Interview 7
AN INTERVIEW WITH FRANK DUFF BENTLEY PLACE- PART 2
"We brought out a kitchen table and put it up against a great concrete wall which had been erected to divide a corporation building scheme from this place. Apparently they reckoned at the time this would require some dividing because this wall was (LAUGHS) almost twenty feet high. (LAUGHS) The table was put there and from the table the priests spoke to the great crowd and pleaded for prayer and everything that the trouble would never assert itself there again. When Father Mackey who gave the chief talk was finished, he got down off the table and a chair was put on top of the table. I climbed up on top of the chair and reaching up as far as I could on this lofty wall, I drove a heavy spike into the wall and we put that Crucifix onto it as a formal taking possession of the place."
This interview with Frank Duff concludes the history of Bentley Place with its closing down-a feat unique in all of religious history. Walt Brown hosted this interview which took place on August 28, 1979.
Q....Welcome back to the second part of our pro· gram on Bentley Place. I was wondering, Mr. Duff, if you came across any unusual cases in your work at Bentley Place.
A. Yes! There's one case that has always occupied indelibly a spot in my mind because it taught me a very great lesson. It was the case of a girl, Babs Haughey. She had been in that place a fair amount of time and the story is about her. One afternoon in my office a colleague said to me suddenly, "I suppose that work of yours for the girls is a shockingly difficult one." "No," I said, "No, on the whole, no." He said, "I suppose you run up against a great number of hopeless cases." "No," I said, "they're difficult but we don't use that word hopeless lest it diminish our effort." "Just as man to man," he said, "have you any what you'd call real hopeless cases?" "Yes," and I told him about Babs Haughey. I picked her out as the one really hopeless case I knew. He was interested and I explained what I based it on. She was a nice girl and she'd never been in even one instance unpleasant to us. But I could never discern in her during the whole time that I had been visiting the area a spark of religion. For that reason I assessed her in that category. When I told him all this, we drifted back to our work again.
Well, now, that very evening was the evening of our Friday night visitation. By way of a variety that evening I was bringing a statue down to some comparatively decent family in the locality and the statue was done up very amateurishly in brown paper. To look at it-I was carrying it myself-you could not say what it was. I had two of the women legionaries with me and we were going down the opposite side of the street. We came level with her who was with two other girls sitting on the window ledge on the other side. We had our job to do and we weren't going to stop. She hailed us and said, "Are you not going to have a word with us?" We turned abruptly right and went over and stood in front of them. After greetings she said, "What's that you are carrying?" "Oh, that," I said, "Oh, Babs, no use telling you that because you wouldn't understand." "But I want to know all the same." "It would only upset you. It's outside your sphere altogether. You wouldn't have an idea." "I'm not that ignorant," she said. "Surely I would be able to know something about it." "Oh, no!", and I methodically tormented her until I had her in the ninth degree of curiosity. And then pretending to yield to her, "Well," I said, "I don't want bothering your mind but
I'll have to give you what you want." I tore off the paper from the head of the statue and the statue looked right at her. (LAUGHS) Well, she went white. It was really a shock to her and she looked at me and she looked at the statue and she looked back to me and so forth for a while. Then she said to me in a very peculiar voice, one which I don't think I had ever heard from her, a gentle sorrowful voice, "Mr. Duff," she says, "is that really what you think of me?" "Oh, Babs," I said, "I had no intention of hurting you but after all what else could I say." "Why?" she said, "Why?" "Well," I said, "You have been very nice to us. You've never spoken a cross word to us but I've never seen a spark of faith in you." I had concluded that she just didn't have any. "Well," she said, "that's where you are wrong. When I turn around, it's not going to be like some of these other ones. It's going to be for good." "Oh," I said, "do you really mean to turn around some day?" "I do!" "Well, why not make it now, Babs?" So she eyed me for some time and she said, "I will." And she got up and went inside. It was her own house and she went in to dress herself.
Our system was that when we made a capture like that, we assembled if we were apart. We weren't apart that evening. But if we were apart, we assembled and we all went away together with the girl. Now I at once gave instructions sending for a cab. We delivered the statue and she came out ready for the road. We got into the cab and headed for Sancta Maria. When we came to the corner of Stephen's Green and Harcourt Street-there used to be a well-known pub there called the Winter Gardens-Babs said, "Would you do me a great favor?" "I'll do anything for you within reason," I said. "Would you get me a glass of whiskey?" "Certainly," I said. We stopped the cab and I went over into the pub and I brought out a glass of whiskey to her. She drank that and we went on to Sancta Maria where she was received with joy. Now that girl never turned back, never again offended. And after some time she announced that there was one particular man. I don't think it was I that did the negotiations that time. But, in any case, when they went to this man, he was just like the others. If he had a sort of guarantee that she was in earnest, he would marry her. And he did. That man was a Quaker and he came into the Church. It meant he had to receive Baptism. Well, there's another case of one who never, never again looked back. So that was a terrific lesson to myself. Out of all the multitude of difficult cases, I picked one. (LAUGHS)
