Mary Raftery and Blood Libel

Mary Raftery - "They were calling me a Nazi, citing blood libel"

The late Mary Raftery has been in the news against recently so I am republishing my correspondence with former Irish Times editor Geraldine Kennedy in 2005. 

According to an RTE report on 29 April 2019 Dublin City University "launched an exhibition on the award-winning journalism of the late Mary Raftery. The event coincides with the 20th anniversary of the airing by RTÉ television of her three-part documentary series, States of Fear. The broadcasts prompted the then taoiseach, Bertie Ahern, to issue an unprecedented apology to survivors of institutional child abuse, primarily in Catholic-run industrial schools."

RTE goes on to confirm that the university has also unveiled a new journalism industry award, The Mary Raftery Prize, which will be awarded annually to an individual or small team responsible for journalistic work produced on the island of Ireland which, in the view of the judges, combines the rigorous analysis and commitment to social justice which characterised Mary Raftery's journalism and resulted in a significant impact on society.

This "rigorous analysis" and "commitment to social justice" included a blood libel against the Christian Brothers while her States of Fear series on RTE was a major factor in the false rape convictions of former Sister of Mercy Nora Wall and of a homeless schizophrenic man Pablo McCabe. Ms Raftery had very little to say about Nora Wall following the overturn of the convictions and nothing about Pablo.[Note 1] He was accused in order to make a rape allegation against a nun look more plausible and his abuse by the two accusers and the State, was of no interest to Ms Raftery. (He was the wrong type of victim!). [Note 2]

Once Again - Mary Raftery and Blood Libel 
"They were calling me a Nazi, citing blood libel, a whole stable of them," she continues. "But there's absolute silence from those quarters since the Ryan Report." (Mary Raftery in Sunday Independent on 4 September 2011). Two weeks later I wrote on my website
Actually I am the only person who ever used the term "blood libel" in relation to Mary Raftery and I also commented - with reference to her - that the Nazi pornographer Julius Streicher also used to accuse Jews of murdering Christian children. I have certainly not remained silent since the Ryan Report.[published May 2009] However Mary Raftery is a sacred cow among Irish journalists and feels -with some justification - that they will allow her to get away with any lie!

They still are!


Rory Connor
26 June 2019

NOTES:
[1] For Mary Raftery's grossly inadequate account of the trial of Nora Wall in her book "Suffer the Little Children" see "Mary Raftery and Nora Wall" She leaves out nearly all the relevant facts and makes it sound like an acquittal on a technicality!

[2] The only detailed account of Pablo McCabe's role in this tragedy is Breda O'Brien's article in the Jesuit Review Studies in Winter 2006
Miscarriage of Justice: Paul McCabe and Nora Wall

CORRESPONDENCE WITH IRISH TIMES EDITOR, GERALDINE KENNEDY

1) LETTER TO EDITOR

17 April 2005

Geraldine Kennedy

Editor, Irish Times

Dear Ms. Kennedy,

I am enclosing some articles which I have written concerning Mary Raftery and her accusations of child killing and child abuse directed against the Catholic Church.

In summary:

The Death of Patsy Flanagan

Mary Raftery has accused the Christian Brothers of being responsible for the death of the boy Patsy Flanagan who died following a fall from a staircase in Artane in February 1951. When her "witness" produced three contradictory accounts of the incident (one of which got the date wrong by 5 years), Ms. Raftery tried to square the circle by claiming that a few boys had died in this manner! She produced not a scrap of evidence to support this allegation.

There was an inquest which found the death of Patsy Flanagan to be an accident. Mary Raftery does not mention this in her book. Did she not know about it or did she deliberately conceal this evidence?

Sister Stanislaus and Sister Conception

Mary Raftery has, on several occasions, accused Sister Stanislaus Kennedy of failing to act when she was informed of child abuse in the 1970s in St. Joseph's orphanage, Kilkenny. The social worker who is supposed to have informed her, wrote to the Irish Times to say that he himself was unaware in 1977 that sex abuse was involved and that he only became aware of this in 1995 i.e. nearly 20 years after he is supposed to have informed Sister Stan (Letters page 22 December 1999). This precisely matches what Sister Stan said when Mary Raftery first made her allegation (in the States of Fear series and the book Suffer the Little Children). Yet Ms. Raftery repeats the accusation in her article on 3 March last. She makes a similar accusation against Sister Conception and the late Bishop Birch, in spite of the fact that on 1st March the President of the High Court Mr. Justice Finnegan, specifically exonerated them in his judgment in the case of R. Noctor-v.-Ireland, The Attorney General and Others. (Mary Raftery does not dispute his judgment concerning this issue; she ignores it).

