The Apologies of the Sisters of Mercy - and the Visit of Pope Francis to Ireland

Chief Apologiser Sister Helena O'Donoghue 

I have an article on my old website IrishSalem.com concerning the Irish Sisters of Mercy - and their policy of abasing themselves before people who make false allegations of child abuse. It begins as follows:

Together with the Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Mercy have been THE major target for false accusations since at least 1996. The Sisters policy of apologising to false accusers has had disastrous consequences - and not only for themselves. They appear to believe that a false accuser is a "deeply hurt" person and that an apology will lead to "healing and reconciliation". The outcome of this policy is that no distinction is made between vicious fraudsters and people who may have a genuine grievance. Not surprisingly, their apologies have been met with loathing and ridicule but other religious orders have followed suit and eventually the Bishops themselves, (even though the latter had initially defended themselves strongly to the extent of suing media that slandered them).

I recently posted two comments on an article in America Magazine entitled U.S. Sisters Demand Action on Sexual Abuse Crisis by Michael J. O'Loughlin. The "action" the American Sisters are demanding is that they be protected from sexual abuse and harassment "perpetrated by those in positions of trust in the church community". [my emphasis]. This demand does not seem to refer to harassment from persons making false allegations of child abuse, child rape and child murder. Do American nuns really not face this problem - which is a major issue in Ireland? Or can it be that the group referred to in the article the "Leadership Conference of Women Religious" [LCMR] have no interest in defending their falsely accused colleagues? The latter is certainly the case in Ireland. The Irish counterpart of the the American group is the Association of Leaders of Missionaries and Religious of Ireland [AMRI] . This Association is led by the Sisters of Mercy who have gone out of their way in attempting to appease people who despise them!

First Comment re Article "US Sisters Demand Action on Sexual Abuse Crisis"

Rory Connor  - 7 August 2018

I sent a message to the American Religious Sisters of Mercy concerning their counterparts in Ireland; the latter took the side of people who made false allegations of child rape and murder against their own colleagues - and failed to withdraw their support from false accusers even when the Court of Criminal Appeal issued a Certificate of Miscarriage of Justice to one former nun! I wrote:

Regarding the visit of Pope Francis to Ireland, can the Irish Sisters take this opportunity to withdraw their apology to the accusers of Nora Wall (formerly Sister Dominic). See Wikipedia article on Nora Wall. Also reprimand our current Minister for Justice Charlie Flanagan for repeating in 2009 a libel for which Nora Wall had received damages from the Sunday World in 2002. He did so under Parliamentary Privilege and the Irish Sisters said nothing at the time.

My blog is http://IrishSalem.blogspot.com and the Profile section contains a link to my Background.

Finally the Irish Sisters should withdraw their apology to the Howe family who accused Sister Xavieria Lally of murdering baby Marion Howe with a red hot poker in 1955. The Howe's made that claim in an article in the Daily Mirror on 11 October 1997. Try googling the headline
"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".

Daily Mirror executives rightly believed that the Sisters of Mercy would not object and would prevent Sister Xavieria from defending herself or suing for libel. An article in the far more "respectable" Irish Times on the same date observed: "Why then has the order issued qualified apologies? Why has it paid compensation to the Howes, albeit a relatively meagre sum? Is there not a tacit admission here that what these people say happened did happen? Or are we to believe that the Sisters of Mercy have taken to paying compensation and issuing apologies for things that didn't happen at all?"

In contrast Nora Wall, no longer a Sister of Mercy, successfully sued the Sunday World for libel in 2002, received a Certificate of Miscarriage of Justice from the Court of Criminal Appeal in 2005 and successfully sued the Irish Government and Director of Public Prosecutions in 2016 (after a battle lasting a decade which her former colleagues ignored). Sister Xavieria is now deceased but is owed an apology by her colleagues who betrayed her and allowed her to be vilified precisely because she did NOT leave the Congregation. The visit of Pope Francis, the Pope of compassion should motivate those colleagues to repent and - at the very least - withdraw their apologies to those who slandered Nora Wall and Sister Xavieria.

No reply from either the Irish Sisters of Mercy - or their American counterparts. I presume the latter are part of the group who are now criticising the Bishops for failing to protect nuns!!

Second Comment re Article "US Sisters Demand Action on Sexual Abuse Crisis"

Elaine Boyle - 8 August 2018
Laicize, excommunicate, prosecute

Rory Connor - 10 August 2018
WHO exactly do you mean? My information about the Religious Sisters of Mercy in Ireland is that there was a conflict between Liberals and Conservatives in the Congregation about how to deal with a avalanche of allegations, some of which were impossible to disprove 40 or 50 years later but others were either proven to be false (rape allegations against Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe) or OBVIOUSLY ludicrous from the beginning (murder allegation against the late Sister Xavieria Lally).