Q. The wrong one!
A. I said, "That's a hopeless case" (LAUGHS) and that yery night she slept in Sancta Maria-the very same day I said that she was hopeless. She was never destined to commit another offense. (LAUGHS) It was a very salutary warning to myself. So I haven't got to fish around too much to find that kind of case to put before you. Now that meant this was the routine, perhaps, giving you a little picture of the routine always moving on and picking off a girl every time, picking them off regularly. That was in progress for two years and without any unhappy episodes, really. I was friendly with everybody down there even with the owners. There were three big owners and it would be a tremendous point of interest to describe the owners. But if you would be interested, you'll get the history of all these things in the narrative of Bentley Place, "Miracles on Tap. " You'll get that background. Also, I never fell into the mistake while there of taking sides, of going down in sympathy, a mood of emotionalism, and thinking that the girls were poor, victimized creatures and that the Bullies and the owners ought to be dealt with drastically. They were all the same (LAUGHS) and they were all people that one wanted to get around. That meant that I was great friends with all the Bullies as well as with the owners.
Q. That was a safe thing to do.
A. Oh, Yes! It was the correct policy. The great owner down there was a person that I have put down in the narrative as Mrs. Curley. That was not her real name. She owned thirteen brothels in that area. This was a big responsibility. She had a manageress in each place, in each house. There was a whole system, which is detailed in the "Miracles on Tap," of how profits worked out. Now a big owner like Mrs. Curley would get one-third of all the profits, the manageress a third, the girls a third. If the owner only had one house or two houses, very often she acted as manageress and in that case there used to be, as their phrase put it, only one divide. In other words, they each got half. The owner got half and the girls got half. The profits came from the actual prostitution itself and drink because they ran the clock down in that area. Drink was sold without license and at fantastic prices, fantastic! And then the third great source of income down there used to be robbery. If you were foolish enough to go down with your pockets full of money, well, while you were asleep at night, your clothing was gone through and in a word, you didn't bring any money out of the place. You heard stories, which I suppose had foundation, about people coming up to the cattlemarkets here in Dublin or something like that and going down into that place with their pockets full of money, sometimes thousands of pounds, and being stripped of everything and being lucky to have their clothes to get away in. And, of course, there was a lot of talk about murder and that you could easily understand. If somebody began to create real trouble, if he was robbed or something of that, well, they would descend on him and they would proceed to use force towards him and if he died under that, they would all unite to bury him somewhere and there wouldn't be a word.
Q. He would just disappear.
A. Just disappear. If his tracks had been followed into the place, they'd be able to get fifty people to get up and say, "Yes, but he went away at such and such an hour. That's the last we saw of him." That was one of the enticing ideas held before me before I went down that if I fell a victim in. that way, that there'd be an unlimited number of people to swear that I was there from such and such an hour and then I went on. So I should say, as the expression put it, that there was never a dull moment. But however, the time wagged on. We could actually see the moment when we would have cleared the place because the place was visibly diminishing in numbers. Then a marvelous circumstance intervened. Every year in that big parish of Marlborough Street a four-week retreat began on what was formerly called Septugesima Sunday. It would be three weeks before Lent and this year the retreat was allocated to the Jesuits. One of the three priests who were to give it was Father Devane whose name you have heard ...
Q. He's the priest who didn't want to be transferred to Australia!
A. and another of them was Father Mackey, who was a most remarkable person, remarkable! And the third was Father Roche. When the three of them were brought together for this enterprise, Father Devane told them the whole business-that into the middle of this parish came Bentley Place. Normally, the operations of the retreat would not even distantly touch that place. All visitation would stand off from it. All workers would circle around it. But Father Devane spotlighted it and Father Mackey, who was the leader of the team, determined to throw the whole weight of the retreat against it,. He didn't quite see, of course, the full scope of it all. But what he did determine to do was to make every possible approach to the place and at this stage they sent for me. I gave them a very intimate account of what the place was like and we drew up a great plan of campaign. From the first moment the priests said: "Proceed to organize a great campaign of prayer and supplication against that area refraining from any mention of the place itself." Prayer was mentioned all the time-prayer, prayer, prayer. And as a part of this campaign every legionary in Dublin was to go down and visit not only that area but the wholeparish. We drew up a scheme, all other works wer.e dropped, and we proceeded to visit every home, every pub, every club, any place where there were groups of people to be got, and plead for prayer in regard to this great evil.