Mary Raftery claimed that Sister Stanislaus had denounced a civil servant on the Kennedy Committee for failing to give credit to the Church for its social work. The three civil servants at the relevant meeting told journalist Breda O'Brien that no such episode had occurred. (One also wrote to the Irish Times to confirm this). This is by no means the most serious allegation made by Mary Raftery. It is important because it can be easily shown to be a lie. And the lie is obviously linked to other tales told by Ms Raftery about Sister Stan and about the Catholic Church.

Brother Joseph O'Connor

A far uglier lie is Mary Raftery's attack on the late Brother Joseph O'Connor who was the Christian Brother responsible for the Artane Boys Band. She claims he was a vicious child abuser. She alleges that a man abused by him was so distraught that he hung around the Mater Hospital for days when Brother O'Connor was dying. He then went into the hospital and lifted the sheet from his body to confirm that Brother O'Connor was dead. BROTHER JOSEPH O'CONNOR DID NOT DIE IN THE MATER HOSPITAL. (The same question arises as with the inquest on Patsy Flanagan - did Mary Raftery not bother to check this extraordinary story or did she conceal evidence?)

I assume that Mary Raftery tells lies about Brother O'Connor for the same reason she tells lies about Sister Stanislaus i.e. they are both well known Catholics and demonising them is a way of getting at the Church.

Nora Wall

Mary Raftery's treatment of the Nora Wall scandal in her book is grossly misleading. She fails to state that Nora Wall's two accusers had made a string of rape allegations against various people. Above all she fails to mention the main reason for the collapse of the trial i.e. a man read an article about the case in The Star newspaper and recognised one of the women as the person who had made a false allegation against himself!

I was told by one of Nora Wall's defense team (Sean Costello of Frank Ward and Co. Solicitors) that she had been convicted because of a climate of hysteria created by the media and SPECIFICALLY BY THE STATES OF FEAR SERIES!

Anti-Semitism and Anti-Clericalism

In his book "The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich", William Shirer has this to say about Hitler's favourite anti-Semite Julius Streicher:

"A famous fornicator he made his fame and fortune as a blindly fanatical anti-Semite. His notorious weekly Der Stuermer thrived on lurid tales of Jewish sexual crimes and Jewish "ritual murders"; its obscenity was nauseating even to many Nazis".

Ms. Kennedy, if even some Nazis were nauseated by Julius Streicher, what is Mary Raftery doing writing for the Irish Times? Do you believe that anti-clerical hatred is morally superior to the Nazi variety? You will note that they both involve lying allegations of sexual crimes and of child killing.

I intend to distribute this material as widely as possible. If yourself or Mary Raftery feel that any of it is mistaken, please let me know within the next week and I will take your views on board. In the meantime I will send this to the National Union of Journalists only.

Yours sincerely,

Rory Connor 

11 Lohunda Grove 

Dublin 15

Appendices:

(1) Mary Raftery and The Death of Patsy Flanagan - Debate Raftery vs Breda O'Brien -Nov 1999 to Jan 2000

(See also) The Death of Patsy Flanagan: Blood Libel and The Christian Brothers - Debate in Sun Independent Nov/Dec 1999

(2) Mary Raftery and Sister Stanislaus Kennedy(1) AND Mary Raftery and Sister Stanislaus Kennedy (2)

(3) Mary Raftery, Sister Conception and Bishop Birch - April 2005

(4) Mary Raftery and Brother Joseph O'Connor - March 2005

(5) Mary Raftery and Nora Wall - March 2005

2) REPLY FROM EDITOR

THE IRISH TIMES 

The Irish Times Limited, 10-16 D’Olier Street, Dublin 2 

Telephone: 6758000. Fax: 6719407 

Email: edsoffice@irish-times.ie 

EDITOR'S OFFICE 

Mr. Rory Connor 

11 Lohunda Grove 

Dublin 15 

April 21st 2005 

Dear Mr. Connor, 

Thank you for your letter of April 17th and its attachments. 

