Them two brothers are the bravest people. I hope they get justice for themselves and their poor mam and dad.
Next time someone tells me they’re baptising their child or getting married in a church I’m gonna send them that recording as a response to the invite
Paywalled.
Code of omerta? To protect paedos? Alright…
I also went to a private boarding school in Leinster. Nobody ever molested me but I can confirm the weird “old boy” attitude. Like, if someone that hated me in school was interviewing me for a job he’d nearly give it to me just because we went to the same school.
Sickening stuff. The fact that a lot of the victims want to be anonymous so their elderly parents don’t find out. Because they know their parents sacrificed a lot to afford to send them to Blackrock, thinking it would give them a better start in life. Heartbreaking
It is a bastion of privilege that for generations has taken in sons of Catholic middle-class families and moulded them into the leaders of tomorrow. “Fearless and bold” goes the Blackrock College anthem, a school founded by the Holy Ghost Fathers – now known as the Spiritans – more than 150 years ago. The school prides itself on its record of academic excellence, sporting endeavour and moral guardianship – but this week it has been confronting the darkest chapter of its history.
New revelations of child sexual abuse have tumbled into the open, prompted by a radio documentary that told in jolting detail of two brothers, Mark and David Ryan, who were sexually abused by priests at the school in the 1970s, unbeknown to each other. In the days following its broadcast, more victims shared harrowing experiences of abuse at the school during the 1970s and 1980s, and at other Spiritan-run schools such as Templeogue College in Dublin and Rockwell College in Co Tipperary.
At least 233 men have made allegations of abuse against 77 Irish priests from the Spiritans, some of whom were serial abusers and had unchecked access to children during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The abuse, say survivors, has left a trail of shattered lives scarred by depression, addiction and, in some cases, suicide.
What is remarkable about the story is that it has emerged at all.
Even as this newspaper reported in 2012 of abuses by priests at other Spiritan-run schools such as St Mary’s College Rathmines in Dublin, Rockwell College in Co Tipperary and others, there was silence from Blackrock.
Yet, as we now know, 57 men have alleged that they were abused as boys on the campus of the Dublin school.
Such is the power of the “Rock” brand and the loyalty it generates that even those men who were so violently physically and sexually abused while students there did not, until this week, risk being seen to betray it. There was also the shame that it was them, not others, who were chosen by abusers, particularly in such a macho culture as a boys’ boarding school.
This week most of the men who came forward to tell their stories preferred not to be named. It is also a question of protecting now elderly parents who, frequently, scrimped and saved to give their sons what they believed was the best start in life.
‘All about class’
Prof Tom Inglis, a sociologist and author of Moral Monopoly: the Rise and Fall of the Catholic Church in Modern Ireland, says the silence is “all about class”.
“This would not be such big news if it happened in a CBS school down the country but this is a school of so many leaders, celebrities and public figures. There is a sense that they have been contaminated,” he says.
“It’s the idea of, ‘how could this happen to one of our boys from a respectable family going to a respectable school … surely it must be a flaw in his character?’ But we shouldn’t be shocked. The ‘Rock boys, at the end of the day, are no different from kids in the CBS or the reformatory schools.”
The 2009 Ryan report found that sexual abuse was “endemic” in residential institutions for boys – orphanages, industrial schools, reformatories – run by male religious congregations. Why should elite boarding schools for boys be any different?
None of the serial abusers at Blackrock named publicly this week were reported by the college authorities to gardaí, health or social services.
The Blackrock omerta was finally breached on Monday when Mark (61) and David (58) Ryan told RTÉ’s Doc on One programme in gut-wrenching detail of their sexual abuse at the hands of Fr Tom O’Byrne and other priests at Willow Park School and Blackrock College.
They spoke of how it was 2002 before either became aware of the other’s abuse. Both men grew up off Mount Merrion Avenue near the college in South Dublin, which Mark began attending in September 1973 when he was 12.
Younger brother David was 12 also when he was invited by Fr O’Byrne for private swimming lessons at Blackrock, where his abuse began. Criminal proceedings against Fr O’Byrne were fought by the priest, funded by the Spiritans. The Supreme Court found in the priest’s favour in 2007. By then he was 87. In 2003 the brothers agreed a settlement with the Spiritans, without apology or any admission of liability by the congregation. Fr O’Byrne was still teaching at Blackrock until 1996/97. He died in December 2010 aged 90.
The Ryan brothers’ powerful testimony freed many other ‘Rock men, now in their 50s, 60s, some even in their 70s, to come forward and tell their own stories of abuse by other priests, a brother, and laymen at the Blackrock campus.
