Campaigner denies involvement in case

THE ultra-conservative Catholic campaigner named in court as having backed the mother at the centre of the Roscommon incest scandal has denied she tried to intervene in the case.

Mine Bean Uí Chribín, a long time pro-life and anti-divorce lobbyist opposed to the modern Catholic catechism, said it was “laughable” to hear herself described as being from a “Catholic right-wing organisation” and insisted she had no involvement in the accused woman’s legal battles.

Bean Uí Chribín, a postmistress in Santry, Dublin, was referred to in court by childcare manager, Paddy Gannon, who said he was contacted by her in 2000 around the time the health board had brokered an arrangement with the unnamed mother to remove her six abused children from her care.

He said Bean Uí Chribín objected to the health board’s approach and said the mother needed support, not intrusive action. Mr Gannon told the court the mother suddenly sought, and secured, a High Court injunction preventing the arrangement being implemented and he believed, although he had no proof, that Bean Uí Chribín’s organisation had given her the financial and other support to do so.

Speaking at her post office yesterday, Bean Uí Chribín dismissed this version of events. “I have nothing to say or do with it. My name should not have been brought up in court,” she said.

Asked if she was anxious to correct the record given that claims were made about her in sworn evidence, she said she couldn’t care less what health workers said about her. “I wouldn’t believe a Hail Mary from their mouths,” she said. “Let them answer for their own sins. Hump the lot of them.”

Bean Uí Chribín did, however, say she often received requests for help from people in difficulties and she offered a highly critical opinion on the state’s role in families in crisis.

“I won’t comment directly on this case but suppose that woman had not been married, she would have plenty of money to rear those children. An unmarried mother gets all the help they need from the state. The state is attacking families and has been for years.”

Bean Uí Chribín, herself a mother and now widowed, was a controversial figure in the 1970s and 1980s when she was a vociferous campaigner against contraception and the abortion and divorce referendums.

In the early 1990s she became embroiled in a dispute with the Archbishop of Dublin, the Department of Education and local parents when she allowed a portion of her land to be used for the setting up of a new Gaelscoil and then objected to the teaching of the modern Catholic catechism there.

She distributed the old catechism that was used in the 1940s and 1950s during the rule of conservative archbishop John Charles McQuaid and threatened to lock out parents who objected. The dispute resulted in the majority of parents withdrawing their children and setting up alternative classes in the local Glor na Gael offices.

This school later received state recognition while the original school struggled on until 1998 when it had just 25 pupils left and the Department of Education withdrew recognition and grants.

Bean Uí Chribín continued to provide Irish classes, however, and remains a strong advocate of Irish language teaching. She also had a novel published in Irish in the 1970s and has written poetry.