I note from your letter your accusation not just that Mary Raftery has been mistaken in much that she has written but that she has written as fact things that were untrue and that she knew to be untrue. 

As you are also seeking a response from her, I will pass on a copy of your letter to Ms. Raftery but I will not be responding myself to the points you have made because the allegations are clearly defamatory. 

Yours sincerely, 

Geraldine Kennedy 

Editor

3) MY RESPONSE TO EDITOR

29 April 2005 

Geraldine Kennedy 

Editor 

Irish Times 

Dear Ms Kennedy 

Thanks for your reply dated 21 April which I received on the 26 th. 

I actually sent all of the material to Mary Raftery by registered post on 18 April. I also copied it to the National Union of Journalists as I believe that Ms. Raftery must have breached every article of their Code of Conduct. I have not yet received a reply from her and I am now distributing this material as widely as possible. I understand that the NUJ will only accept a complaint if it comes from another journalist so I am concentrating on journalists. 

Yes I believe that Mary Raftery is not just mistaken but is telling deliberate lies. A blatant example is when her "witness" to the death of Patsy Flanagan tells three contradictory stories (one of which gets the date wrong by 5 years). Instead of withdrawing her allegations Mary Raftery tries to square the circle by claiming that more than one boy died in this way in Artane (i.e. by falling from a staircase)! 

Mary McCarthy once said about the Stalinist Lillian Hellman : "Every word she writes is a lie, including 'and' and 'the'." That neatly sums up my attitude to Mary Raftery. 

Yours sincerely,

Rory Connor

Sister Stanislaus Kennedy and False Allegations against The Sisters of Charity [1]

Sister Stan Apologises but Defends Nuns against "Elder Abuse"

SUMMARY

Sister Stanislaus Kennedy was the victim of obscene and lying allegations from the late Mary Raftery in 1999. She was subjected to  a barrage of abuse from Irish "liberal" journalists for months - until the social worker who was supposed to have informed her about the sexual abuse of children in the 1970s wrote to the Irish Times to state that he had done no such thing. Nothing discouraged, Sister Stan publicly apologised in 2009 for the alleged abuse of children by the Sisters of Charity. In 2015 she bravely defied the Irish Bishops to announce she was voting in favour of same-sex marriage.  Then in 2017 she expressed her surprise at the new barrage of abuse directed at the Sisters of Charity during a controversy over the transfer of the National Maternity Hospital which they had founded in the 19th century. She described the lies hurled at her colleagues as "Elder Abuse" -  a description which some would regard as pitifully inadequate.

Sister Stan is very much on the left "liberal" wing of the Irish Church and has been criticised by conservatives both inside and outside the Church. However it seems to have escaped her attention that the only people to resort to obscene abuse and lies are her own "liberal" friends!

[ For a conservative critique of Sister Stan's political and economic ideas see the article by Richard Miller of the Edmund Burke Institute "Sister Stan's Road to Serfdom" ]

SISTER STAN AND THE LIES OF MARY RAFTERY

1999 Mary Raftery and Sister Stanislaus Kennedy (1)
[Irish Times, Letters Page,  22 December 1999 ]

SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN

Sir - In relation to the recent controversy regarding whether or not Sister Stan knew about sexual abuse in Kilkenny in the late 1970s I would like to put the record straight.

I was the childcare worker referred to in the States of Fear programme and in the book Suffer the Little Children, who resigned from St. Joseph's Kilkenny in 1977.

I did not tell Sr Stan at any stage that children were being sexually abused in St. Joseph's because I myself was unaware that sexual abuse was occurring.

It was in 1995/1996 that I got my first inkling that children had been sexually abused in 1977, almost 20 years after it is alleged that I told Sr Stan.

It is my belief today, as it was then, that Sister Stan did everything she could in 1977 regarding the children in St. Joseph's.

Yours etc

EDWARD MURPHY 
Westfield 
Kilkenny


1999 Mary Raftery and Sister Stanislaus (2) 

Extract from SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN by Mary Raftery and Eoin O'Sullivan

".While the publication of the Kennedy Report was greeted with considerable publicity and wide approval, it was clear that neither the State nor the Catholic Church shared that enthusiasm for change....... A year after the report had been published, one of the civil servants on the Kennedy Committee was to receive the full brunt of criticism from the Catholic Church. At the Church's major seminar on child care in Killarney in 1971, he was called into a room and held to account by the Bishop of Kerry, Eamon Casey, and by Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, even at that stage a major force in the history of child care. They wanted to know how it was that the Department of Education could have presided over a report which gave the religious orders so little credit for their great work on behalf of children for so many decades"

Mary Raftery gives the source of the above account as an article by Fintan O'Toole "Not Asking Questions Cold Again Fail Children" Irish Times 21 May 1999. When journalist Breda O'Brien questioned this story she came under attack by Fintan O'Toole. The following is an extract from Breda O'Brien's response in the Irish Times on 10 January 2000. Her article is entitled "A Search for the Truth Does Not Question Reality of Child Abuse".

