Ireland's Shame DUBLIN, IRELAND (Associated Press) - A nine-year investigation in Ireland says Catholic priests and nuns terrorized thousands of children in workhouse-style schools beginning in the 1930s - and the government did little to stop the chronic beatings, rapes and other abuse.

The 2,600-page report says several Irish Catholic religious orders covered up six decades of brutality and molestation of boys and girls assigned to their care in special schools, reformatories and orphanages.

The commissioners have spent years hearing testimony from thousands of former students as well as from retired officials of church-run institutions. The schools themselves closed from the 1970s to 1990s.

Wednesday's report says church officials encouraged ritual beatings and repeatedly shielded pedophiles from arrest.
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