“The stone in my shoe” ; Adrienne Corless, Nina Vodstrup Andersen & Caragh Smyth experiences at The National Museum...
The #MeToo hashtag comes like a clarion call, reminding me that I don’t have to live in dismay of injustices done, clogging my step like a stone in my shoe.
It was a Monday morning, 6th of November, when I heard Grace Dyas speak on Morning Ireland, as she emphasized the importance of naming names, to remove the risk of speculation. That morning, I got up, got my kids to school, and sat with my baby in my arms and my phone in my hand to update the blog post I’d previously written, this time, naming the names.
My story was told in three newspapers that weekend: the headlines and photos alone brought up heaves of revulsion: me, alongside horrible things that were said and done to me in my professional working life.
I raised my head above the parapet, and I got overwhelming feedback: positive, supportive, yet still quite literally, overwhelming.
And the unpleasantness of heaving this old mess up, vital as it is to do it, feels very dismaying all over again: because I did speak up at the time. I went through the channels, and I genuinely thought my harasser at least stood a chance of being fired: he was not fired. Dismaying, because I learn that not only do the hierarchies of public service workplaces serve predatory men at the expense of dedicated women, it would appear that the law of the land does the same: the National Museum of Ireland suspended Mr Halpin on foot of my blog post (even before I named him), and he is now suing them.
It seems likely that the National Museum of Ireland will pay Andy Halpin handsomely for what he did to me.
I went through the channels, I did what was right at the time, stressful and upsetting as it was to do. After the formal investigation, all the HR officers did was write me to say simply that my complaint was upheld.
But my complaint about Mr Halpin had never been in doubt. As soon as I found my courage to speak up, anyone I had confided in an official sense had sympathized with me, felt awful for me, told me this happened before, and that people had complained informally, and that nothing could be done about him until somebody made a formal complaint.
So I did. And for what?
I phoned HR: “he’s not going to be fired?”
“Oh no”, they said. “We have implemented the disciplinary code.”
“What does this mean?” I insisted.
They would get back to me. So a HR officer wrote to me, on 4 December 2007 (incidentally, two weeks before I went on maternity leave with my first child):
“In accordance with Paragraph 8.16 of "A Positive Working Environment,” I wish to inform you that the disciplinary action approved by the Decision-Making Authority on 18 October 2007 in accordance with Paragraph 2 (1) of the Disciplinary Code has been implemented. Yours Sincerely" etc.
This, of course, told me NOTHING. To this day, I have no idea who this faceless and nameless ‘decision-making authority’ is. I do, however, still have my copy of the Disciplinary Code, as rummaged out by me at that time from the bowels of the Museum’s shared online folders, so that I could find out what Paragraph 2 (1) referred to.
Let’s have a look at Paragraph 2 (1):
“For the purposes of this code, the term "disciplinary action” shall comprise:
(a) any of the following actions where such actions are taken by reason of or as a direct consequence of a finding that the officer concerned has been guilty of misconduct, irregularity neglect or unsatisfactory behaviour, the deferral of an increment, debarment from competitions or from specified competitions or from promotion for a specified period of time, transfer, the withdrawal of concessions or allowances.
(b) the withholding of remuneration in respect of a period of suspension in accordance with the terms of Section 14 of the Civil Service Regulation Act, 1956,
© reduction in pay and/or reduction in rank in accordance with the terms of Section 15 of the Civil Service Regulation Act, 1956,
(d) dismissal from the civil service in accordance with the terms of Section 5 of the Civil Service Regulation Act, 1956
So: Paragraph 2(1) simply outlines all possible “disciplinary actions” - including dismissal, which was available for the Decision Making Authorities (whomsoever THEY are) to choose, yet they didn’t.
I phoned HR again.
“I still don’t know what disciplinary action has been implemented,” I persisted. “All I know is, he is not being dismissed?”
“Well,” came the awkward reply. “He’s had his increments stopped, and he can’t go for promotion, for a period of two years.”
Paragraph 2 (1)(a) then, I was left to clarify for myself. The (a) detail is important: it meant he received the softest possible reprimand. A veritable slap on the wrist that I can tell you knocked no wind out of Mr Halpin’s sails: those two years came and went, and throughout it and beyond he continued to sexually harass women just as he always had.