Violence and rage
“James”, who attended Willow Park and Blackrock College in the 1980s, says he was raped by Brother Luke McCaffrey when he was 10 or 11 years of age.
“He taught religion and was in charge of teaching catechism, sold the Catholic paraphernalia like booklets, miraculous medals and prayer missals,” he said.
The abuse began “with him fondling me and he used to tell me I was his favourite – then it moved on to him wanting me to do things to him that he said were special and wanting me to touch him. I don’t know how or why but I resisted as best I could. And that was when the anger came into it. The violence. The first time he raped me the pain was unbelievable – he did it in rage.”
James remembered how, cycling home afterwards, he “couldn’t sit on my bicycle seat because of the pain” and then “trying to wash the blood off my underpants in our upstairs bathroom with a nail brush and Imperial Leather soap”. It didn’t work. He would then put his wet underpants in a plastic bag and hide them until bin day. “I remember going out at night when it was dark and up the road and putting them in a neighbour’s bins,” he said.
The impact of the abuse has been severe. No relationship lasted beyond months. “The minute that any form of sexual intimacy went beyond a certain stage I’d have these feelings of guilt and anger and I’d run away. I do wonder how I may have hurt others with apparent coldness and this remains a guilt for me,” he said.
[ Blackrock College was ‘wild west of private Catholic education’, says former pupil ]
He had a breakdown in his 30s and has “fought the fight against depression and anxiety since then”.
There was “Brian” who still cannot bring himself to discuss what was done to him by Fr Aloysius Flood and Fr Senan Corry at Willow Park School in the 1970s. “My life changed when I was woken up one night and seriously sexually assaulted by Flood. I was a pious, innocent 11 year old asleep in my bed, boarding at Willow Park. I had no idea what was going on.” Fr Flood and Fr Corry “were rapacious”, said Brian. “They roamed freely at night. I was abused by both, as so many others were too.”
John O’Dwyer (65) attended Blackrock and Willow Park until 1976 and said priests and pupils there were “clearly aware of what was going on”. He described Blackrock College as the “wild West of private Catholic education”. He had been physically abused by a priest on an almost daily basis and, on at least one occasion, he said he was sexually abused.
On Liveline this week Aidan Moore described how he was sexually abused by a lay member of staff at Blackrock and former Christian Brother Edward Baylor, in the latter’s house at Stillorgan in 1978. He described Baylor as a “viciously violent” man who had “absolutely pummelled” a classmate in the school.
‘Shameful period’
The question of what role the State or Department of Education had, if any, in ensuring the welfare of children in boarding schools run by congregations is one that has yet to be fully explored.
“It was minimal,” said one senior Department of Education source. “For two reasons; one, resources were not applied to inspecting post-primary schools; and two, the Catholic Church would not have welcomed intrusion into their internal affairs. The coalition of the department, State and Catholic Church was a tight relationship.”
So what happens, now, to the growing volume of allegations against priests in Blackrock and other schools run by religious congregations?
[ Gut-wrenching, essential radio: Blackrock College sexual abuse accounts are tough to listen to ]
Hot take. But IMHO these places should be shut the fuck down. They knowingly allowed this abuse to go on for YEARS, and yet they think by saying sorry and referring it as ‘shameful’ is somehow enough.
It wasn’t shameful. It was fucking criminal.
Radio silence from Blackrock College on all of their social media. Just a half-arsed apology on their website home page but not in their news section which means it will probably get removed as soon as the media attention dies down.
Not many former students are commenting anything about it either.
The current principal was there since 2000 which means he was aware of this as the victims were coming forward, were payed out, told not to say anything and sign NDAs.
The usual guff with the added whinge “why didn’t we see it coming in the 1980’s”. Fact is that the abusers were known. He wants atonement.
Ok. Resign. He wasn’t involved. But as a gesture of atonement. Resign.
Anyone remember the Brian Murphy case – chap beaten to death outside Annabels by a group of Blackrock thugs?
The first thing they did when they realised how much trouble they were in was to go to Blackrock for advice. And the priest they consulted didn’t tell them to go to a lawyer, or to make a statement to the Gardaí telling the full and unvarnished truth.
No, he sat them down and had them write out their account of everything. They got their story straight. And *then* they made their statements.
When that bit of the story came out, parents started kicking up. The priest in question was moved on, not at all representative of our standards, in no way condone that sort of thing, etc etc.
The only one convicted of killing Brian Murphy got off on appeal. The DPP declined to try him again.
10 comments
Them two brothers are the bravest people. I hope they get justice for themselves and their poor mam and dad.
