Priest prevented prosecution after sex abuse claims
This is because it would damage the convent and have an effect on the students, the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse heard yesterday.
The priest, named as Fr O’Keeffe, made the suggestion at a meeting with a Dr Anna McCabe, a senior Department of Education inspector in 1954. Following his advice, she agreed no prosecution should be taken.
The episode was recalled yesterday by Sister Una O’Neill, superior general of the Sisters of Charity, which operated the institution until April 1999.
Nine girls, who were residents of St Joseph’s Industrial School, Kilkenny, claimed they were sexually abused by a painter at the school in 1954.
Fr O’Keeffe argued that a court case would bring the convent into disrepute and the experience would leave an indelible mark for the rest of their lives on the girls who would be called to give evidence. However, the priest gave an undertaking to the meeting to talk to the painter “and put the fear of God into him”.
The painter, who was over 60, married and had a large family, had worked in St Joseph’s for 30 years.
When the meeting took place in November 1954, the bishop was old, frail and deaf. Fr O’Keeffe assured the meeting - which included the superior general of the Sisters of Charity, who ran the school - he felt the bishop would have agreed to the approach being made.
According to a department file, Dr McCabe described Fr O’Keeffe as “a sensible and shrewd pastor”.
The commission heard that allegations were made against four people, including a female who was convicted. Judge Seán Ryan, commission chairman, said although the person had been convicted and was liable to be named they didn’t propose to name the person at this stage.
Apart from the painter, who was not prosecuted, two male child care workers - David Murray and Myles Brady - were charged with sexual abuse at the school and jailed. Murray was sacked from the school in 1976 because he was “hard on the boys”.