Two women, I didn’t know but who had also worked at the National Museum of Ireland reached out to me after I wrote my blog posts.
Their words show that in no uncertain terms, Mr Halpin is a predator.
He preyed upon Caragh Smyth before me, and despite what I had gone through to speak up and report him, he preyed upon Nina Vodstrup Andersen after me.
Caragh Smyth’s account tells me that Andy regularly used her computer on lunch break to look up soft porn sites about tall women and Valkyrie, at her quiet, basement lab desk at the Museum in Kildare Street.
Just as he did with my computer every day at my desk in Collins Barracks.
Disturbingly, Caragh also describes an incident that is chillingly reminiscent of what he did to me:
I was working on a project to produce educational CDs of the Egyptian collection at the time, sometime around 98/99. I was standing in the middle of the shared office talking to my boss and an Egyptologist from the British Museum. I was mid-sentence, when Andy walked past, arms swinging, and brushed his fingertips across my ass. As usual, something that could be easily explained away as an accident. And of course, a situation where I felt like I couldn’t react or do anything, mid-sentence with a BM bigwig and my boss (who I have the utmost regard for).
But what clarified it in my mind and made it so obvious that he knew exactly what he was doing, was that he did it again a few minutes later. The exact same brisk walk by, arms swinging, fingertips brushing off my ass while I was mid-sentence. Hey, we’ve all accidentally brushed past someone at some point, but there’s no way it would happen a second time. You go SO far around them the next time that there isn’t a chance of it happening again!
Caragh’s description of this incident made my skin crawl and demonstrates a pattern that shows a conscious and deliberate abuse of power and calculated physical harassment by Andy Halpin. Caragh also hit on a crucial element of Andy’s behavior: that it made women doubt themselves, so much so that they mostly did not speak up:
“I have to admit, I do actually feel a bit silly writing this all down because it sounds so insignificant, particularly in comparison to others, but I guess that was the genius of Andy’s harassment – subtle, apparently insignificant, in the “you’re being melodramatic” realm. He knew we were young, fresh out of college, on internships or short-term contracts, and therefore vulnerable.
I eventually left the Museum when I was 25 and changed careers entirely. But one other thing I remember is someone from the Museum called me a while after I’d left. Apparently, an intern had reported a member of staff. The incident was described to me without naming any names and I was asked whether I knew who it might be. I immediately named Andy, correctly, and then described what had happened to me. I was asked why I’d never complained at the time, so I just explained what I said above. We were vulnerable, wanted to renew our contracts, and he was chillingly calculating in how subtle he was, so we felt we wouldn’t be believed.”
This last shows that Caragh did feedback to Museum staff what happened to her, even if it was after she’d left.
Caragh apologized to me for what I’d gone through: that made me cry. I felt so angry that another woman had to feel she should apologize to me for what I’d gone through when she’d gone through it too. She wondered maybe if she had complained, would it have prevented it happening to me.
It makes me wring my hands to realize: what good would it have done if she had complained at the time, or if anyone else this happened to had complained? It was known. It wouldn’t have prevented it happening to me. Because I complained, and yet still it happened to Nina Vodstrup Andersen.
In fact, Nina’s story of her experience of working at the National Museum of Ireland as a whole makes for uncomfortable reading:
“My name is Nina Vodstrup Andersen. At the age of 23, I moved from my native Denmark to Ireland to take up an unpaid internship in the National Museum of Ireland. At that time, I was finishing my Bachelor’s Degree in medieval archaeology and museology at the University of Aarhus, and this degree required that we students complete an internship in a museum to gain experience. The notion struck me that, rather than just applying at any of the small regional museum in Denmark, why not reach for the stars? So in a fit of youthful audacity, I sent off an application to the NMI. I never really expected to hear back.
When I got the invitation to take up an internship with the NMI from July 2007, I felt thunderstruck by the sheer amount of good luck that had come my way. I packed my bag and set off for Dublin. On my first day of work, I was awestruck by the collections, the building itself, its history, the sheer amount of learning and research centre there, and I had to pinch myself that I’d been given this opportunity to briefly enter such a world.
