Gay Byrne, Annie Murphy AND Bishop Brendan Comiskey

RTE Archives and THAT Interview with Annie Murphy 2 April 1993:

According to an article in RTE Archives regarding episode of the Late Late Show broadcast on 2 April 1993.
Revelations About Eamonn Casey 1993

In 1993 Annie Murphy, mother of Peter who was fathered by Eamonn Casey, spoke to Gay Byrne on the Late Late Show about her affair with the then Bishop of Kerry.

In 1992 it was revealed that Bishop Eamonn Casey had fathered a child with an American woman Annie Murphy. The child named Peter was born in 1973 when Casey was Bishop of Kerry. Bishop Eamonn Casey resigned [as Bishop of Galway] as a result of the revelations. The following year in 1993, Annie Murphy published a book ‘Forbidden Fruit: The True Story of My Secret Love for the Bishop of Galway’, and made an appearance on the Late Late Show.

In this excerpt from the interview Gay Byrne remarks that
"If your son is half as good a man as his father, he won’t be doing too badly."
Annie Murphy responds by stating
"I’m not so bad either."
Annie Murphy promptly thanked Gay Byrne for the interview and left the set.

There was a furious reaction from Irish "liberals" to this exchange that occurred at the end of the interview. It was claimed Gay had insulted Annie Murphy in the course of defending his friend Bishop Casey. In fact the negative reaction continued for decades and this exchange was still being quoted in the mass media and social media as a black mark against Gay up to the time of his recent death  (4 November 2019). I think it gave Gay Byrne a nasty shock. He used to say that he was not pushing any political party or ideology and this is likely true BUT he certainly liked to be popular - especially in the eyes of "progressives". I suspect that this is the reason why Gay decided that the next time, a Bishop was being denounced in the media, he would take the side of the witch-hunters. Thus he betrayed his friend Bishop Brendan Comiskey in 1995. See article "Bishop Brendan Comiskey and False Allegations of Child Abuse" This is an extract:

Bishop Comiskey
Take the following from a sneering article by Declan Lynch in the Sunday Independent on 8 October 1995. It is headed "Gaybo Speaks and the Catholic Faithful Tremble":

"I personally would rate myself a friend and admirer of Brendan Comiskey [said Gay Byrne on his radio programme], and indeed I was looking for him on the telephone recently, and he didn't make contact with me which would have been kind of unusual, a little bit unusual.

"So much so that I don't believe now that Brendan Comiskey has gone to America because of stress, nor do I believe he's gone because of alcohol, nor do I believe he's gone because of his alleged protection of a priest who's up on charges.

"I think there is something other. I haven't the faintest idea of what it is, but I think there is something else, and I think it is something dreadful, and I.m almost afraid of what it might be. That's my personal reaction."

A second article in the same paper commented that "although the remarks appeared to be 'off the cuff' it is known that Gay scripts his shows with extreme care and attention."

So what was Gay Byrne suggesting? When Father Sean Fortune committed suicide he left a note claiming that he had been sexually assaulted by Bishop Comiskey! Is that what Gay had in mind?  ENDOFQUOTE

I rather think that paedophilia was what Gay was implying! But he was never questioned by our liberal journalists who - like Declan Lynch - didn't actually believe the libel but were pleased that it was published!

Gay never apologised publicly for his vile suggestion but may have done so privately to Bishop Comiskey. An article in the Irish Catholic  (7 November 2019) by Mary Kenny is entitled Gay retained the Catholicism  his Mother Brought to Him and it's possible he made his private peace with God and the Bishop. If so it wasn't enough, but liberal Ireland was not going to bring him to book over this issue. They were content to denounce him over his supposed mistreatment of Annie Murphy!

Rory Connor
5 December 2019

Background: The story of Eamonn Casey and Annie Murphy

Annie Murphy arrived in Ireland to stay with Eamonn Casey  in April 1973. She was 25, and recovering from the traumatic breakup of a two-year marriage.