The Conservatives wanted the Congregation leaders to defend the innocent and to condemn false accusers. The "Liberals" - who predominated in the leadership - took the view that even women who told obvious lies about the nuns must have been deeply hurt by the Church in order to say such things; therefore the proper response to their pain was to apologise to them and to pay "compensation", for which no proof of wrongdoing would be required. By a truly incredible co-incidence, the younger liberal leaders who took this decision were not themselves the target of the obscene allegations - it was the older nuns who objected to this approach and it was THEY who were thrown to the wolves!

The above article by Michael J. McLoughlin is entitled "U.S. Sisters Demand Action on Sexual Abuse Crisis". Would I be correct in assuming that the Leadership Conference of Women Religious whom he quotes, have never condemned false allegations against clergy or nuns? Also that the Religious Sisters of Mercy in the USA are members of this Leadership Conference??

Apart from the Wikipedia article on Nora Wall, there is an article by Breda O'Brien in the Irish Jesuit Review 'Studies' entitled "Miscarriage of Justice: Paul McCabe and Nora Wall"

It focuses on the homeless schizophrenic man whom the Irish Sisters of Mercy ALSO betrayed. (See NOTES [1] and [2])

"Out of the mouth of babes and sucklings hast thou ordained strength"

The above quote comes from the King James Bible translation of Psalm 8:2. In this particular case, strength and wisdom come from the internet magazine SpikedOnLine which is edited by atheist Irishman Brendan O'Neill. A recent article "Can Poetry Survive Outrage Culture" was penned by writer Candice Holdsworth. It concerns the sad fate of a poet Anders Carlson-Wee who was savaged by an online social,media mob for a poem published in the (very liberal) Nation magazine last month. Once the mob denounced the poem as non-PC, the two poetry editors at the Nation who had accepted it, completely backed away from the work and published an apology, which they posted above the poem. They said they had made ‘a serious mistake’, were sorry ‘for the pain we have caused to the many communities affected by this poem’, and planned to ‘earn the trust back’ of their readers. Poet Carlson-Wee also grovelled. 

It's very reminiscent of the behaviour of the Irish Sisters of Mercy abasing themselves before false accusers in the hope of "healing their pain" and "promoting reconciliation"! Two readers who commented on Holdsworth's article explained the mentality very well.

mouseketeery 
The poet's self-abasement had the usual effect - the mob smelled blood and doubled-down on the claimed outrage. His cringing and cowering statement was itself deemed 'problematic' and full of 'thought-crime'.

Never apologise to these buggers, it won't get them off your back. You can never be apologetic enough and they don't ever accept it as contrition, just as an admission of guilt for which there is no redemption.

Mark Beal reply to mouseketeery 
Besides, does anyone actually believe the apologies? They only thing the apologizing party achieves is severely diminishing the amount of respect anyone has for them, and probably their own self-respect.

NOTES regarding Pablo McCabe

[1] Paul (Pablo) McCabe was Nora Wall's co-accused and the "homeless schizophrenic man whom the Irish Sisters of Mercy ALSO betrayed". He was the ultimate victim of this miscarriage of justice. Obviously he had no money but prior to 1999, no woman had ever been convicted of rape in Ireland so Regina Walsh fingered him as the main rapist and claimed that Nora Wall had held her down while Pablo had raped her. Her intention was to claim "compensation" from the Sisters of Mercy; Pablo was "collateral damage"!

Breda O'Brien's article in Studies Review in Winter 2006 focuses on Paul McCabe and indicates how the very Merciful Sisters originally favoured him:

Paul McCabe addressed a Diocesan Gathering of Mercy Sisters in Gracedieu in Waterford in 1988. His account tells of being born in Dublin in 1949 to a single mother. She struggled on until Paul was three, but she ‘had great difficulty in working, paying for accommodation and paying someone to look after me.” Thus he came to live in what was to become known as the “ old St. Michael’s”, a junior industrial school run by the Sisters of Mercy in Cappoquin. His memories of that time are “very happy ones of caring and interested women.” He then went to the Industrial School at Artane, Dublin, which he found traumatic, as it had “over nine hundred boys in a very strict set-up.”.....