I was given a little desk in the basement, the storage area, and I loved it. I adored the work. Every day, I got to handle artifacts, to do work that no bachelor-student has any right to even dream of. My supervisor in the Antiquities Division was the best boss I’ve ever had, before or since. I’m still in awe of how much confidence and trust he placed in me, a hapless young immigrant. And I want to preface the following by saying that I worked with so many good people at the museum whose kindness, patience and good humor remain a fond memory for me to this day.
But I quickly sensed that there were dark and uncomfortable undercurrents within the museum. A fearful sense of hierarchy seemed to loom over everyone, and there was a stifling sense of rivalry and antipathy between some departments and others, none of which I could comprehend.
Tea breaks were an almost ritualistic part of the day in the museum. I never enjoyed sitting in the lofty cafeteria with all the staff in this sometimes strange, needling atmosphere. So I went outside to sit on the benches and drink takeaway coffees and chat with the other young interns, or the attendants. One day, one of the attendants looked at me and said gravely that I shouldn’t be out there with them. ‘You’re hanging around with the wrong crowd,’ he said, ‘you should be in there with the higher-ups, and make sure to sit at the right table.’ My unnerving sense that I didn’t understand the workings of the place grew, and I felt bewildered and lost in the organization as a whole, despite all the kindness of my supervisor.
More troublingly, there was a pervasive culture of what some might prefer to call ‘banter’, but which to me felt horrendously inappropriate and frankly perverse. Just a few examples. One attendant kept singing Nina, Pretty Ballerina every time I walked past. Another sidled up to me to muse about what he thought my preferred mode of sexual contact might be. ‘I bet you like to just lie there, being caressed,’ he said. A researcher from Collins Barracks told me, for some unknown reason, ‘you know, you’re just too pretty for your own good.’ Another time, the director himself, Patrick Wallace, cornered me in one of the dim, narrow passages deep in the storage basement. He was leering maliciously at me as he asked why I was spending so much time with my supervisor. ‘Are you having an affair with him,’ he asked, drawing out the word in a tone of voice laden with sexual glee. ‘I know you,’ he said, wagging his finger and winking, ‘you Scandinavians are all the same…’ And with that, he strode off.
But at least none of them ever touched me.
None, except Andy Halpin.
I worked with him only once, as I and a small group of other young interns were rearranging a skeleton on display in the Viking exhibition. He singled me out for inoffensive little jokes, and he kept laughing and repeating some of my words in a delighted sing-song voice and bumping into my shoulder a little. I thought it strange that such a senior member of staff would take delight in talking to a mere intern, and his manner was almost like that of a flirting adolescent. But I passed it off as friendliness and reminded myself that as a recent immigrant, I had to expect some cultural differences.
Sometimes, I’d have to pass through Andy Halpin’s office on my way elsewhere. He’d occasionally look up and exclaim “Nina!” with such exuberance. I found it a little odd, but amidst all the other occasional strange behaviour at the museum, didn’t give it much thought.
Then came the museum Christmas party of 2007. As an intern, I was delighted to be invited. The dinner party took place in a fancy restaurant in Merrion Row. We were all seated on benches along a long table. Suddenly, without having noticed, I found myself sitting next to Andy Halpin, with him on my right side. I thought that a bit strange since we didn’t work together. It was a snug fit to seat everyone around the table. Not long into the dinner, Andy Halpin leaned forward, speaking to someone far on his right. At that moment, I felt his hand clasp my thigh under the table, squeezing, just over my knee. I sat there like a pillar of salt. This is a decade ago, and I can still so clearly recall his fingers pressing into my flesh. What really struck me was that he wasn’t even looking at me. He was turned away, speaking to someone else. It seemed to me like a practiced, calculated move.
I never told anyone about that incident. Frankly, it didn’t even occur to me to report it, just as it had never occurred to me to report how uncomfortable I’d been with the creepy remarks made by some of the attendants and by Patrick Wallace, whose stature in the museum seemed to me like that of a capricious, malevolent demigod. In the atmosphere of casual sexual ‘banter’ among some – but not all – museum staff, I honestly thought that I wouldn’t be taken seriously. Besides, I was an unpaid volunteer, and Andy Halpin a senior and respected member of staff. And quite apart from that, I thought I would appear either insane or downright evil if I complained about someone who’d seemed so friendly towards me the whole time.