Now the retreat itself started off tamely as even in those days they used to. There would be plenty of vacant room in the Church and this was no exception. Then, as all this mechanism got going, the attendance at retreat swelled up. You couldn't get in unless you went considerably in advance of the hour and a strange sort of fervor developed.
When this atmosphere had penetrated, it was tangible, I went along first to Mrs. Curley, who by this time I knew very well, and I asked Mrs. Curley would she very kindly come to a meeting with the three priests and myself just to chat over the whole situation there. There was no bullying in question. "No, we're not going to bully you, Mrs. Curley, not at all. We just want to have a chat with you." "Oh, I would love to come along and talk it all over with you." That meeting was held in the Belvidere Hotel, which is not too far removed from the spot itself, and Mrs. Curley, beautifully-dressed, came along and sat down with the four of us. From the first moment it was extraordinary. She said, "If you could close down this place, I'd be the happiest woman in the whole world. I've been going around attending retreats to try to get back to the Church but when I come to the point about my trade, 1 can't get absolution at all. The condition is 1 have to shut down and see I have seven children." Now 1 knew all that. She told me that privately and I had the greatest sympathy with her. She had the faith in a big way. She was a fair person. If her trade could be justified, she was an admirable person. But there it was. So we came to the point, "Could she now shut down?" After all, her eldest son was a successful bookie at this time and· some of the other children were working and she could now do it. She'd love to, she'd love to. She said in the end she would shut down and then she said, "I will forgive any girl from any of my houses what they owe me. I will clothe' every girl from head to foot who will go to Sancta Maria."
That question of debt was a terrible problem down there. All the girls, no matter what their big earnings might be, were in debt. The very clothes on their backs were there on credit. They had bought these clothes originally on credit at apalling prices. There was one of the ladies down there called Roberts and she was the costumier of the whole district. She used to buy clothes wholesale and then she'd charge probably double retail rate and on credit. And on credit means three pence per shilling per week.
Q. That was outrageous!
A. Three pence per shilling per week and sometimes bigger rates of interest charged. The strange thing was, that whatever the owners might be doing, everybody else seemed to be in debt. So this was a marvelous discussion and then we picked another proprietor and had her up. And they all came and we'd have this interview. Well, we got promises from, I think, all of them that they would shut down. Not all of these were kept. Then we had a general meeting with all the girls. Just imagine that. The meeting with the girls was very sensational. What we had in mind was the original meeting in Slicker's Lodging House which inaugurated our whole work. This general meeting was held in the kitchen of Mrs. Curley's home.
Q. Was this meeting held during the Parish Retreat?
A. This was during the retreat. This meeting of the girls was held in Mrs. Curley's kitchen. Her house was a threestory house over the technical border from Bentley Place. One side of the street was Bentley Place and the other side was not. She was on the other side of the street.
One of the things that I was always looking for during all that time was some underground system. Now, when I'd be moving through different houses of Bentley Place, I was always measuring the thicknesses of walls, places where there'd be secret doors, secret places, because a lot of very prominent people of Dublin used to resort to that place and if they went into the public
places, they certainly would be asking for blackmailing. For that reason I was convinced that there must be a private system where you could go and be undetected. But in all my time I could never find anything. If you bring me back to this later on, I'll elaborate. To tell you about it now would take too much time.