"On December 10th, 1999, Fintan O'Toole declares that "Breda O'Brien, a sincere and committed journalist, has made extravagant claims about her own alleged ability to uncover flawed research in SUFFER THE LITTLE CHILDREN.." (One shudders to think what an insincere and uncommitted journalist might be capable of)..........................

O'Toole claims that in the 1970s, Sister Stan, along with Bishop Casey, in a private room berated the two civil servants from the Department of Justice and Education who sat on the Kennedy Committee. O'Toole claims sources who say that this incident happened.


My sources who say it did not happen are; Sister Stan: Risteard MacConcradha, the representative of the Department of Justice; Antoin O'Gormain, the representative of the Department of Education; and Richard O'Donovan, of the Department of Education, secretary to the Kennedy Committee. Who are O'Toole's "sources"? Bishop Casey perhaps?" [Highlighting is mine. RC ]

2005 Mary Raftery Slandered Bishop Peter Birch (3)
In the early 1960’s Sr Stanislaus was sent to Kilkenny to work alongside the Bishop of Ossory Peter Birch in developing Kilkenny Social Services. For nineteen years  until his death in 1981, Bishop Birch was guide and mentor to Sr. Stanislaus as the Kilkenny social services developed into an innovative, comprehensive model of community care becoming a blue-print for the rest of Ireland. Naturally he also attracted the attention of Mary Raftery!


In March 2005 Mary Raftery wrote in the Irish Times - in relation to St Joseph's residential school in Kilkenny run by the Sisters of Charity:

Several of these children, as young as four, were subjected to over a decade of continuous and savage abuse both physical and sexual. We know that a number of them told adults of the torture that they were suffering. We know that a number of prominent individuals, including the local bishop, Dr. Peter Birch, and Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, were made aware of some of the allegations of abuse. We know that for the children concerned little or nothing happened as a result of their complaints.

When challenged by the Superior General of the Sisters of Charity Mary Raftery replied:

 I neither stated nor implied that Bishop Birch was aware that boys at St. Joseph's were being sexually abused.

The connivance of the Irish media ensured that Ms Raftery was allowed to get away with her blatant lies!

SISTER STAN AND THE RYAN REPORT (2009)

The Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (Ryan Report) was published on 20 May 2009 and depicted residential institutions run by the Catholic Church over decades as places where sexual and physical abuse were endemic. As per Wikipedia "The Report's conclusions section (Chapter 6) supports the overall tenor of the accusations without exception" 

In effect the Commission ignored allegations that were clearly false while accepting as true any accusation of abuse that the religious orders could not prove was false!

2009 Sr Stan apologises to abuse victims
Sister Stanislaus Kennedy - Sorry and ashamed
[ RTE News Wednesday, 1 Jul 2009 ] 

Sister Stanislaus Kennedy has apologised unreservedly to survivors of child abuse in Catholic-run institutions. Sr Stan said the Sisters of Charity were sad, sorry and ashamed that children suffered physical, emotional and sexual abuse while under their care. 
She also said that the order must now live up to its financial responsibilities.

Sr Stan is a prominent campaigner for homeless people.

The order is holding a conference on social justice in Dublin today.

The Ryan report into institutional child abuse [and] the economic downturn will be discussed at the conference.

Sr Miriam Hennessey of the Sisters of Charity told the conference that the findings of the report were 'overwhelming and disturbing' for all her nuns. On behalf of the congregation, she apologised again to all past pupils for what took place in the institutions under the congregation's care.

President Mary McAleese has described the institutional abuse of children as 'a millstone of biblical proportions in Irish history'. Addressing a conference organised, she said the abuse of some of the children in the nuns' care was a sad chapter in their history, which calls for resilience, determination, humility and focus in the journey of amending and healing that lies ahead.