Her mother was Eamonn Casey's cousin; her father, John Murphy, and Casey had become friends. Casey had offered to put Annie Murphy up at his residence in Inch, Kerry, while she got over her recent traumas.

Casey was four years into his tenure as bishop of Kerry, a dynamic and colourful figure who combined a gregarious personality and habit of fast driving with an impressive track record in social advocacy and fundraising. His appointment as bishop in 1969 – at the age of 42 – was a recognition of his great success agitating and organising against homelessness in Britain, most notably as founding chairman of the housing charity Shelter. He didn't have the academic theological pedigree normally associated with Irish bishops, but neither was he in any way radical on doctrinal issues.

Soon after Annie Murphy arrived, she and Eamonn Casey began a relationship. By November 1973, she was pregnant. Casey pressed her to have the child adopted. She gave birth to Peter Eamonn at the Rotunda on 31 July 1974. Casey visited the mother and child in hospital, and they argued about her refusal to put the child up for adoption. She refused to go back to Inch, instead electing to stay in a Daughters of Charity home for single mothers, St Joseph's, Dublin. Casey visited, and they argued again. She was deeply unhappy, had medical complications after her pregnancy, and also became paranoid about Casey's intentions. Shortly afterwards, Annie Murphy left, with her baby, Peter, to go home to Connecticut.

Annie Murphy: The Question of Cash - and Libel

In an article in the Irish Independent on 3 August 2013, Nicola Anderson wrote
Annie Murphy: 'I regret he had to leave the church'
TRACKED down by the Irish Independent last year, Annie Murphy is currently living with her partner, artist Thaddeus Heinchon, in a trailer park in a town east of Los Angeles in California.

She admitted then that she has since regretted her devastating exposure of Eamon Casey, saying: "I took justice into my own hands and I regret that because two wrongs don't make a right." And she also regretted that he had to leave the Catholic Church after details that he had fathered a son emerged, saying: "The Catholic Church was Eamon's cornerstone and that was taken away from him."

Although she is thought to have made close to €300,000 from the publication of her book revealing details of the affair, Ms Murphy said: "When you get money like that, it makes you feel dirty, you want to get rid of it." She said she had given a lot of it to her son and some to her then partner, Arthur Pennell, – who had pressurised her to go public with her story – and said she had kept less than half of it herself, adding: "I didn't do anything useful with it, I didn't buy a home with it or anything."

That wasn't the only money Annie Murphy had received from Bishop Casey. According to an article in Magill Magazine Eamon Casey: Opening the floodgates of scandal  (Colin Murphy, 25 January 2006):

In March 1975, Annie Murphy's father, John Murphy, came back to Dublin to meet Casey. They agreed that Casey would send Annie Murphy $175 per month in maintenance, increasing over time to $300 per month. ...... In 1990, Annie Murphy and her partner, Arthur Penell, were in financial difficulties themselves, and they and Casey began to negotiate a settlement. In July 1990, Casey paid them a cheque of £70,669.20 ($117,000), plus a further $8,000 (a total of $125,000).

Murphy and Pennell then sought further monies to pay for Peter's college education. Annie Murphy was also concerned that Casey acknowledge his son. She decided to go public, and in January 1992, contacted the Irish Times. The newspaper gradually confirmed various aspects of the story, but didn't publish it. Murphy and Pennell meanwhile continued in negotiations with Casey, through his intermediary, an Irish priest in Brooklyn, Jim Kelly. These negotiations arrived at a figure of $150,000 to be paid by Casey for Peter's education, but weren't finalised.

On Thursday 1 May 1992, Phoenix magazine ran a short story on an unnamed leading cleric about to be involved in a scandal. This Irish Times still didn't publish, but the story was by then an open secret amongst the media.........

