fervently they're not, for I've a lot of respect for Mickey Harte.

No He's not. As I said before he's trying to claim that people are speaking out for Mickey Harte because he's Tyrone manager and a GAA man. I've pointed out that most people would view someone as innocent until there's proof otherwise which would be the reason for any defence of MH on my part.

[muppet]

My thoughts on this would be the same as they were when the Paul Galvin duster story hit the red-tops.

Innocent until proven guilty and all that.

[Gaffer]

Mr Anti Gaa Dublinfella won't be impressed with you. It will be harder for him now to try and discredit a top gaa personality.

My arse. All I am saying is was if this was the Dungannon Swifts manager, the reaction would be very different on here.

The Dungannon Swifts manager is a big GAA man too !

[Milltown Row2]

The vast majority of my teachers will be getting pulled tomorrow. I'll have the courts wasting more money on things that happened 30 odd years ago. Money well spent i say