SISTER STAN AND SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

2015   Sr Stan to vote in favour of same sex marriage
Well-known social activist at odds with Catholic hierarchy on referendum stance
[ Irish Times, 11 May 2015 by Carl O'Brien]

Sr Stanislaus Kennedy has announced she will vote in favour of same-sex marriage in the forthcoming referendum.

“I have thought a lot about this,” she told The Irish Times. “I am going to vote Yes in recognition of the gay community as full members of society. They should have an entitlement to marry. It is a civil right and a human right.”

Sr Stan (75), as she is widely known, is a member of the congregation of the Religious Sisters of Charity and founder of the homeless support organisation Focus Ireland.

When asked how she reconciled her position with the Catholic Church’s teaching on the issue, she said she was speaking in a personal capacity.

“I have a big commitment to equality for all members of society. It’s what my life has been about. We have discriminated against members of the gay and lesbian community for too long. This is a way of embracing them as full members of society.”

She was speaking following a contribution to a conference on the impact of austerity policies organised by the trade union Unite.

Catholic Church leaders, however, have strongly supported a No vote in the referendum.  Earlier this month, the Catholic primate Archbishop Eamon Martin reiterated the church’s opposition to same-sex unions on the basis that they were not “similar or even remotely analogous to God’s plan for marriage and family.” .....


NOTE: The five justices of the UK Supreme Court recently ruled that the refusal of Asher's Bakery in Belfast to make a cake with a slogan supporting same-sex marriage was not discriminatory. The dispute began in 2014 and even some LGBT people thought it was a mistake to push the issue. What is Sister's Stan's view?

SISTER STAN, THE NATIONAL MATERNITY HOSPITAL AND "ELDER ABUSE"

2017  Depiction of Sisters of Charity Like ‘Elder Abuse’, Says Sr Stan 

Nun was shocked by some of the ‘very distasteful’ media coverage of the order
[Irish Times, Saturday  3 June 2017, article by Paul Cullen]

The depiction of the Sisters of Charity during the recent controversy over the transfer of the National Maternity Hospital to St Vincent’s hospital was akin to elder abuse, according to one of the order’s best-known members.

Sr Stanislaus Kennedy said she was shocked and surprised by the scale of the controversy over St Vincent’s and the criticisms levelled at her order. “It shook me, it really did.”

During the controversy, very little thought was given to the background of the Sisters of Charity and the work its members had done over the years, she said. She said her order had been depicted as “a power-grabbing congregation” and “a group of old ladies who didn’t know what they were doing”. “A lot of the stuff that came out in the media about us was very hurtful. There was a lot of misunderstanding and misrepresentation. It was very distasteful.”

Sr Stanislaus, the founder of Focus Ireland and the Immigrant Council of Ireland, said her order had been depicted as “a power-grabbing congregation” and “a group of old ladies who didn’t know what they were doing”. “In another context, this would come under elder abuse,” said the 78-year-old nun.

The controversy was sparked by the revelation last month [May 2017] that the Sisters of Charity would own the National Maternity Hospital when it moved from Holles Street to St Vincent’s because it owns the wider campus. Critics claimed the State was “gifting” the new facility to the order, which could have undue influence on the maternity hospital.

However, last Monday, the order announced it was withdrawing completely from St Vincent’s and would therefore have no involvement in the NMH when it moves.

Minister for Health Simon Harris will next week tell Cabinet his plans for the €300 million project, which is fully supported by both hospitals.

Homeless work
Sr Stanislaus pointed out that Sisters of Charity has a long-term record of giving properties away. Thirty years ago, it led the way for other orders by providing Stanhope Street convent in central Dublin for use as housing for the homeless.

The order had also provided properties at the North Circular Road, Richmond Road, Harold’s Cross and Baldoyle in Dublin, and in Cork and Waterford, for housing and other charitable purposes.

 “We are a hard-working, humble congregation that did its work for years without much notice.”

We are a hard-working, humble congregation that did its work for years without much notice
The order gave “quietly, without bells and whistles” but fulfilled what it set out to do in terms of honouring the aims of its founders, Sr Mary Aikenhead, she said.

Sr Stanislaus said she knew nuns working in St Vincent’s who had given their lives for the needs of the powerless. “I might be better-known in the media, but I couldn’t hold a candle to these colleagues in terms of lifelong dedication.”