Casey Affair Book Publishers Settle Libel Action with £100,000 Payout
An article by Stephen O'Brien in the Irish Independent on 30 November 1998 confirmed that a major libel action linked to the book by Annie Murphy, was settled out of court for a sum reported to be in the region of £100,000. The Irish Independent confirmed that a settlement was agreed by publishers Little Brown, the company which brought out Forbidden Fruit written by Annie Murphy and Peter de Rosa.

The case was settled without any retraction or apology, or any question of the book being withdrawn from sale. The News of the World quoted people close to Dympna Kilbane  saying she was "overjoyed'' at the outcome. ``She has gone through a lot in order to clear her name and has emerged victorious,'' the source said.

An article in The Herald (Scotland)  on 13 April 1993 "Woman Steps into Bishop Tape Row" gives some background information. Dympna Kilbane said she shared a flat with Annie Murphy, when Ms Murphy was pregnant in 1974 as the result of her affair with the bishop. Ms Kilbane confirmed she was taking legal action against Ms Murphy for references made about her in the book, Forbidden Fruit.  She said she had provided the Sunday Independent with a tape recording of a conversation he had with Bishop Casey in which he called Annie Murphy ''an evil woman''.

As per an article in the National Catholic Reporter on 30 April 1993:  "Kilbane has also raised questions about the paternity of Peter Murphy, the son Annie Murphy claims was fathered by Casey."

Society's Attitude to "Kiss and Tell"

In point of fact, Annie Murphy got off pretty lightly during the 1993 Late Late Show interview with Gay Byrne. (It also emerged during the interview that she was hoping for a film deal - or TV mini-series - based on her book.) In general the women - and occasionally men - who try to make money out of sharing their sexual activities with the public are regarded with contempt by society - sometimes amused contempt. By its nature "Kiss and Tell" involves a comparative nonentity trying to exploit his/her sexual relationship with a much more important personality. Even when the public are titillated, this doesn't do anything to create respect for the person who is betraying confidences. TWO EXAMPLES

(1) When Terry Keane died in June 2008, RTE described her as "well known columnist and fashion journalist" and "principal contributor of The Sunday Independent's long-running gossip column The Keane Edge". It was also mentioned that she studied medicine at Trinity College but dropped out without taking a degree and that she had married a young barrister Ronan Keane but separated from him, after which he went on to become Chief Justice. A slightly more substantial figure than Annie Murphy then but she is chiefly "well known" for being the long time mistress of Taoiseach (Irish PM) Charlie Haughey and for announcing this during an interview on the Late Late Show in May 1999! This was some years after Haughey had been forced to resign as Taoiseach and during a period when he was under intense pressure from the McCracken and Moriarty Tribunals regarding his irregular financial affairs. Keane also gave the story of their affair as an exclusive to rival newspaper The Sunday Times, although she was still employed by Independent News and Media, and abruptly left the Sunday Independent.

Terry Keane was subjected to considerable criticism in the media- far more so than Annie Murphy. According to the RTE obituary: In later years, in an RTÉ documentary, Terry Keane said she regretted the pain that she had caused by speaking about her 27-year-long affair. 
Given her cynical betrayal of Haughey (they never spoke again before his death in June 2006), it is likely that the main pain she regretted, was that suffered by herself!

(2) Captain James Hewitt  a former British cavalry officer, who came to prominence in the mid 1990s when he disclosed he had a love affair with Princess Diana from 1986 to 1991 at a time when she was still married to Prince Charles. He was a major source for the book Princess in Love by Anna Pasternak published in 1994. His Wikipedia article has a very interesting link (unfortunately broken) to an article in the new York Times on 5 October 1994 entitled "'Kiss and Tell' Officer Draws Heaps of Scorn". However this proved to be only the opening installment of the ridicule and opprobrium heaped on Hewitt. 

