Kildare woman pens book on industrial school survival
Susan Connolly at her book launch for 'Echoes from the Dormitories'. Also pictured is Maureen Sullivan who also is a survivor of an industrial school Photos: Jimmy Fullam
A WOMAN who has made her life in Newbridge after growing up in homes in Kilkenny, the UK, and the notorious Goldenbridge industrial school in Dublin has just published a poignant memoir .
The book was launched in Farrell and Nephew’s Book Store in Newbridge on Saturday afternoon 21 September.
“It’s a memoir from my own experiences in Goldenbridge, and I wanted to give voice for the children who lived here, their resilience, and the little joys we might find there,” said author Susan Connolly.
“Why I decided to write was because for years and years we were kept in the shadows, some memories are very personal from my own experiences so we won’t get forgotten,” she said.
Susan, who has lived in Newbridge for the last 36 years – and has two granddaughters here – was put into Goldenbridge Industrial School in 1962 when she was just five because “my father was an alcoholic, and my mother just 15 when she got pregnant”.
Following her ‘release’ when she was 16 Susan went to work in the UK, and only came back to Ireland in 1989 when a brother of hers had settled in Newbridge and offered her somewhere to stay.
Her brother is Michael Monaghan from the Newbridge School of Music.
She has been thinking about doing this book since.
“I have no qualifications, but I put myself through a number of writers’ courses,” she explained.
“Originally, I wanted to write it as a play, a live performance on stage of my story.
“I had a script called ‘I am Edel’ and it was published in 2021, but the only reason it was published was because all the theatres were closed down at the time and so I didn’t get anywhere with my play.
“But I found lots of quiet times during Covid so I decided to write my story, to put something down.
“I hope people will want to read this because we are a dying breed, and I thought I couldn’t go to my grave without writing it.
“It is a message of survival from the darkest place in my life.
“The lack of love in that place for the children who really need it but were only met with harshness and silence.
“It shaped the way I am now, but it was obvious I had the resilience, the determination to write this, because at the end of the day, we all have a story.
“Thirty-six years?” said Susan when the Kildare Nationalist did the maths on her Newbridge residence.
“I’m a Newbridgian now! I’m no longer a blow-in,” she laughed.
is available now from Farrell and Nephew’s, as well as that Bezos place for now, but Susan hopes to have it for sale in both Barker and Jones in Naas and Woodbine’s in Kilcullen in the near future.