Asked whether the order should have done more to put its point of view across, Sr Stanislaus said she could understand why the Sisters would not want to go before “the barrage of the media”.

Although she was not involved in the discussions about withdrawing from St Vincent’s, she said she was aware “for a number of years” this was under discussion.

Asked whether complete withdrawal had been contemplated, or whether this was a response to the controversy, she said: “I think we would have withdrawn anyway. That was the plan.”

CONCLUSION

I have given prominence to what might be regarded as a minor episode i.e. the claim by Mary Raftery and Fintan O'Toole that at a Conference meeting in 1971, Sister Stan berated a civil servant who sat on the Kennedy Committee on child care for failing to give credit to the Church for its work on behalf of children. This is hardly the worst of the thuggish attacks directed at Sister Stanislaus Kennedy and the Sisters of Charity. However it has its own significance. This is NOT one person's word against another's.  Every civil servant who attended the Conference, confirmed to journalist Breda O'Brien that no such episode took place. So where did Raftery and O'Toole get their data from? The same place that an anti-Semite gets his information about Jews?

I have a personal interest in the episode where Mary Raftery slandered Dr. Peter Birch. In the 1960s our Novice Master Brother Maurice Kirk used to speak to us about the Bishop of Ossory and the then De La Salle Novitiate in Castletown, Co. Laois is in the diocese of Ossory!

Sister Stanislaus did finally speak out last year in the wake of the controversy about the National Maternity Hospital. Her description of the torrent of lies directed at her colleagues as "Elder Abuse" was inadequate and seems to suggest that Catholic nuns are just another group of "vulnerable victims". I don't think she understands what type of society we are living in - or that the liberal Catholics who helped to create it have a moral obligation to try to undo some of the damage they have done!. (For example see my previous article "The Apologies of the Sisters of Mercy...")

Blood Libel in Ireland - directed against Catholics not Jews!

Patsy McGarry R.E. Correspondent for Irish Times - the Man who Started it All!

[ It was Patsy McGarry's article in the Irish Times on 25 September 1999 (see below) that started me on my current Crusade! ]

LETTER TO SUNDAY TRIBUNE RE CHILD KILLING ALLEGATIONS

[ NOTES:
(i) In 2006 the Sunday Tribune offered to publish a letter on this subject if I reduced it to an acceptable length. However this version is already a summary of a much longer submission I made to the Irish Human Rights Commission in 2004, requesting them to investigate the allegations of child murder etc made by the media against the Christian Brothers. I felt I could not summarise it any further so the project lapsed.

(ii) At the time of writing,  I forgot that in 1997 a child murder allegation had also been directed against the Sisters of Mercy. See article in The Mirror on 11 October 1997 (by Neil Leslie, editor of the Irish edition) entitled

Hot Poker Was Used On Little Marion... No Cash Will Get Her Back; I Think My Baby Was Murdered At The Orphanage, Says Payout Mum ]

Date: Thu, 25 May 2006 19:29:19 +0100 (BST)
From: Rory Connor
Subject: False Allegations of Child Abuse
To: Editor Sunday Tribune

Letters to Editor 
Sunday Tribune

Dear Sir, 
I refer to the controversy concerning false allegations of child abuse. Some leaders of "victims" groups seem to find it very difficult to accept the idea that such allegations exist. A spokesperson for "One in Four" claimed that out of thousands of claims to the Redress Board, only one was found to be false.

For some years now I have been looking into accusations of child killing which have been made against the Christian Brothers and other religious. I choose this topic because it is something that can be investigated long after the supposed events. In most cases no boy died at the time in question so it is not even a case of "honest" hysteria but blatant lying. (I call these "Murder of the Undead" allegations!) [NOTE: I later coined the additional phrase "Victimless Murders"]

If someone accuses you of child abuse 30, 40 or even 50 years ago there is no way you can clear your name. However if the same person claims you killed a child and no child died at the time, then this says a great deal about your accuser's credibility.

The following is an extract from a letter I wrote to the Irish Human Rights Commission in March 2004 regarding this issue. I list some of the more prominent "Murder of the Undead" allegations.