Princess Diana was killed in a car crash in August 1997 and In 2003, Hewitt tried to sell his 64 personal letters from Diana for £10 million. The act of selling the letters was considered to be a betrayal of trust, and Sarah, Duchess of York, condemned his action. She was reported to have said, "Betrayal, I think, is the most horrible, horrible, disloyal thing you can do to anyone".

Wikipedia mentions that in In 1991, Hewitt served as a Challenger tank commander in the Gulf War and was mentioned in dispatches.  However he failed the exam for promotion to major three times. Again he is a more substantial figure than Annie Murphy whose sole lifetime achievement seems to have been as a Kiss and Tell artiste!

Compared to the others, Annie Murphy got off very lightly indeed. Hewitt was furiously denounced for an action that could not have harmed a deceased person. Terry Keane betrayed Haughey after he had been forced out of politics and was under pressure because of his irregular financial dealings. She added to his troubles but didn't create them. Annie Murphy was solely responsible for forcing Bishop Casey to resign. Gay Byrne and his audience treated her respectfully during that infamous Late Late Show interview. It is not insulting to point out that there are discrepancies in the story being told by a Kiss and Tell artiste!

'Recovered Memory' in Ireland - and Allegations of Child Abuse

Michael O'Brien, ex-Mayor of Clonmel and head of Victim's Group 'Right To Peace' Confronts Fianna Fail Minister Noel Dempsey on RTE,  25 May 2009

Background

[ Unlike Satanic Ritual Abuse, "Recovered Memory" has played a significant role in allegations of child abuse in Ireland (although less so than in the UK and the USA, I believe). This article is mainly about the claims of Michael O'Brien, founder of the Victims' group "Right to Peace" but I also refer to actor Gabriel Byrne and his allegations against the Christian Brothers AND the late Patrick Galvin author of the book  "Song for a Raggy Boy" and later screen-writer for the FILM of the same name that told a rather different story! ]

Regarding Michael O'Brien, the above TV confrontation took place shortly after the publication in May 2009 of the Report of the 'Commission To Inquire into Child Abuse' (the 'Ryan Commission'). According to an Irish Times article on 27 May "Ex-Mayor Tells of Abuse by Order"  

Michael O’Brien, from Clonmel, Co Tipperary, told [Transport Minister] Mr Dempsey during RTÉ’s Questions and Answers that the Constitution should be changed to freeze the funds of the religious orders.

Mr O’Brien was a resident of St Joseph’s Industrial School in Clonmel, which was run by the Rosminian order, during the 1940s and he said he was sexually and physically abused there. He said that he and seven other members of his family were removed from their house before being sent to industrial schools. He was reunited with his brother on the Late Late Show some 40 years later. Mr O’Brien said he had voted for Fianna Fáil since he was 18, but that the party’s behaviour around the issue of child abuse was turning him away from it. He served as a councillor for the party in Tipperary and was elected mayor of Clonmel in 1993. 

In September 2004, repeated interruptions from Mr O’Brien and other past residents of St Joseph’s resulted in a hearing of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse being adjourned twice.....

My Reply re Allegations by Michael O'Brien

This video was shared during a discussion that followed a December 2015 article by Luke Gittos, Law Editor of the Spiked-OnLine website; he called the article  "No Justice in a Year of Moral Crusades" with subheading "But there are signs of a growing public scepticism about the child-abuse panic".

The video was posted by  "holliegreig justice" and I responded as follows:

Kilbarry1 [Rory Connor]: reply to  holliegreig justice
This is Michael O'Brien former mayor of Clonmel, stating on Irish national television in May 2009 that he was "raped, buggered and beaten" by priests of the Rosminian Order when he was resident of an industrial school. (RTE "Questions and Answers" programme) There is a complete transcript of his statement in the Irish Times here

What "holliegrieg justice" omits to tell us is that there was a very curious follow up to Mr O'Brien's public outburst - and it came from the leader of ANOTHER "Child Abuse Survivors" group, Christine Buckley.

