{"id":550933,"date":"2026-06-24T00:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-06-24T00:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/550933\/"},"modified":"2026-06-24T00:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-06-24T00:36:14","slug":"one-womans-recollection-of-abuse-in-cork-school-cuts-through-the-talk-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/550933\/","title":{"rendered":"One woman\u2019s recollection of abuse in Cork school cuts through the talk \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cTaoiseach, I want to read into the record the testimonies of two women who were abused by the principal of Dunderrow National School in Kinsale.\u201d<\/p>\n

Holly Cairns read the words aloud to a hushed D\u00e1il chamber.<\/p>\n

The Social Democrats leader chose just a couple of fragments from the scarred memories of two adult women who were sexually abused when they were little girls in national school. <\/p>\n

Decades later, they can still recount the repellent detail of what was done to them by their primary school principal, the child sex predator Leo Hickey.<\/p>\n

What she had to say was distressing to hear. <\/p>\n

People winced at the words.<\/p>\n

In places like the D\u00e1il chamber and lawyers\u2019 consulting rooms and where \u201cinterdepartmental groups\u201d and \u201cscoping inquiries\u201d go about their business, Cairns was describing what is called \u201chistorical sexual abuse\u201d. <\/p>\n

But on Tuesday afternoon in the D\u00e1il, one woman\u2019s recollection of all the \u201csometimes\u201d in the classroom when one hand was abusing her and the other was doing the same to the little girl in the next chair cut through the talk. <\/p>\n

And then the words of another woman remembering the moment when he pressed against her for what seemed like an age.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember wanting to get out to play before the break was over.\u201d <\/p>\n

The TD for Cork South-West was quoting two of the 19 women who are now planning to take legal action against the State<\/a> over its failure to pay them redress for the abuse they suffered. <\/p>\n

It took many years, but Hickey eventually went to jail for his crimes. <\/p>\n

Most of those 19 women were witnesses for the prosecution when Hickey was tried in 1998.<\/p>\n

They are old enough now to be grandmothers. But there is nothing historic about what they remember and how they still feel. <\/p>\n

It is \u201cincredible\u201d, Cairns said, that the women who helped sent Hickey to jail have been denied redress. <\/p>\n

\u201cTheir testimony was good enough for the criminal court, but somehow it isn\u2019t good enough for the State. It\u2019s unbelievable.\u201d <\/p>\n

Their situation was the main item at Leaders\u2019 Questions when Sinn F\u00e9in\u2019s Pearse Doherty (standing in for Mary Lou McDonald) and Labour leader Ivana Bacik joined the Soc Dems leader in calling for justice for the Dunderrow women.<\/p>\n

Doherty reminded the Taoiseach about Louise O\u2019Keeffe, who was one of Hickey\u2019s victims. For years, she fought for redress and to force the State to take responsibility for what happened to her when she was in national school. <\/p>\n

In the end, she had to go all the way to the European Court of Human Rights for vindication. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe judgment meant the State had to pay compensation to Louise O\u2019Keeffe, but the Irish courts found it was not just her who was abused in that school. We are talking about women who, as children, were abused by the same person in the same school during the same period,\u201d the Sinn F\u00e9in TD for Donegal said. <\/p>\n

And, yet, he pointed out, more than 12 years since that judgment \u201cthese women are still waiting, still ignored and still have to fight the State to own up to its responsibilities\u201d.<\/p>\n

He urged Miche\u00e1l Martin and his Government to \u201cdo the right thing\u201d by these women who are now in their 60s and 70s and are \u201cbeing retraumatised\u201d by being put in a position where they must sue the State to get what they rightly deserve.<\/p>\n

It may have been a gloriously sunny summer day, but the mood in the D\u00e1il chamber was dark. <\/p>\n

Bacik said the Government must act now to deliver full redress to the victims of Hickey as they who remain excluded from existing redress schemes and have had to come forward to share details of their harrowing ordeal. <\/p>\n

She also broadened out this sorry story to pay tribute to all survivors of child sexual abuse, many of whom have shown \u201cextraordinary courage\u201d in coming forward. <\/p>\n

\u201cMany of them are still fighting for justice and to be heard.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Labour leader called for Government support for legislation she was introducing this week to enable survivors of institutional child sexual abuse to pursue redress from religious orders. <\/p>\n

She said the congregations had about \u20ac1.3 billion in cash and other assets, yet they owe the State \u20ac750 million in unpaid redress to children abused in religious-run schools.<\/p>\n

And in recent days we have been confronted again with some of the \u201cdarkest chapters in the history of this island\u201d. <\/p>\n

Bacik mentioned Monday\u2019s conviction of former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson<\/a> for sex crimes against children. On Monday night, RT\u00c9 screened the final episode of its documentary about the pirate radio station owner and \u201cprolific and violent sex offender\u201d Eamonn Cooke.<\/p>\n

Then last week, we heard of the death of convicted paedophile Bill Kenneally, \u201cwhose crimes destroyed numerous young lives and many of whose victims are still seeking justice\u201d. <\/p>\n

The Taoiseach spoke of the \u201cevil\u201d and \u201chorrific\u201d abuse carried out by Hickey. <\/p>\n

\u201cI appreciate and I\u2019m fully conscious of the enormous trauma experienced by the survivors of sexual abuse in that school and abuse carried out by Leo Hickey.\u201d<\/p>\n

He spoke of courts, past commissions, inquiries, reviews and the interdepartmental group and he talked of ex-gratia payments and redress schemes that didn\u2019t work. <\/p>\n

He clearly wanted to help the Dunderrow women and said the Government would enter into mediation with the group \u201cin good faith\u201d. But there was a legalistic tone to his overall response as he indicated they would have to look at the overall situation \u201cin the context of schools in general\u201d. <\/p>\n

He had no problem with Labour\u2019s Bill to enable survivors claim redress from religious institutions, saying the proposed legislation was in line with Government policy and they would put in a timed amendment to consider it in six months\u2019 time.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, as the afternoon session drew to a close (Richard Boyd-Barrett of People Before Profit and Michael Collins of Independent Ireland also highlighting the Dunderrow women), Tuesday\u2019s headlines from the courts were going online.<\/p>\n

\u201cMan who shared child abuse images and encouraged sex act on children jailed for 12 months\u201d was just one.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cTaoiseach, I want to read into the record the testimonies of two women who were abused by the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":550934,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,4767,18,51949,13,14,6,47074,19,17,9170,36083,11,12,15,16,5765,55915,5,4766,9649,18578,7,8],"class_list":["post-550933","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-dail-eireann","tag-eire","tag-european-court-of-human-rights","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-holly-cairns","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-ivana-bacik","tag-kinsale","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-micheal-martin","tag-miriam-lord","tag-news","tag-oireachtas","tag-pearse-doherty","tag-social-democrats","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550933","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550933"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550933\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/550934"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550933"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550933"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550933"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}