Peter Tyrrell

For the Pennsylvania entertainment entrepreneur, see Peter A. Tyrrell.

Peter Tyrrell
The only known photograph of Tyrrell
Born	1916 (1916) County Galway, Ireland
Died	26 April 1967(1967-04-26) (aged 50–51) Hampstead Heath, London
Occupation	Tailor
Language	English
Notable works	Founded on Fear (published 2006)
Military career
Allegiance	United Kingdom
Branch	British Army
Years of service	1935-1945
Rank	Sergeant
Unit	King's Own Scottish Borderers
Battles / wars	World War II

Peter Tyrrell (1916 – 26 April 1967) was an Irish author and activist. When he was eight years old, the authorities sent him to St Joseph's Industrial School, Letterfrack, an institution run by the Christian Brothers. He suffered extreme physical and sexual abuse at the Christian Brothers' hands until he was released from the school when he was sixteen. He became a tailor by trade, emigrated to the United Kingdom in 1935 and in the same year enlisted in the British Army. For four months in 1944, he was held as a prisoner-of-war in the German camp Stalag XI-B. Throughout the 1950s and '60s, Tyrrell campaigned against corporal punishment and religious abuses in institutions. In 1967, feeling that his efforts to enact change were unsuccessful, he burnt himself alive on Hampstead Heath in London. In 2006, his memoir Founded on Fear, in which he told the story of his life and condemned the abuse he suffered at Letterfrack, was published posthumously by the Irish Academic Press after historian Diarmuid Whelan discovered the manuscript in the papers of politician Owen Sheehy-Skeffington, with whom Tyrrell had conducted a long correspondence.^[1]

Early life

Tyrrell was born in 1916 to poor parents near Cappagh, Ahascragh, County Galway, Ireland. Because of his father James Tyrrell's ^[2] refusal to work regularly, his mother had to resort to begging to support the family. They lived in a one-room house that had no windows, as James Tyrrell neglected to make repairs or renovations to it. In 1924, when Peter was aged eight, the authorities petitioned the courts to place him and his three older brothers into St Joseph's Industrial School in Letterfrack; as his two younger brothers were too young for Letterfrack, they were instead sent to live with nuns in Kilkenny. ^[2]

He later recounted in Founded on Fear that the Christian Brothers who ran the school beat him and the other inmates constantly, near-daily, often without provocation, and with such brutality that Tyrrell's arm was once broken. On the holidays of New Years, Easter and Christmas, even the crueller Brothers gave the boys presents and temporarily acted jovially, but the abuse always resumed the day after. Sexual abuse also occurred, though not as frequently or severely as physical abuse (Tyrrell makes few explicit mentions of sexual abuse in his memoir). The food, sanitation and living conditions were poor: the boys were malnourished and always cold, and many suffered from chilblains and periodontal disease. Tyrrell related, though, that there were some Brothers who uniformly treated the boys kindly. In 1932, he was discharged from St Joseph's and returned home at the age of sixteen, but his time there left him traumatised for the rest of his life. ^[2]

Adult life

After leaving Letterfrack, Tyrrell worked as a tailor in Ballinasloe until 1935, when he emigrated to the United Kingdom.

Military career

He joined the British Army in 1935 and was first posted to Scotland in the King's Own Scottish Borderers regiment. He was posted several times thereafter to various places, including Palestine in August of 1936, where the regiment defended Jewish settlements during the Arab revolt, and Tiberias, where he contracted malaria and spent two weeks in a hospital in Egypt. In September of 1937 they took a ship to India. In India, he fell in love with a woman named Angela Dennison, but the relationship ultimately came to an end; Tyrrell could not bring himself to propose marriage and sometimes acted cruelly toward her, a fact that he regretted.^{[2] [3]} He realised he was also treating Indians badly. In writing, he likened his own behaviours to those of the Christian Brothers and feared that he had become like them.^[3]

In 1941, he and his battalion were attached to an Australian unit at Bombay with the task of escorting Italian prisoners of the Battle of Beda Fomm, who had been transported to India, to Bangalore. In June of that year, Tyrrell was promoted to the rank of sergeant.

In 1944, the battalion was removed to the Netherlands and later to Geilenkirchen in Germany. In Geilenkirchen, Tyrrell was wounded, captured by the Germans and sent to the prisoner-of-war camp Stalag XI-B near Fallingbostel. He was detained for four months and compared his experience at the camp, where he and other Western prisoners were treated humanely whereas Soviet prisoners were starved, favourably to his childhood in Letterfrack. There was universal civility between the Germans and the Western prisoners in the camp, and Tyrrell attributed the meagre food to wartime scarcity, which he did not fault Germany for, rather than to deliberate withholdment.

