Crowds pay their respects to ‘voice for the voiceless’

ABUSE victims, politicians and fellow journalists gathered yesterday at the humanist funeral Mary Raftery had arranged herself before her death on Tuesday.

During the ceremony at the Royal Hospital in Kilmainham in Dublin, the congregation remembered how the 54 year-old journalist had acted as “a voice for the voiceless”.

Ms Raftery was best known for the 1999 States of Fear series, which unveiled the extent of physical and sexual abuse suffered by children in the Irish childcare system during the 20th century, particularly in industrial and special schools run by religious orders on behalf of the state.