But in any case, the retreat wagged on and the amount of fervor created over the parish was astounding. Now, the person who really distinguished himself properly in all those negotiations was Father Mackey. Father Mackey, he's dead now, was a wonderful person. Our interviews took in, besides the owners and some of the manageresses, this lady whose name I mentioned as Mrs. Roberts. Now Mrs. Roberts had been a celebrated character in her day down there, first as a rank and file girl. Even at the time I knew her she was very handsome and very tall and clever. She gravitated from the ranks to be the owner of several houses and her name was known all over the world. I don't know what her original name was but she was known everywhere as Mae O'Blong and her doings were celebrated. She had married a man called Roberts and had drifted out of the direct trade and she had become the costumier and usurer for that district. In those capacities she was probably responsible for keeping the system going because the girls had to resort to her for their clothes. There was pressure and she gave them credit, of course. It was advantageous with everybody that they should want credit. In addition to the extra prices they were charged usury. She had a little shop. I remember because I had been recommended to go and see her as being a person who had reformed and I inter
viewed her in that capacity. She was bringing me through her house from one place to another and looking into an open door which I passed, I said to myself, "Oh! Oh! Isthat what she is?" The whole room was filled with I hangers and women's garments, fur coats, everything. "Oh, so, she's the costumier. Ha!" She was also invited to the meeting with the priests and she came in a coach and was attired, of course, for the occasion. She wouldn't walk up. Coach, if you please, and she came in and took possession of the meeting from the opening. She treated us as four naughty boys. (LAUGHS) She told us how foolish we were and would we grow up. Didn't we know that men were that sort. (LAUGHS) Were we so foolish as to not know that men had to be prepared in that way (LAUGHS) and really this was a beneficial place. I hope,-Are you here?-I'm not going to disturb you (to Beatrice Flannigan) but she said that in her day when she was running houses, she had a medical cer- I tificate put up over every bed proving that the girl in question had not venereal disease and, as she said to us,that after a man had spent his time down there, he was able to go back as clean as a whistle to his wife and children. (LAUGHS) Well, (LAUGHS) Oh! She was making a proper fool of us. (LAUGHS) We had the difficulty that we were trying to keep on a kindly basis, a religious basis, and her clever, clever method was making this impossible. But Father Mackey determined that we'd had enough and he turned on her and he lacerated her (LAUGHS). She caved in but, of course, we got nowhere with her. She was one of the worst elements in the whole place.
Well, we reached the stage then having interviewed everybody of consequence and in the main got an affirmative answer-they would close down. Mrs. Curley's problem was her family. How was she going to live? This we managed to meet by saying we will buy the houses from you. We'll buy the houses. Get a valuation of them and we will buy them. I managed to secure a purchaser and when the whole thing was over, she abundantly carried through her side of the bargain. That sum of money was paid over and, as part of the eventual maneuver, we filled all those houses with people from all over Dublin who were looking for accommodation. I remember that that was an item Father Mackey disagreed very much with me over. He agreed with everything except the nature of the tenants that we eventually brought in. My idea was to do two works in one and bring in waifs and strays and his was that you bring in respectable people. My argument was that there was no respectable person who would go down and live in that area. The place was so appalling-it had an appalling name-that we'd be lucky to get anybody. He had a great phrase for the thing. He said we shouldn't be superimposing one charity upon another. But, in any case, there was an evening fixed and on this particular evening at a given time the place was officially to shut down and every girl was to report over to Sancta Maria.
Q. Was this to take place on the last day of the Parish Retreat?
A. This particular day would have been a day or so before the end of the retreat. We wanted that to happen during the retreat because this strange atmosphere was helpful. That was a moment of tremendous excitement and I'd say about two-thirds of the place closed down. Mrs. Curley closed down all her houses and I would say all her girls came over to Sancta Maria. Two of the other owners did not close down after having promised. My time was spent running around trying to find all these people that had gone into concealment. When we ourselves debated the question, we argued that the place would have to be shut down in that complexion. If we were satisfied with just having taken away two-thirds, then they'd just resume ancient operations. That place would always be a temptation to some of the girls we had got and to others from other places because the trade down there would be lucrative and that it would be a continued solicitation. So, we went off and we interviewed the Chief Commis- sioner of Police, General Murphy, and he listened to us with extraordinary attention. He was a very good man and an auxiliary member of the Legion probably from that time. He died some years ago. But we used to correspond. He always sent me a Christmas card and we'd write that way. He was a really good man. He was a General, a military General, having served in the British Army during the war. So, we drew up a scheme and on a certain night, I suppose that would be Friday night. No, no, Thursday night. The police marched in in force and they arrested every girl and every man they found in the place. The place was carrying on. The usual body of men would go down, of course, but there was a much lesser force of girls. But they were carrying on. So the police broke in doors and arrested everybody including two of the owners who had opted out. There followed a great trial in Dublin. This became quite a notable thing and they were sentenced. The men were all let out and the girls were let out without penalty. That concluded the official history of Bentley Place. At the same time we were going around all the lodging houses of Dublin looking for people who would take rooms in the district because the place had after that to pay its way to the new owner.
Q. Naturally.
A. They were being let in for a moderate rent but then that would have to be paid. So the march into the place was-I didn't see it myself-the most comical thing ever seen. The luggage and property of the new tenants arrived in all sort of miscellaneous fashions, in little trucks pushed by the people and in perambulators and all sorts (LAUGHS) of possible ways. And inside a couple of days, there was an inhabited area again. To get rid of those people would require military force. (LAUGHS) Some of them had for the first time in their lives a home and that they would defend to the last man and woman. So, at once we set up a praesidium. This was all done with tremendous speed, efficiency and showing a great command of obedient material. We started a praesidium called Porta CoeIi. The duty of this praesidium was to visit that area and that area alone assidously and to see that the new atmosphere was given a chance. On the morning of the Sunday when the retreat was to be concluded, we had arranged for a blessing of the whole place. I might mention the priests had not come into the place itself during the whole time.