I continued working at the museum until May 2008. Sometime later, I returned for a visit. In the lobby, by complete coincidence, was Andy Halpin. He came hurrying towards me with a big smile, hugged me quickly, clasped my face and planted a big wet kiss on my cheek. I felt invaded by this overly familiar way of greeting. But all I did was freeze and smile stiffly, like some ingrained reflex.
I filed all of this away for years – the grab, the uninvited kiss, the gross comments made by others at the museum. Just part of the ugliness you have to deal with in life, I told myself. I wanted to think of myself as a young researcher, not a ‘pretty ballerina’ who was ‘having an affair with her boss’ and ‘just liked to lie there and be caressed,’ and who was there for a little casual grab or kiss. But when news broke of the horrific treatment meted out against Adrienne Corless, I decided to finally tell my story in support of her.
One detail in the reporting that struck me was that Halpin may have some particular fascination with tall girls and women. I’m 5”9.
My story is hardly the most harrowing account ever given of workplace harassment. But it is one example of the many, many, many small ways that a certain type of man, unchecked by conscience or fear of sanctions, can casually strangle the self-esteem and ambition of women just starting out in the workplace.”
Nina’s account made me feel sick. This horrible, predatory, and so-called senior man groped her thigh under the table, at a Department Christmas dinner, whilst talking to someone the other side of her. So subtle, and yet so devastating: this repulsive man who knowingly abuses his little bit of seniority in such a way that made her feel she couldn’t speak up. Just like that time Mr Halpin jabbed his left thumb in my right buttock, twice in quick succession, even though I very dramatically moved away from him the first time (he shuffled along the radiator he was sitting on so he could still reach me the second time) he kept talking animatedly as if nothing had happened.
It’s what he did every time he appropriated unwanted physical contact towards me: he would keep on talking, whilst looking in the other direction. That time, I glared at him and made no interaction with his chattering, about organizing the Viking excavations stores. I was too stunned to find the words to protest, and this man was carrying on as if everything was as normal. Maybe I was too embarrassed to use the words about touching my ass. In fact, it appalls me right now to write it: the violation of my dignity. I remember so clearly that it was about 3PM: not yet time to go home, but I went home anyway rather than suffer the rest of the afternoon in a small shared office with him. Rather in shell shock, I gathered up my things. He watched me and asked me aggressively: “are you all right?” “No,” was my answer, and I signed off, sickened for the day.
I examine this to emphasise how hard it was to speak up: and how this man knows to play to that. He did the very same thing to Caragh: arms swinging, brushed his fingertips off her, that time in company, where he knew she wouldn’t speak up.
Like I said, violating the dignity of women is a game to Mr Halpin.
And though I’m glad I complained about Halpin, for the record at least; I am beyond dismayed that my complaint did nothing to protect other women: as Nina’s account testifies, and as does the account of a woman, as recently as 2015, unknown to me but written about in the papers because it has been presented in the courts. I am in no doubt that the systems in place by the Museum’, with their Civil Service disciplinary code, are not worth the paper they are written on and are much more about pen-pushing tickboxing than they are about protecting staff from predatory men and other abusers of power.
I suppose that Mr Pat Wallace, Director of the Museum, thought that the Civil Service systems in place would take care of the problem of Mr Halpin. He already knew ALL about him. He asked me, maybe a few weeks after I met him, if I was doing OK, sharing an office with Mr Halpin. What was I supposed to say? He didn’t say what he meant, and I was new to the job, I didn’t want to jeopardize my position, which of course Mr Halpin would have known and used against me, which is what he also did to Caragh and to Nina. I think I shrugged mutely and waited hoping against hope that Mr Wallace would say or do more.
How foolish of me! Mr Wallace, a man who went on to speak to me and treat me abhorrently whenever he “hadn’t had his weetabix”, as the saying in the Museum went, actually half-admired what Mr Halpin did to me. As I related elsewhere, he chuckled to another senior manager that he never thought “Halpin would have had it in him” to sexually harass me as he had. Like he saw my formal complaint of sexual harassment as a badge of honour now.
What hope had I, when Mr Wallace saw fit to demean me by shouting at me that it wasn’t his fault I’d gotten “up the pole”, when I phoned to discuss maternity leave. That got quoted as a headline in the Sunday Times, and even though I’d published it, on my own blog according to my own terms, and had agreed with the journalist to write a piece about it, seeing those words printed in black and white on the front page of a Sunday newspaper, that hurt.