Next time someone tells me they’re baptising their child or getting married in a church I’m gonna send them that recording as a response to the invite
Paywalled.
Code of omerta? To protect paedos? Alright…
I also went to a private boarding school in Leinster. Nobody ever molested me but I can confirm the weird “old boy” attitude. Like, if someone that hated me in school was interviewing me for a job he’d nearly give it to me just because we went to the same school.
Sickening stuff. The fact that a lot of the victims want to be anonymous so their elderly parents don’t find out. Because they know their parents sacrificed a lot to afford to send them to Blackrock, thinking it would give them a better start in life. Heartbreaking
It is a bastion of privilege that for generations has taken in sons of Catholic middle-class families and moulded them into the leaders of tomorrow. “Fearless and bold” goes the Blackrock College anthem, a school founded by the Holy Ghost Fathers – now known as the Spiritans – more than 150 years ago. The school prides itself on its record of academic excellence, sporting endeavour and moral guardianship – but this week it has been confronting the darkest chapter of its history.
New revelations of child sexual abuse have tumbled into the open, prompted by a radio documentary that told in jolting detail of two brothers, Mark and David Ryan, who were sexually abused by priests at the school in the 1970s, unbeknown to each other. In the days following its broadcast, more victims shared harrowing experiences of abuse at the school during the 1970s and 1980s, and at other Spiritan-run schools such as Templeogue College in Dublin and Rockwell College in Co Tipperary.
At least 233 men have made allegations of abuse against 77 Irish priests from the Spiritans, some of whom were serial abusers and had unchecked access to children during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The abuse, say survivors, has left a trail of shattered lives scarred by depression, addiction and, in some cases, suicide.
What is remarkable about the story is that it has emerged at all.
Even as this newspaper reported in 2012 of abuses by priests at other Spiritan-run schools such as St Mary’s College Rathmines in Dublin, Rockwell College in Co Tipperary and others, there was silence from Blackrock.
Yet, as we now know, 57 men have alleged that they were abused as boys on the campus of the Dublin school.
Such is the power of the “Rock” brand and the loyalty it generates that even those men who were so violently physically and sexually abused while students there did not, until this week, risk being seen to betray it. There was also the shame that it was them, not others, who were chosen by abusers, particularly in such a macho culture as a boys’ boarding school.
This week most of the men who came forward to tell their stories preferred not to be named. It is also a question of protecting now elderly parents who, frequently, scrimped and saved to give their sons what they believed was the best start in life.
‘All about class’
Prof Tom Inglis, a sociologist and author of Moral Monopoly: the Rise and Fall of the Catholic Church in Modern Ireland, says the silence is “all about class”.
“This would not be such big news if it happened in a CBS school down the country but this is a school of so many leaders, celebrities and public figures. There is a sense that they have been contaminated,” he says.
“It’s the idea of, ‘how could this happen to one of our boys from a respectable family going to a respectable school … surely it must be a flaw in his character?’ But we shouldn’t be shocked. The ‘Rock boys, at the end of the day, are no different from kids in the CBS or the reformatory schools.”
The 2009 Ryan report found that sexual abuse was “endemic” in residential institutions for boys – orphanages, industrial schools, reformatories – run by male religious congregations. Why should elite boarding schools for boys be any different?
None of the serial abusers at Blackrock named publicly this week were reported by the college authorities to gardaí, health or social services.
The Blackrock omerta was finally breached on Monday when Mark (61) and David (58) Ryan told RTÉ’s Doc on One programme in gut-wrenching detail of their sexual abuse at the hands of Fr Tom O’Byrne and other priests at Willow Park School and Blackrock College.
They spoke of how it was 2002 before either became aware of the other’s abuse. Both men grew up off Mount Merrion Avenue near the college in South Dublin, which Mark began attending in September 1973 when he was 12.
Younger brother David was 12 also when he was invited by Fr O’Byrne for private swimming lessons at Blackrock, where his abuse began. Criminal proceedings against Fr O’Byrne were fought by the priest, funded by the Spiritans. The Supreme Court found in the priest’s favour in 2007. By then he was 87. In 2003 the brothers agreed a settlement with the Spiritans, without apology or any admission of liability by the congregation. Fr O’Byrne was still teaching at Blackrock until 1996/97. He died in December 2010 aged 90.
The Ryan brothers’ powerful testimony freed many other ‘Rock men, now in their 50s, 60s, some even in their 70s, to come forward and tell their own stories of abuse by other priests, a brother, and laymen at the Blackrock campus.
Violence and rage
“James”, who attended Willow Park and Blackrock College in the 1980s, says he was raped by Brother Luke McCaffrey when he was 10 or 11 years of age.