He and other prisoners were liberated in April of 1945. He was demobilised from the military in December and officially discharged six months later.^[2] His service had helped him overcome much of his trauma and gain a sense of confidence; while in the Himalayas he had taken up mountaineering, and he wrote that after the war, "I was beginning to really enjoy life. I was no longer afraid of people. I had learned to cast aside that terrible inferiority complex... Yes I had beaten most of my fears".^[2]

Postwar life and activism

When he returned to England he fell victim to anti-Irish racism, but was also rejected by the Irish community there because of his outspoken views. On multiple occasions, he was threatened and assaulted while holding speeches condemning the Irish people for the faults of Ireland.^[2][3]

In 1945, he obtained a job inspecting clothing at the Ministry of Supply. Around this time he learnt to swim, ride a bicycle and drive, though he did not pass the driving test. When the job was made redundant in 1947, he returned to tailoring and began to travel extensively around the United Kingdom.

After encountering one of his old friends from Letterfrack, he became preoccupied with his experience at the institution. He frequented pubs, met many fellow former inmates of industrial schools and attempted, with varying success, to get them to tell him about their experiences.

He wrote many letters to government officials, Catholic Church leaders and Christian Brothers confronting them about the atrocity of child abuse, but his correspondence often went unreplied to or received responses that refused to acknowledge the issue.^[2] In 1953 he wrote to the Provincial of the Order of Letterfrack to accuse three members of the order ("Brother Piperel", "Brother Perrin" and "Brother Corvax") of physical and sexual abuse.^[4] He wrote to the Superior twice in that same year, but neither letter was replied to.^[5] He met with the Superior General in 1957, and then with the Provincial of the Congregation, though the latter thought he was on a "blackmail ticket"^[5]. These exchanges would be documented in 2009 by the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse in the Ryan Report, a report of the Commission's findings about child abuse in industrial schools in the Republic of Ireland. Because the Commission decided that victims and alleged perpetrators needed to be anonymised for legal reasons, Tyrrell was referred to as "Noah Kitterick" in the report. ^{[6] [7]}

In 1958, at the behest of the Irish Centre in London, Tyrrell contacted Owen Sheehy-Skeffington, a Senator who was known for his stances on socialism and pacifism, and for his opposition to corporal punishment. Sheehy-Skeffington, believing that Tyrrell's story of his time at Letterfrack would be a perfect denunciation of corporal punishment, invited Tyrrell to his home and advised him to write a memoir. The initial manuscript was completed five months later and revised through the 1960s, but never published within either of their lifetimes.^[2]

In 1964 Sheehy-Skeffington introduced Tyrrell to Joy Rudd, editor of Hibernia magazine. She and Tyrrell co-authored an article, titled Early Days in Letterfrack, and published it in the magazine. Rudd introduced Tyrrell into a literary and political group called Tuairim which published pamphlets on various issues, including corporal punishment in institutions. Tuairim accepted Tyrrell's account of his abuse but did not incorporate the details into their publications.^[2]

Death

On 26 April, 1967, Tyrrell, who suffered from manic depression and psychological issues his entire adult life as a consequence of the abuse he endured, went to Hampstead Heath in London and lit himself on fire. He had been disgruntled by the failure of his attempts to bring the issue of child abuse to the public eye.^[2] A park staff member discovered his corpse,^[8] which was charred beyond recognition. The only clue as to his identity was a torn postcard addressed to Sheehy-Skeffington. In 1968, Scotland Yard contacted Sheehy-Skeffington, who positively identified the remains as Tyrrell's.^[9]

Posthumous publication

In 2005, historian Diarmuid Whelan was in the process of archiving the papers of Sheehy-Skeffington when he came across Tyrrell's manuscript. He edited it to fix Tyrrell's idiosyncratic grammar and spelling, wrote an introduction to it and had the book published as Founded on Fear: Letterfrack Industrial School, war and exile by the Irish Academic Press in 2006. ^{[9] [1]} Aside from his days at Letterfrack, Founded on Fear included narratives of his adulthood, military career and life after the war. ^[2]

References

1. Whelan, Diarmuid (2006). "Peter Tyrrell's account of Letterfrack, war and exile: Sheehy Skeffington Papers, National Library of Ireland". Saothar. 31: 111–118. ISSN 0332-1169.
2. Tyrrell, Peter (2006). Whelan, Diarmuid (ed.). Founded on Fear. ISBN 9781848270237.
3. McKeane, Ian (25 January 2007). "Founded on Fear". Irish Democrat. Archived from the original on 9 April 2025. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
4. Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, Volume I, Chapter 8, Letterfrack Archived 30 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine, section 8.106, PDF Archived 21 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine
5. Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, Volume I, Chapter 8, Letterfrack Archived 30 May 2009 at the Wayback Machine, section 8.107, PDF Archived 21 November 2010 at the Wayback Machine
6. Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Chapter 5 Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse Archived 16 March 2010 at the Wayback Machine, sections 5.41–5.47
7. "Remembering Peter Tyrrell". Galway Advertiser. 25 September 2014. Archived from the original on 1 December 2014. Retrieved 15 September 2025.
8. "Man is Burned to Death in Park". Manchester Evening News. Newspapers.com. 28 April 1967. p. 1. Retrieved 16 September 2025.
9. Vincent Browne and guests review newly launched States of Fear. "Programmes 16th – 19th October 2006". RTÉ Commercial Enterprises Limited. Archived from the original on 12 July 2007. Retrieved 14 July 2009.