An article in The Sunday Tribune a year later, (16 May 2010) is headed "Survivors at Loggerheads Over Denial of Sex Abuse" with subheading "Christine Buckley Questions Michael O'Brien's Radio Interview from 10 years ago"

Here is an extract:
Survivors of sexual abuse in religious-run residential institutions are embroiled in an increasingly bitter row over how some €680m in compensation from religious orders identified in the Ryan report should be shared out, the Sunday Tribune has learned.

The dispute took a dramatic twist this weekend when the Aislinn Centre's Christine Buckley criticised a decade-old radio interview with the former mayor of Clonmel, Michael O'Brien, where he claimed NOT [my emphasis] to have been sexually abused while he was incarcerated in St Joseph's industrial school, Ferryhouse.

This directly contradicts a highly-charged intervention on RTE's Questions and Answers programme in May of last year, where O'Brien detailed the extent of abuse he suffered, prompting widespread public sympathy and anger.

During the 1999 interview on a local radio station, O'Brien expresses sympathy for victims of sexual abuse who suffered at the hands of the notorious Rosminian abuser at Ferryhouse, Brother Sean Barry. He goes on to say: "But I must say, and I have to say it here and now, because I had to meet my family when this came out. And say it never happened to me, I never seen it happening, I never heard of it happening in my seven years in Ferryhouse. I never seen or heard of it."

Although O'Brien acknowledges in the interview that he was subjected to physical abuse and deprivation at Ferryhouse, he also pays tribute to the Rosminians and says that this was the state's fault, not Ferryhouse.

"We were left there to those brothers and those priests to become our parents, and look after us. And as far as I'm concerned, 99.9% of them done a good job... out of every group, no matter what organisation you're in, you'll find bad eggs, Ferryhouse is my home. And I will defend it to the end as long as I live, because I was reared by them." .....

Ms Buckley (who died in 2014) once made some truly extraordinary claims about her own treatment by the Sisters of Mercy - AND she supported claims that a nun had murdered a baby by burning holes in its legs with a red hot poker. Accordingly she cannot be accused of bias in favour of the Catholic Church. However the various leaders of "Victims" groups had fallen out about how vast sums of "compensation" should be shared - and for THAT reason, they were prepared to criticise each other.

holliegreig justice: reply to  Kilbarry1 
if you think he made that up clearly you need help.I mean its not like there are vested intrests to make it look like he made it up

Kilbarry1: reply to holliegreig justice 
The "vested interests" include Christine Buckley, an icon of the child abuse lobby in Ireland, recipient of the European Volunteer of the Year Award in 2009 and an honorary Doctor of Laws degree from Trinity College in 2012. (Presiding at the latter ceremony, was former President of Ireland Mary Robinson, in her capacity as Chancellor of the University).

If Mr. O'Brien didn't "make it up" in 2009, he must have done so 10 years earlier, in the radio interview where he emphatically denied having been sexually abused - or knowing of sexual abuse - when he was a resident of the Rosminian institution

Gabriel Byrne and "Recovered Memory"

In the new RTÉ documentary My Astonishing Self, Irish actor Gabriel Byrne explores the life and times of Irish literary genius George Bernard Shaw. Byrne's treatment of Shaw's political views - and specifically his attempts to excuse Shaw for supporting Stalin, Hitler AND Mussolini - attracted some hostile comment on the politics.ie website. 

I pointed out that in a 1999 interview with the Irish Independent, Gabriel Byrne had claimed that he was "physically and verbally" abused by the Christian Brothers when he attended their school in Drimnagh in Dublin - and was later sexually abused by a priest in England. However in an interview with Gay Byrne on RTE a decade later, he claimed that the Christian Brothers had sexually abused him.  