1. Patsy McGarry's article in the Irish Times on 25 September 1999 quoting Patrick Walsh of SOCA who claimed to have attended the funerals of boys killed by the Brothers. No boy died while Patrick Walsh was in Artane so his claim is not even "honest" hysteria. Mick Waters of SOCA UK wrote to the Irish Times on 17 October 1999 to express his support for Patsy McGarry. This gentleman still retains his position in SOCA UK, as indeed does Patrick Walsh in SOCA. (I have seen the latter quoted as a spokesman for SOCA on several occasions). [NOTE: SOCA = "Survivors of Child Abuse"]

2. Louis Lentin's programme "Our Boys" on TV3 in October 1999 that was repeated in November 2000, quoting Gerry Kelly (then head of the "Alliance for the Healing of Institutional Abuse") who also claimed to have attended funerals of murdered boys. Again no boy died while Gerry Kelly was at Artane.

Gerry Kelly also slandered Nora Wall (see articles in Ireland on Sunday dated 25 July and 1st August 1999). Moreover, a few weeks before they first broadcast Our Boys, TV3 were forced to apologise to the Bishop of Cloyne for libelling him. (This apology was buried by the media - I found out about it myself when I rang the Bishop's office to ask how his legal case was going!).

3. John Kelly of SOCA who told me on the steps of the Pro Cathedral and in front of several journalists, that there were mass graves in Artane and other  institutions (quoted in the Irish Independent on 25 November 2002)

4. Brighid McLaughlin quoting Mannix Flynn in the Sunday Independent on 22 December 2002, that there had been a "holocaust" at Letterfrack with boys buried all over the place and also that the Gardai at Clifden had uncovered a "massive paedophile ring" which ran "from the low minions right up to the top". In January 2003, a few weeks after he made those allegations, Mr. Flynn was elected a member of Aosdana, the association of creative artists and he has recently been made Director of the Irish Museum of Modern Art Is this in spite of, or because of, his vicious lies?

5. Mary Raftery who claimed in the TV programme "States of Fear" and in her book "Suffer the Little Children" that there were "deaths in mysterious and unexplained circumstances" in Artane. She failed to mention that the one case which she quoted had been the subject of a coroner's report and when her "witness" gave three separate and contradictory accounts, she tried to resolve the contradictions by claiming - on Today With Pat Kenny 22/11/99 - that there was more than one such death (i.e. due to a fall from a staircase). See letter from Brother M. Reynolds in the Irish Times on 22 December 1999.

In a letter to the Irish Times on 13 January 2000 Mary Raftery claimed that the death of the boy was the subject of an ongoing Garda investigation. When the Garda Press Office confirmed that this was not the case, Mary Raftery's response (on Eamon Dunphy's The Last Word) was "This is complete rubbish. This is rubbish. This is rubbish" (see Letters page on 26 January 2000). It is clear that she wants the Christian Brothers to have murdered a boy in order to justify her own hatred!

6. Mary Raftery also made thuggish allegations against Sister Stanislaus Kennedy, accusing her of failing to act when a social worker told her a boy was being sexually abused. (She also accused Sister Stanislaus of berating civil servants at a meeting because they failed to give sufficient credit to the Church for its social work). Sister Stan was subjected to sustained and vicious attack in the media until the social worker wrote to the Irish Times to confirm that, at the time he spoke to her, he himself had no idea that sex abuse was involved and that he felt that Sister Stan had done everything possible for the children. Edward Murphy's letter is in the Irish Times Letters Page on 22 December 1999. It did not make the news pages. Of course Mary Raftery made no attempt to apologise. (Nor did she apologise when the three civil servants involved in the meeting told Breda O'Brien that no such episode had taken place).

7. Mary Raftery also claimed that a boy who said he had been sexually abused by Brother Joseph O’Connor, waited around the Mater Hospital when Brother O’Connor was dying and then went in to take a look at the body to make sure he was dead. Brother Joseph O'Connor did not die in the Mater Hospital. Again there was no apology from Ms. Raftery. (Brother Joseph O'Connor was the Brother responsible for the Artane Boys Band. Sister Stanislaus helped to set up the first childcare course for lay people in Ireland. I assume this is why Mary Raftery attacked them.)

8. Liam Reid’s article in the Irish Times on 27 November 2003, which deliberately repeats the blood libel about the death of William Delaney in 1970. Following a disgusting media campaign in 2001 the Evening Herald was forced to admit that the post mortem on the exhumed body of William Delaney had found that he died of natural causes (Evening Herald, 27 April 2001). However, having howled obscenities at the Christian Brothers, the media dropped the issue like a shot. Liam Reid is depending on people having short memories.