So when Pablo could be presented as a victim of the Patriarchy, the Sisters allowed him to  address one of their annual meetings. It's difficult to imagine John Charles McQuaid, the doyen of the Irish Catholic Church in the  20th century doing anything similar. But McQuaid would never have betrayed an innocent man (and one of his own priests) as the Sisters betrayed Pablo McCabe and Nora Wall!

[2] This is the text of the Sisters of Mercy apology to Regina Walsh - as per the Wikipedia article on the case:
"We are all devastated by the revolting crimes which resulted in these verdicts. Our hearts go out to this young woman who, as a child, was placed in our care. Her courage in coming forward was heroic. We beg anyone who was abused whilst in our care to go to the Gardaí."

The article continues:
Even after the collapse of the case against the two accused, the Sisters of Mercy made no effort to apologise to Wall or to withdraw their statement of support for Walsh. One commentator remarked: "The young woman their hearts were going out to, was the false accuser, not their own innocent nun. Our absolutist system had seduced them into identifying with the accuser and betraying their own sister."


The media which had savaged Nora Wall ("Vile Nun", "Pervert Nun", "I Was Raped by Anti-Christ") put no pressure on the leaders of the Sisters of Mercy to withdraw their apology. As for their own consciences - well perhaps the visit of Pope Francis will cause the Merciful Sisters to reconsider their behaviour??

Forgiveness of Clerical Child Abusers? Response by former victim Santiago Cruz

Sister Camille D'Arienzo

[ Sister Camille D'Arienzo is a Sister of Mercy in the United States (Mid-Atlantic Community). I am quite hostile to the Sisters of Mercy in Ireland, due to their habit of apologising to those who make false accusations of child abuse and paying them large sums of money in an attempt to "heal their pain"! I have written about that HERE. However Sister Camille wrote a very interesting article in (the Jesuit) America Magazine in August 2008 entitled "Mercy Toward Our Fathers: Difficult as it may be, forgiving priests guilty of abuse could be the key to healing". It attracted an even more remarkable response from Santiago Cruz, a man who had himself been the victim such abuse. ]

The following is a comment by Santiago Cruz – once a victim of sexual assault – following an article in ‘AMERICA’ August 18-25, 2008 on the subject of Forgiveness of Clerical Child Abusers

I was a victim of sexual assault. I use the word “was” because I remained a victim until I forgave my abuser and moved on with my life, a process that concluded some years ago. Having said that, I want to comment on “Mercy Toward Our Fathers” by Sister Camille D’Arienzo, and on some of what has been posted here in the aftermath of this excellent article.

As a Catholic and sexual abuse “survivor,” I watched with much concern as the priesthood scandal unfolded in 2002.1 was riveted to the story of one of the victims, a middle -aged man who angrily revealed in front of TV cameras the harm done to him some thirty years ago. I listened as this man blamed everything that had ever gone wrong in his life on the priest who took advantage of him. I listened as his lawyer held press conferences describing why his scores of clients each deserved enhanced settlements from the Church (minus a 40 percent contingency fee, of course). Six years went by, and I recently listened again as the same man addressed a meeting of Voice of the Faithful (VOTF) saying the very same things he said six years ago. The only addition – a six-figure settlement and a personal meeting with the Holy Father notwithstanding – was a claim that the Church has not done enough to ease his suffering or to respond to the crisis.

I listened as someone in these pages equated such suffering with the horrors of the Holocaust. I have listened enough. I will not hear another word from these so-called survivors and groups like VOTF that seem intent upon enabling them to never move on. I have heard enough.

It was the comparison with the Holocaust that has driven me over the edge. I have never before heard such narcissistic, self-serving, irresponsible rhetoric, and I will not hear any more of it. It offends every part of me, but it especially offends that part of me that worked so hard to recover from sexual victimization. Enough is enough. The sexual abuse of minors has been an epidemic in our society, and we have found a convenient scapegoat in the small percentage of priests who offended and in a Church that failed to act in 1975 as it would in 2005. There will not be true justice for victims until we move beyond the false notion that the Church and priesthood have been a special locus of sexual abuse, a myth that has benefited no one but personal injury lawyers and THEIR enablers in SNAP and VOTF.  [SNAP = "Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests"]

There will not be justice for victims until every institution in our culture embraces the transparency that has been embraced by the Catholic Church. Where is the public release of documents about accused clergy from other denominations? Why are public schools shielded from civil liability for abuse? Most alarming of all is the rhetoric about the so-called “cycle of abuse.” Why did Congressman Foley get to shift blame for his own misconduct on the priest he claimed abused him? The so-called cycle of victim-hood is such a convenient phenomenon. If it is true, then who is keeping an eye on the hundreds of middle-aged men who have received windfall financial settlements claiming abuse by priests in their childhoods?