Comment by "Wagmore"
Just watching Gabriel Byrne documentary on George Bernard Shaw on RTE. Typical guff. Usual suspects show up to champion the cause of one of their own. Diarmuid Ferriter, Fintan O Toole, Michael D and Daire O Brien etc. Shaw incredible ability to see the big picture. Told it how it was etc etc. Very little about the link below till about five minutes left when Fintan tells us that his support for Hitler and Mussolini shouldn't be used as a stick to beat him or to take away from all he contributed. Typical lefties----what's a few million slaughtered and oppressed so long as you're a card carrying Socialist. Gas, a clip shows Shaw's picture with a framed picture of Stalin on the mantlepiece. Don't remember the luvvies giving the same wide berth to Francis Stuart for his perceived Nazi sympathies during WW2. 

Byrne tells us his abiding sense when he thinks of Shaw the man is one of compassion, humanity and courage. I suspect the slaughtered millions would beg to differ.
How Shaw defended Stalin's mass killings
[Article in Daily Telegraph on 18 June 2003]

Kilbarry1:  reply to Wagmore
George Bernard Shaw differed from other Stalinists like Sean O'Casey, in that he had kind words to say about Hitler and Mussolini as well. Shaw was a supporter of Dictatorship AS SUCH - not just the left-wing variety. Still there is a certain logic and honesty about this approach that Gabriel Byrne himself lacks.

This is Gabriel Byrne in an interview with Stephen O'Brien of the Irish Independent on 9 August 1999

ACTOR Gabriel Byrne has revealed publicly for the first time that he was the victim of both physical and sexual abuse at the hands of Catholic clergy. The star of The Usual Suspects and Defence of the Realm said he was subjected to repeated physical and verbal abuse while a pupil at the Christian Brothers national school in Dublin's Drimnagh. [My emphasis]

And he told a Sunday newspaper he was sexually abused by a priest who was his Latin teacher in England after he had entered a junior novitiate (in preparation for the priesthood) at the age of just eleven. That man is now dead. ....

And this is him telling a SOMEWHAT similar story to Gay Byrne on RTE television a decade later - as reported by the Irish correspondent of The Guardian on 19 January 2010. There is however a rather important difference. 

Gabriel Byrne tells of childhood sexual abuse
Actor says he was abused by Christian Brothers in Ireland, and while training in England to be a priest

The Irish actor Gabriel Byrne has revealed that he was sexually abused by Christian Brothers as a child. [My emphasis] The actor also disclosed that at the age of 11 he went to England to train as a priest but was sexually abused by a member of the clergy there.

Byrne said he had struggled with alcoholism and depression in the past, and that he had been "deeply hurt" over the abuse he endured as a boy. The star of films such Miller's Crossing and The Usual Suspects spoke openly about the abuse to Ireland's most famous broadcaster, Gay Byrne, on a new show, "The Meaning of Life", on RTÉ television.

"Unfortunately, I experienced some sexual abuse," he said. "It was a known and admitted fact of life amongst us that there was this particular man, and you didn't want to be left in the dressing room with him." "It took many years to come to terms with it and to forgive those incidents that I felt had deeply hurt me."

Another priest sexually abused him when he was 11 at the English seminary. "It didn't go on over a prolonged period but it happened at a very, very vulnerable moment," Byrne recalled. .....

When he spoke on 'The Meaning of Life', was Gabriel Byrne suffering from Recovered Memory in relation to the nature of his "abuse" by the Christian Brothers? Alternatively did he just assume that Gaybo would not bother to do any research and certainly would not ask him any awkward questions?

Question by paddycomeback;

"he was sexually abused by a priest who was his Latin teacher IN ENGLAND after he had entered a junior novitiate"

Am I misreading? Both versions say the abuse was in England.

Kilbarry1: reply to paddycomeback

Both accounts say he was "sexually" abused in England by a priest. In his second account he claims to have been sexually abused by the Christian Brothers in Ireland as well. His first account [a decade before] only mentions "verbal and physical" abuse by the Christian Brothers.

