Read Online The Girl Nobody Wants: A Shocking True Story of Child Abuse in Ireland by Lily O'Brien - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Lily O'Brien
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for clothes and eating anything we could get our hands on. To us, it didn’t matter if it was dirty, old, smelling or covered in mould; we needed to eat and we did. We would rub any muck off the food and then put it into our mouths, and one of the best things to find was packets of out-of-date biscuits that supermarkets had slung out, as they would always taste nice.
But the dump smelt bad and it was full of things like needles and cotton with blood on it and other strange stuff from the hospital that would make us itch if we touched it. We would get cuts on our hands and knees from all sorts of things almost every day and our mouths would become so dry that we had to keep them shut; otherwise, bugs and big blue bottles would fly into your mouth. Then they would stick to the roof of your mouth and you would have to dig them out with your fingers or try to make some spit in your mouth so you could swallow them, and all the time the flies would be making a buzzing noise inside your mouth until they were gone.
And every now and then, a rubbish lorry would pull in with a new load of black bags and we would be the first to get on top of them and rip the bags open. We used to see many adults doing the same thing as us, but they would always wait until we had finished and moved on to another lot of bags before they came over to look through them. I think it was because we were the youngest and smallest in the dump that they gave us a chance to eat before they went through the bags. Even dad knew what we were doing and, some days before we left the house, he would tell us to look out for scrap copper wire and if we found any, to bring it home for him to scrap; and we did, but he never said thanks.
All this was fine and sometimes it was even fun; plus, down by the edge of the dump, there was a small stream and during the summer months we would climb down to it and wash some of the smell and muck off our hands and faces. Plus we would wash and swap some of our old clothes for newer ones that we had found in the dump, and at the end of the day, we would head back home with bellies full and happy faces.
However, one day while at the dump, we must have forgotten about our baby brother Simon being with us, as it was only after we had arrived back home and it began to get dark that I asked everyone if they had seen him, but no one had. The last time anyone had seen him was earlier in the day when we were all at the stream by the dump; in a panic, we all jumped up and we went off looking for him and we ran almost all the way back to the dump before we found him.
He was walking along the road and he was all alone, and he was dirty and wet all over and he was wearing only his underpants and a pair of socks. I grabbed him by the arm and then I cuddled him and he told me that he had fallen into the stream and he had shouted for us, but nobody came. So, he managed to climb out of the stream on his own and he took his clothes off because they were wet and too heavy for him and he couldn’t walk in them. I grabbed his t-shirt out of his hands, I rung it out and then I put it back on him; then Ted picked Simon up and put him on his shoulders and we all walked home happy that we had found Simon and that he was safe. When we got home, we never told anyone, not even our dad about what had happened to Simon, as he would have killed us if he had known what had gone on; anyway, Simon was ok and everything was fine now.
After a few weeks, the days began to get colder and darker and I began to feel ill, my skin looked pale and it was thick with waxy dirt, and red patches with rings and dots began to appear all over my body and I looked very sick. My hair had become so stiff with dirt that it just stuck up into the air, and my scalp hurt and it bled if I scratched it. So one of my older sisters, Jenny, who was ten years old, decided that we had to have a proper wash with hot water and soap, but I had forgotten what soap was.
Later that night, Jenny
But the dump smelt bad and it was full of things like needles and cotton with blood on it and other strange stuff from the hospital that would make us itch if we touched it. We would get cuts on our hands and knees from all sorts of things almost every day and our mouths would become so dry that we had to keep them shut; otherwise, bugs and big blue bottles would fly into your mouth. Then they would stick to the roof of your mouth and you would have to dig them out with your fingers or try to make some spit in your mouth so you could swallow them, and all the time the flies would be making a buzzing noise inside your mouth until they were gone.
And every now and then, a rubbish lorry would pull in with a new load of black bags and we would be the first to get on top of them and rip the bags open. We used to see many adults doing the same thing as us, but they would always wait until we had finished and moved on to another lot of bags before they came over to look through them. I think it was because we were the youngest and smallest in the dump that they gave us a chance to eat before they went through the bags. Even dad knew what we were doing and, some days before we left the house, he would tell us to look out for scrap copper wire and if we found any, to bring it home for him to scrap; and we did, but he never said thanks.
All this was fine and sometimes it was even fun; plus, down by the edge of the dump, there was a small stream and during the summer months we would climb down to it and wash some of the smell and muck off our hands and faces. Plus we would wash and swap some of our old clothes for newer ones that we had found in the dump, and at the end of the day, we would head back home with bellies full and happy faces.
However, one day while at the dump, we must have forgotten about our baby brother Simon being with us, as it was only after we had arrived back home and it began to get dark that I asked everyone if they had seen him, but no one had. The last time anyone had seen him was earlier in the day when we were all at the stream by the dump; in a panic, we all jumped up and we went off looking for him and we ran almost all the way back to the dump before we found him.
He was walking along the road and he was all alone, and he was dirty and wet all over and he was wearing only his underpants and a pair of socks. I grabbed him by the arm and then I cuddled him and he told me that he had fallen into the stream and he had shouted for us, but nobody came. So, he managed to climb out of the stream on his own and he took his clothes off because they were wet and too heavy for him and he couldn’t walk in them. I grabbed his t-shirt out of his hands, I rung it out and then I put it back on him; then Ted picked Simon up and put him on his shoulders and we all walked home happy that we had found Simon and that he was safe. When we got home, we never told anyone, not even our dad about what had happened to Simon, as he would have killed us if he had known what had gone on; anyway, Simon was ok and everything was fine now.
After a few weeks, the days began to get colder and darker and I began to feel ill, my skin looked pale and it was thick with waxy dirt, and red patches with rings and dots began to appear all over my body and I looked very sick. My hair had become so stiff with dirt that it just stuck up into the air, and my scalp hurt and it bled if I scratched it. So one of my older sisters, Jenny, who was ten years old, decided that we had to have a proper wash with hot water and soap, but I had forgotten what soap was.
Later that night, Jenny
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