As long as we allow VOTF, SNAP and others with an agenda to keep us bound up in the cycle of blame and vilification and loathing, there can be no healing for the victims, for the Church, for anyone. It is time for some of the so-called victim advocates in this picture to recognize that they are doing far more harm than good. I applaud Sister D’Arienzo for having the courage to write so openly against a seeming tidal wave of angry, unproductive rhetoric. Arguing for anything less than forgiveness and healing is to perpetrate and perpetuate abuse. It is time to turn off the TV cameras, send the lawyers packing, stop vilifying the new class of lepers we have created among the accused in our Church, and act like the Catholic Christians most of us strive to be. 
             
Santiago Cruz 
Santiago Cruz writes from Los Angeles

There was a follow-up Comment in  America Magazine in November 2008 by Ryan A. MacDonald

Re: Mercy toward our Fathers (Sr. Camille D'Arienzo, America 8/18) 

After reading Sr. Camille's wonderful article, I followed the comments here with some agreement, but much concern for the tone of most. How interesting that the view of Santiago Cruz seemed to be the final word. Well, I want to echo the thoughts of Mr. Cruz. He wrote what I believe many Catholics have thought and felt for some time, but have been hesitant to write for fear of being demonized by SNAP, VOTF and other "advocates."

 I agree with Mr. Cruz that real advocacy would lead victims to survive their victim-hood, not to wallow in it, profit from it, engage in smear campaigns because of it. I do not blame the victims of clergy sexual abuse for being hurt and angry, but no one should be more alarmed, insulted, and dispirited by false claims than real victims of sexual abuse. I believe that many of those who have used the current climate to demand financial settlements with no offer of proof are victims of nothing more than their own greed and lack of morally guiding principles. 

Santiago Cruz is right. Why is the victim of a priest so much more harmed than the victim of a teacher or coach, or minister? Yet teachers and school systems - which have been proven to have exponentially greater incidences of abuse - are exempt from litigation and vicarious responsibility. Why are SNAP and VOTF okay with that? The fact that they seem to have nothing to say about it is evidence that they are merely using The Scandal for some other agenda that has nothing to do with protecting children.

 I recently read that SNAP called a press conference from the office of a contingency lawyer to announce a lawsuit against the Jesuits because of the alleged behavior of a now elderly priest over 40 years ago. No one can prove or disprove such a claim, but the smear campaign and bullying into a lucrative settlement are already well underway.

 It is time for SNAP and VOTF to fold up and go away. They have done far more harm than good to real victims of abuse like Santiago Cruz. I thank him for opening my eyes to this. The only way VOTF can survive and serve our Church is to publicly denounce SNAP, its tactics, and its open promotion of contingency lawyers' goal to bankrupt Catholic institutions and then move on to some other trough. 

The abuse scandal is over. What we are seeing now is the abuse of the abuse scandal, and some rather shameless profiteering by what has become a gang of thugs masked as advocates. It's time for the Church's leaders to be shepherds again, and not sheep to be fleeced. It is time for them to stop throwing their priests to the litigious wolves. Greed ranks right up there with lust among the Seven Deadly Sins.

 Ryan A. MacDonald 

by Ryan A. MacDonald on November 22, 2008 at 10:31 PM 

Satanic Ritual Abuse in Ireland (and the Shortage thereof) vs "Normal" False Allegations

Cynthia Owen - the "Dalkey House of Horrors" is only Irish case of  Satanic Ritual Abuse

INTRODUCTION: Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) and "Victimless Murders"

This is an extract from 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". (My previous article "Recovered Memory in Ireland" includes material from the same discussion).

During the discussion, I suggest that SRA in the UK, is the equivalent of what I have described in Ireland as "Victimless Murders" i.e. allegations that the Irish Christian Brothers murdered young boys in industrial schools - at times when no boy died of ANY cause! (I also refer to this phenomenon as  "Murder of the Undead".)  For many years the latter lunacy was confined to Ireland but in 2008 it seems to have migrated to the UK in the shape of the Haut de la Garenne "scandal" on the island of Jersey when the local police spent 6 months digging up the former residential school in an attempt to find the murdered bodies of non-existent boys!

Note that I concluded my initial comment with the statement "Anyway I wouldn't be too hopeful about any major changes in 2016 - in Ireland or the UK!" Since then the Wiltshire police have conducted a major investigation into allegations of child abuse and murder against the former British Prime Minister Edward Heath who died in 2005. (This was "Operation Conifer" - a follow up to the equally ludicrous "Operation Midland" by the London Metropolitan Police) The accusers included six persons who made claims of Satanic Ritual Abuse and the Wiltshire police actually spent time looking into those claims before ultimately dismissing them. Well what a relief! However it's clear that I was correct in December 2015 and Luke Gittos hopes were vain.