Incidentally Gabriel Byrne is very comfortable praising a man who supported Hitler, Stalin and Mussolini. HOWEVER if Shaw had been an admirer of Franco, Byrne would have loathed him. Franco was a Catholic and a pro-Western dictator and the fact that he killed a lot fewer people was irrelevant to hate-filled types like Shaw and Byrne. Shaw only favoured dictators who shared his own hatreds - and Gabriel Byrne appreciates that.

Patrick Galvin, 'Song for a Raggy Boy' and "Recovered Memory"

Comment by darkhorse3
You're nobody in the Arts world if you weren't sexually abused by a Priest

Kilbarry1 - reply to darkhorse3
True the film "Song for a Raggy Boy" released in 2003 is based on the "Autobiography" of Patrick Galvin ("Irish poet, singer, playwright, and prose and screen writer" as per Wikipedia) written a decade earlier in 1991. The culminating scene in the FILM features a boy being kicked to death by a "Brother in Christ". There is no such scene in the BOOK but Patrick Galvin is credited as the screen-writer for the film!

Like Gabriel Byrne, perhaps it took him a decade to "recover his memory"?

NOTE: I have an article on my website IrishSalem.com with the title
THE GENERAL, THE OBLATES AND "SONG FOR A RAGGY BOY
that goes into more detail on this issue. 

In an unpublished letter to the Sunday Tribune in 2006 I wrote:
.....I have read a number of mini-biographies of Patrick Galvin on the Internet and elsewhere. Either they don't say what industrial school he was in or they refer to "St. Judes" i.e. the fictitious school in the film. What institution did Patrick Galvin attend? And does "Song for a Raggy Boy" have the same relationship to truth as the Da Vinci Code?

However in 2007 there were media articles quoting Galvin as stating that he had attended St. Conleth's reform school in Daingean, Co. Offaly which was run by the Oblate Order of priests (and brothers). This is also stated in the Wikipedia article on Patrick Galvin. Daingean reformatory is well known in Ireland because one of its residents in the 1960s went on to become Ireland's most famous criminal - Martin Cahill also known as "The General" who is widely quoted as saying "If anyone corrupted me it was those mad monks down in the bog."  (Mind you he was sent there after his fifth criminal conviction!) Assassinated by the IRA in 1994, Martin Cahill was shortly thereafter the subject of two admiring Hollywood movies, The General  directed by John Boorman (1998) and Ordinary Decent Criminals starring Kevin Spacey (2000). So Patrick Galvin attended a well known institution - albeit three decades prior to The General! ***

OR DID HE? Because of the (literally) unbelievable allegations in the book - and even more so, the film - I once wondered if Galvin had ever been in any residential institution run by Catholic clergy. However I was recently told that the writer did indeed attend such an institution but that he was actually in St Patricks Reformatory in Upton, Co Cork which was run by the Rosminian  Order of priests and brothers. This makes sense as Galvin was born in Cork City, both Upton and Daingean were reform institutions for young people convicted of crimes (as opposed to industrial schools), but Upton was very much closer to Galvin's home than Daingean.

Note that the Rosminian Order was NOT very well known to the Irish public - at least until May 2009 when Michael O'Brien denounced an Irish Government Minister on live television, while claiming that he had been "raped, buggered and beaten" by priests of the Order. And that is where this article begins!

CONCLUSION:

In all three cases, there was a the time-lag of about a decade between the original statement and the "enhanced" one that made allegations of child sexual abuse for the first time OR more serious claims than the original. During this period, the media whipped up hysteria about child abuse and encouraged an atmosphere of hatred against the Catholic Church in Ireland. Apparently sectarian hatred is OK if it is directed against Catholic clergy (although not against Jewish rabbis and least of all against Islamic mullahs!)

*** [Patrick Galvin suffered a stroke in 2003 aged 76, from which he never fully recovered prior to his death eight years later. In 2007 he could easily have imagined - or accepted a suggestion from admirers - that he had been in the, by then, "notorious" Daingean institution.]