Exiled in shame after assault by clergyman

IN OCTOBER 1988, a 24-year-old married father of one was forced to flee a North Cork village just months after he woke up to find that he had been undressed by a local priest who was attempting to rape him.

While huge sympathy now abounds for abuse victims, back then Ireland was a very different place and it wasn’t just the Church but communities and gardaí who were willfully ignorant of the effects of sexual abuse. Victims who went public with such allegations were often dismissed as insane, lying or disregarded and denounced as troublemakers.

Sean (not his real name) had wanted to get two Mass cards signed when he called to Fr Calder’s house that winter’s night. Married young, Sean had been having marriage problems and the priest had been counselling him, including making offers to mind his baby daughter so the couple “could get some time to themselves”.