Q. That's an interesting point.
A. They had not come in. I expect it would be 11 o'clock that we resorted down there. The priests in their most formal get-up went through all the houses blessing them, formal blessings on everyone of these rooms. By this time a vast concourse of people had flowed into the place because word had travelled. Then when this blessing of the whole place was done in a very formal way, almost the manner of an exorcism, (LAUGHS) we came to what you might call the center point of the whole place. It was one street which went along there called Purdon Street. Purdon Street was a part of the area. The place off it would be Bentley Place which was really Elliott Place. Then there was a whole lot of miscellaneous streets and lanes in the place that were all taken in. Half a dozen streets would comprise the thing. And this was just right in the center. We brought out a kitchen table and put it up against a great concrete wall which had been erected to divide a corporation building scheme from this place. Apparently they reckoned at the time this would require some dividing because this wall was (LAUGHS) almost twenty feet high. (LAUGHS) The table was put there and from the table the priests spoke to the great crowd and pleaded for prayer and everything that the trouble would never assert itself there again. When Father Mackey who gave the chief talk was finished, he got down off the table and a chair was put on top of the table. I climbed up on top of the chair and reaching up as far as I could on this lofty wall, I drove a heavy spike into the wall and we put that crucifix onto it as a formal taking possession of the place. So then we came down off this and the assembly dispersed. Now in this particular moment the girls and the men who were captured were all in prison and we petitioned the Commissioner of Police to allow us to go in. Father Mackey and I went and interviewed our population and besought them to carry out their promises. We met with a very good reception. They were crediting us with the trouble and in the circumstances they were very nice to us. We at once saw the girls and the men were released without penalty. We judged that to be necessary in order to maintain the good relations. Then followed the prosecution of the two manageresses on the charge of running brothels. One of them was foolish enGJugh to talk and gave herself away and she got a month or two months' imprisonment. The other one just kept resolutely silent. And, as you know, with these requirements now it's impossible to prove a person guilty unless, of course, police are looking on. So, she got off and vanished out of Dublin altogether. We never heard of her again.
Q. Good.
A Well, that place never looked back and the moment the girls emerged from jail nearly all of them reported to Sancta Maria ...
Q. Wonderful!
A... and went in. It was the most successful thing of its kind in all history. In fact, I don't know whether religious history produces anything like it. Of course, you get other examples.
Take the case of St. Vincent Ferrer, for instance. He has a marvelous record for the miraculous that took the form of converting that type of girl. But there's nothing in history like our systematic approach, the sustained effort, the total success, the maintenance of that success afterwards. Now, you know the way lies can be started. A number of years after that clearance somebody or other said, "Oh, the place is just as bad as ever it was." And the retort of the police to that was to hold an inquiry. We have a copy of the report of that inquiry in our file, and, of course, the place was absolutely clean. At the worst there were a couple ,of cases of selling drink without a license and that was really the sum total of the disease of the place.
Q. That wasn't bad after all that had happened there for so many years.
A. Held good ever since. Well, now, perhaps that may be a stopping point. Would it?
Q. It would be but first a final question. Would you say that most of the girls that came out as a result of the final closedown lived good lives thereafter?
A. Practically every single girl in that place was received into Sancta Maria. Practically everyone. Now formerly there was a great vagueness about the numbers down there. For instance, when I was going around trying to make inquiries before our first approach, I could never get any estimate as to the number of girls. There were people who had professed to know something about the thing and when you'd say to them, "How many girls are down there?" "Oh! Oh! there are a terrible lot." "How many now, to be precise?" Wouldn't be able to tell you. Well, now, my own estimate based on my years of experience there was that when we went into the area, there were two hundred girls. We'd picked off, I would say, one hundred of them, perhaps more, in the ordinary visitation period of two years. We got then a big crowd of the girls in the final closed own and we got the remainder after they were released from prison.
Q. That's a wonderful story, Mr. Duff, and I think we should close on that note.
A. It was a purely supernatural transaction.
Q. Thank you for these two interviews about Bentley Place. It's inspiring to us legionaries to know that as a result of the concerted effort of the Legion of Mary, this den of iniquity was shut down for good. Thank you, Mr. Duff.
This interview is available on video-cassettes and audiocassettes from:
Concilium Legionis Mariae, Morning Star A venue, Brunswick Street, Dublin 7, Ireland.