O yes, yet still that hurt. Because I had respected Mr Wallace. I had admired his larger-than-life personality, his acerbic wit, and his amazing photographic memory. He remembered faces and names, no matter who they were. He could be so personable, and yet so abusive of his position of power.
That time he flicked through a consignment of 800 newly published books reporting on our project and discovered that the name of a contract photographer was captioned under every photo that person had taken for the book: any photos that Mr Wallace, or the author, or anyone else had taken were acknowledged in the same way. The thing was, the contract photographer had taken vastly more photos than he had, in this image-rich book, and so this person’s name was referenced in the book more than his was. So he was livid.
And I quote: “this makes [name] more important than me! Who is this person? This person is a nobody and I am the director of the National Museum of Ireland!”
I reminded him that [name] was not a nobody, that [name] had been hired as a member of staff of the National Museum of Ireland, and that he as director was no more important than anyone. Further, the crediting of the photographer under each photograph was the convention.
“That’s NOT the convention,” he shouted, again spitting, this time on my notes, for which he apologised (the spitting; not the yelling), and he demanded that the books be pulped.
We did not pulp the books. We published them as they were: beautiful, hardcover, color-illustrated archaeology books, the product of thousands and thousands of euro of public money spent on researching, illustrating, copy-editing and printing them.
That was another day I signed off sickened and went home a bit early. The next day, two members of staff phoned to check on me, being so pregnant; they had heard him shouting at my colleagues and me through the walls.
Whenever he was being abusive (those days ‘he hadn’t had his Weetabix’), I did speak up to him. It never made any difference, as he simply yelled me down, and speaking up against him made anybody else uncomfortable. There were three different occasions that I spoke to him after the fact, that I did tell him I had concerns for the working relationship: that he saw fit to shout, spit and curse at me. Two of the times, he was bemused and seemingly surprised, and uncharacteristically forgetful when I spoke about how he had behaved.
“I cursed at you? Did I?”
And he would chuckle, and light-heartedly promise not to do it again: except that he did. The third time I complained to him about his behaviour was after a meeting I attended after he and I had both finished at the Museum, and I never heard from him again.
Reflecting on these incidents reminds and reinforces for me again just how little dignity I was afforded as an employee at the National Museum of Ireland: never mind as an employee; I was not respected as a human being. Note also the wider culture of misogyny, harassment and inappropriateness as described by Nina, and presided over by Mr Wallace.
If the systems in place were not worth the paper they were written on, the legal system in this country does not fill me with confidence either: notice the most recent fallout of this mess, where the Museum got wind of the blog post I’d written, which draws attention to the menace that is Mr Halpin, and decided for once and for all to do something about him: but they stopped short of firing him, and so suspended him. And Mr Halpin in his entitled arrogance sued the museum for reinstatement and compensation. His argument is that he had done his time, however token was his reprimand.
This case is ongoing: and it seems likely that the Museum will pay Mr Halpin handsomely for his harassment of me.
Why not just fire Andy Halpin, dear decision-makers of the National Museum of Ireland? Then or now. Why this charade through the courts? You did the wrong thing at the time, by not firing him in light of what he did to me: and in light of his confession that he fantasized about teenage girls visiting the museum.
Perhaps don’t stop there, senior managers, HR and the Board of the National Museum of Ireland: perhaps you should contact the Gardaí in relation to this menacing member of staff: why not this, instead of this circus in the High Court?
And must I continue to live and relive the pain of my experience, the dismay and the indignity of how I was treated, with my photos in papers and my precious time and headspace given over to dealing with this, until I feel I am being heard and the right thing is done?
It seems that the answer is yes, I must. I vow to continue to speak now, horrible and hard and slug-vomit as it is.
I ask that women like me, Caragh and Nina continue to speak up, and if you haven’t spoken up yet, to do it now: email me or message me, or call me, and tell me your story in any way that you can. Speaking is healing and though healing hurts, it liberates: for me, it means walking without that proverbial stone in my shoe, and maybe celebrating and returning to all that is potentially great about the Museum.
https://kettleontherange.com/2017/02/12/a-workplace-fable/
https://kettleontherange.com/2017/11/09/vomiting-slugs-to-tell-full-truths/