In December 2003 the Royal College of Surgeons published a study on clerical sexual abuse. This pointed out that the Irish Times used the term "paedophile priest" 322 times between August 1993 and August 2000. Apart from the term "paedophile farmer" which was used 5 times, no other occupation was linked to paedophilia in reports. (I understand that the references to "paedophile farmer" occurred when a social worker wrote to the Irish Times to enquire why it never used such terms and a farmer then wrote in to protest!). The Irish Times is anti-clerical in the same way other publications are anti-Semitic or racist.
[Statistics are from an article by Michael Breen in the Winter 2000 issue of the Jesuit journal 'Studies'. ]

9. Bruce Arnold’s article about Letterfrack in the Irish Independent on 18 June 2003 which claimed that "boys are buried in the woods as well". Garda Superintendent Tony O’Dowd told the Irish Catholic (9 and 16 January 2003) "there was no evidence available that would suggest that foul play led to the deaths of anyone buried inside or outside of the cemetery at the old industrial school of Letterfrack". Mr. Arnold should be asked to produce his evidence.

10. Finally though it did not involve a murder allegation I would request the Commission to question Paul Williams of the Sunday World about his repulsive allegations against Nora Wall on 11 July 1999 i.e. that she had procured children for Fr. Brendan Smyth. Former residents and a "counselor" - all un-named- are quoted in support of the allegations. Who are these people and whom else have they made allegations against?

Nora Wall won damages against the Sunday World. However the story of her "victory" was buried by the media. I myself saw it by accident, in a short article in Phoenix on 8 November 2002, which failed to mention the nature of the libel or the name of the journalist responsible. Paul Williams is now Crime Editor for the Sunday World. I think he was Crime Correspondent in July 1999, which suggests that he has been promoted since the libel!

Reaction of the Irish Human Rights Commission 
They said these allegations were a matter for the Director of Public Prosecutions. I already told them he had refused to prosecute two sets of "Murder of the Undead" allegations - by Patrick Walsh and Gerry Kelly - under the Incitement to Hatred Act. (See nos 1 and 2 above).  However he prosecuted a bus driver for telling a black passenger to "go back where you came from" and the driver was convicted of incitement!

They also said that this issue was not in their 3 year Plan. However one of the Commissioners is taking a case to the Supreme Court to have her lesbian marriage recognised in this country.  She is being supported by the IHRC so presumably THAT is in their Plan!

THE REASON WHY 
And my own motivation? I once had a teacher, a De La Salle Brother called Maurice Kirk who became one of the main influences on my life. He died in a car crash on 10 April 1974 but I remember him still. A bit like "Tom Brown's Schooldays" really!

Rory Connor

Subsequent Episode of Blood Libel - Alan Shatter T.D. in 2009

When I wrote to the Sunday Tribune in 2006, I thought that the claims of child murder directed against Catholic Religious were more or less finished. Our anti-clerics had come to recognise that it was counter-productive to make allegations that could be disproved - and murder claims definitely fall into that category! However the publication of the Report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse (Ryan Report) in May 2009 encouraged our more fanatical anti-clerics to try again. I have written about former Minster for Justice and Equality Alan Shatter in a previous article. In 2009 he was a Fine Gael backbencher and I think, their spokesman for Justice and Equality (!). 

In my article "The Maurice McCabe Affair - Six Top Level Resignations To Date (and More to Come?)",  I wrote concerning Shatter:
Alan Shatter: In 2009 Shatter demanded - and got - a high level Garda investigation into allegations that the Catholic Church had been involved in the unsolved murder of  a 10 year old girl Bernadette Connolly, four decades previously in 1970. A year later he was told by the then Minister for Justice Dermot Ahern (Fianna Fail) that no evidence of such collusion had been found. A few months after that, Fianna Fail were out of power and in March 2011, Shatter himself became Minister for Justice in the new Fine Gael government. There was not a word from him subsequently about Bernadette Connolly, so we can assume that he did not suspect that Fianna Fail had colluded with the Gardai investigators to protect the Church! However Shatter further aggravated an existing climate of public hysteria - and fell victim to it himself three years later.
I think that may well be the final time in this country that a "respectable" politician, journalist or leader of a "Victims'" organisation demands an official inquiry into claims that the Catholic Church murdered children! It is ironic that it was a Jewish member of Dail Eireann who made that demand.