“He taught religion and was in charge of teaching catechism, sold the Catholic paraphernalia like booklets, miraculous medals and prayer missals,” he said.
The abuse began “with him fondling me and he used to tell me I was his favourite – then it moved on to him wanting me to do things to him that he said were special and wanting me to touch him. I don’t know how or why but I resisted as best I could. And that was when the anger came into it. The violence. The first time he raped me the pain was unbelievable – he did it in rage.”
James remembered how, cycling home afterwards, he “couldn’t sit on my bicycle seat because of the pain” and then “trying to wash the blood off my underpants in our upstairs bathroom with a nail brush and Imperial Leather soap”. It didn’t work. He would then put his wet underpants in a plastic bag and hide them until bin day. “I remember going out at night when it was dark and up the road and putting them in a neighbour’s bins,” he said.
The impact of the abuse has been severe. No relationship lasted beyond months. “The minute that any form of sexual intimacy went beyond a certain stage I’d have these feelings of guilt and anger and I’d run away. I do wonder how I may have hurt others with apparent coldness and this remains a guilt for me,” he said.
[ Blackrock College was ‘wild west of private Catholic education’, says former pupil ]
He had a breakdown in his 30s and has “fought the fight against depression and anxiety since then”.
There was “Brian” who still cannot bring himself to discuss what was done to him by Fr Aloysius Flood and Fr Senan Corry at Willow Park School in the 1970s. “My life changed when I was woken up one night and seriously sexually assaulted by Flood. I was a pious, innocent 11 year old asleep in my bed, boarding at Willow Park. I had no idea what was going on.” Fr Flood and Fr Corry “were rapacious”, said Brian. “They roamed freely at night. I was abused by both, as so many others were too.”
John O’Dwyer (65) attended Blackrock and Willow Park until 1976 and said priests and pupils there were “clearly aware of what was going on”. He described Blackrock College as the “wild West of private Catholic education”. He had been physically abused by a priest on an almost daily basis and, on at least one occasion, he said he was sexually abused.
On Liveline this week Aidan Moore described how he was sexually abused by a lay member of staff at Blackrock and former Christian Brother Edward Baylor, in the latter’s house at Stillorgan in 1978. He described Baylor as a “viciously violent” man who had “absolutely pummelled” a classmate in the school.
‘Shameful period’
The question of what role the State or Department of Education had, if any, in ensuring the welfare of children in boarding schools run by congregations is one that has yet to be fully explored.
“It was minimal,” said one senior Department of Education source. “For two reasons; one, resources were not applied to inspecting post-primary schools; and two, the Catholic Church would not have welcomed intrusion into their internal affairs. The coalition of the department, State and Catholic Church was a tight relationship.”
So what happens, now, to the growing volume of allegations against priests in Blackrock and other schools run by religious congregations?
[ Gut-wrenching, essential radio: Blackrock College sexual abuse accounts are tough to listen to ]
Hot take. But IMHO these places should be shut the fuck down. They knowingly allowed this abuse to go on for YEARS, and yet they think by saying sorry and referring it as ‘shameful’ is somehow enough.
It wasn’t shameful. It was fucking criminal.
Radio silence from Blackrock College on all of their social media. Just a half-arsed apology on their website home page but not in their news section which means it will probably get removed as soon as the media attention dies down.
Not many former students are commenting anything about it either.
The current principal was there since 2000 which means he was aware of this as the victims were coming forward, were payed out, told not to say anything and sign NDAs.
The Archbishop of Armagh was quoted here. [Martin whinging](https://twitter.com/thejournal_ie/status/1591424671827771392?s=46&t=zXzIZQSn87xN_exn0YQBxA)
The usual guff with the added whinge “why didn’t we see it coming in the 1980’s”. Fact is that the abusers were known. He wants atonement.
Ok. Resign. He wasn’t involved. But as a gesture of atonement. Resign.
Anyone remember the Brian Murphy case – chap beaten to death outside Annabels by a group of Blackrock thugs?
The first thing they did when they realised how much trouble they were in was to go to Blackrock for advice. And the priest they consulted didn’t tell them to go to a lawyer, or to make a statement to the Gardaí telling the full and unvarnished truth.
No, he sat them down and had them write out their account of everything. They got their story straight. And *then* they made their statements.
When that bit of the story came out, parents started kicking up. The priest in question was moved on, not at all representative of our standards, in no way condone that sort of thing, etc etc.
The only one convicted of killing Brian Murphy got off on appeal. The DPP declined to try him again.
It comes from the top.