Alison O'Connor: Why must we again hear the same old gory story of clerical sex abuse?

Three decades on and yet little has changed

Fr Sean Fortune, the Wexford cleric who committed suicide while awaiting trial for 66 charges of sexual abuse against 29 boys. Picture: PJ Browne

Where to begin with a story that just never ends? It is almost 30 years ago since I, as a young journalist, first spoke to someone who had been sexually abused by a priest as a child.

Three decades on it has been honestly nauseating to listen, first, to the very fine RTÉ Doc on One, Blackrock Boys, and the subsequent horrific outpouring all week of other boys, now men, of their own abuse at the hands of clerics.

The same old, same old, horrors of priests who preyed on children. The utter brazenness of it all, usually an open ‘secret’ in a school. The domino effect of how such abuse did not just devastate the life of the child used for the sexual gratification of an adult priest, but also their families.

It was unbelievable to hear the stories of David and Mark Ryan who were abused in the 1970s at Blackrock College by Fr Tom O’Byrne but also by another priest at the school and a layman.

Listening to the two brothers, and hearing them say things to a documentary maker they have clearly been unable to say to each other after so many years of silence was heartbreaking. Neither knew the other had been abused until decades later.

The guilt of what it did to their parents when they realised decades later what had been done to their beautiful young boys. Those boys, now men, talking of the guilt of how their parents’ lives were destroyed by the eventual discovery.

Hearing of other cases on Liveline where a decision was made not to tell a mother “because it would have broken her heart”, but you knew from listening that her heart was broken anyway because she saw how her beautiful young son had suddenly changed and how his life had gone off track never to return to the normality of the younger years.

The clear distress of the man who spoke of telling two ex wives and his daughters what had been done to him. It just caught your heart that, when telling his children, he explained he was “not looking for sympathy” but was telling them because he did not want them to “hear it elsewhere”. The “embarrassment and shame” of telling them.

Victims of child sex abuse often speak of being ashamed. 

Another spoke of how he had told school friends of his abuse and it “hasn’t changed their opinion of me”.

The man who explained that his first sexual experience was as a boy of 11 with a priest in his 60s.

The man who could remember some of the abuse but whose mind was unable to venture further even though it was obvious from listening that far worse had occurred.

As you listened to these men, your mind’s eye conjured all too easily those frightened and violated young boys — a son, a brother, a friend, a child — innocent and carefree up to a very particular moment of time, the after-effects of which would forever blight their lives.

Then the same old story of religious abusers being moved around – introducing them to fresh prey at each new location — and decades later the countering legal actions against victims who had made complaints to An Garda Síochána, funded ultimately by the Church; the good old judicial reviews that would delay a case for years until a priest was deemed too old to be prosecuted. The horrible, never-ending circularity of it all.

From the number of adult survivors I spoke to through my journalistic work, as well as listening to others tell their tragic stories of being the victim of a paedophile, you see how such abuse undermines practically every single aspect of a person. How could it not?

In the case of Blackrock we were told of the fondling, the rubbing up against from behind, the beatings with a strap followed by more fondling, digital penetration, the rapes, the priest who foamed at the mouth, the regular obvious abuse that incredibly went on in a classroom with almost 30 other boys present and, from the description of it by the victim, no attempt made to hide it.

Memories that stood out

There were the memories that stood out: the smell of chlorine in the swimming pool where the abuse took place; the bringing of a second underpants in a bag because there would be blood on the first pair and the mammy doing laundry subsequently would spot that and be alerted.

The priest known as ‘The Rat’ because everyone knew what he was up to, “touching boys”.

For the victims, there was the inevitable sundering apart of the bond with other family members.

The threats that if they told anyone else, including their parents, there would be terrible consequences for everyone, “family disgrace” including other siblings suffering. Imagine the immense psychological burden of that?

The details being revealed of abuse by priests would never have been made public only that it is being forced out.

Many of the details revealed this week, unsurprisingly, have much in common with so many other stories of priests who got off on having sex with children.

For just one example, I remembered a quote from a past pupil of St Peter’s College in Wexford, given to me for a book I wrote on Fr Sean Fortune, the Wexford cleric who committed suicide while awaiting trial for 66 charges of sexual abuse against 29 boys.

St Peter’s was ‘the’ school in Wexford town. It had a proud tradition of training priests. Just as appears to have happened in Blackrock College, ‘the’ school for boys on Dublin’s southside, Fortune and other abusing priests seemed to have been given free reign when it came to abusing pupils. There was plenty of speculation that a paedophile ring also existed there.

“An academy of debauchery.” That was the quote I went searching for, the powerful description of one past pupil of the school, Ger Walsh, who went on to be editor of the local newspaper and to subsequently write about the abuse of fellow pupils.

Why, all these decades later, are abuse victims still being forced to take part in documentaries or to bear their tortured souls on Liveline?

There is the catharsis of it, of course, but the victims remain the ones dragging it into the limelight.

It’s clear that the Spiritan Order has upped its game under Fr Martin Kelly. He has apologised to victims and survivors of abuse. It’s also worth noting though, he has been Order head for almost four years now.

Yet again, the details being revealed now would never have been made public only that it is being forced out. What about the Spiritan-run schools? Other orders who ran schools? What went on in those? An awful lot, you can bet.

It’s the same old game all these years later. Just imagine the ease on suffering if they, or others, came out voluntarily and gave full details in a spirit of easing the ongoing torture of those who had been abused. How radical. How helpful. How Christian.

But decades on you just now this will not happen. It really would sicken you.