DISCUSSION ON SPIKED-ONLINE WEBSITE - December 2015

Kilbarry1 - reply to Luke Gittos 
"In 2015... wider society started to recognise that a climate had developed around allegations of child-sexual abuse and rape that was not conducive to fairness and impartiality .... Some observers recognised that the climate that Yewtree had created had been over the top ......There is hope on the horizon ......" [quoted from the article by Luke Gittos]

Dream on. I have been following the child abuse hysteria in Ireland for the best part of 20 years now and I have seen hope come and go, on more than one occasion. In 2003/04 there seemed to be a major change. The Gardai (police) had spent years investigating claims of child murder by the Christian Brothers in Letterfrack and Artane - including one highly publicised exhumation - and they were sick of it. There were a couple of child rape trials that ended in a fiasco for the prosecution, especially that of (former Sister of Mercy) Nora Wall AND allegations against Irish Bishops that were so crazy that even anti-clerics were embarrassed. (One writer REGRETTED that historic claims of pedophilia against Ireland's most famous churchman John Charles McQuaid, were so ludicrous that they might create sympathy for the late Archbishop). In 2003 an organisation "Let Our Voices Emerge", was founded to represent victims of false allegations of child abuse and the founder, Florence Horsman Hogan, persuaded the Christian Brothers to issue a strong statement about such allegations. Several articles appeared in Irish and UK newspapers about the victims of false claims and even the anti-clerical Irish Times wrote about a "Salem Witch-hunt".

So what happened? Well the 2003 statement was almost the last attempt by a male-dominated Irish Church to stand up for itself. In the mid 1990s the Bishops had successfully threatened to sue the UK Guardian and TV3 for libel and forced both to apologise, but 10 years later the male establishment was giving way to female leadership who more or less took over the Conference of Religious Superiors. The nuns were very conscious of the "pain" felt by people making allegations of child abuse - especially the Sisters of Mercy who took the view that even those who made transparently false claims (including child murder), must have suffered deeply to cause them to act thus. Therefore the proper Christian response was to apologise to such accusers, in order to "heal their pain".

In 2004 the nuns issued their FOURTH apology, in which they made it clear that they unhesitatingly accepted the bona fides of all their accusers. The roof then fell in. One journalist ,who had been writing about false allegations, decided that the Religious were imbeciles and represented no threat; so he reverted to his previous anti-clerical stance. (So I was told by someone who knew him). Other journalists followed suit. Also in 2004 a new Archbishop of Dublin was appointed who took the same stance as the nuns etc.

How much of this is relevant to the UK? Well maybe the rise of female leaders, the feminization of their male counterparts, the glorification of "victims" and the idea that, even their lies are the product of some real suffering at the hands of the male patriarchy??

Anyway I wouldn't be too hopeful about any major changes in 2016 - in Ireland or the UK!

Conversation with Nick

Nick: first reply to   Kilbarry1 
I hear what your saying- these things come & go in waves. But like the ebb tide, the overall trend is receding.

At the end of the day, if the bastards are reduced to pinning accusations on the dead, so be it. You can say I molested 10,000 kids when I'm in my grave for all it will bother me. I know it hurts, but we need more of the deceased family members to come out and openly ridicule complainants' claims- that will hurt them more than anything.

Kilbarry1: first reply to  Nick 
I hope you are correct and possibly you are, in relation to the UK. I have seen many signs of hope appear in Ireland over the years - and be crushed not only by thuggish journalists and politicians, but also by the decadence of some Church leaders - mainly nuns but at least two bishops also.

The current position here, is that the Sisters of Mercy are well aware that their strategy of apologizing to false accusers (in order to heal their pain) has been a catastrophic failure. However they have gutted their credibility and their morale to such an extent that they are LITERALLY beyond redemption. The former male leaders of the Church - both Bishops and Religious superiors - had put up a reasonable fight. I would have preferred them to have done more, but they MIGHT have succeeded if their efforts had not been sabotaged by "liberal" nuns who thought they were transcending ideals like truth and justice, when they were actually perverting them in the name of a bogus "Christian charity". The male leaders have now run out of steam and a couple have copied the nuns in supporting false allegations against their own colleagues. The latter includes the current Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin! ***

Therefore I am VERY cynical about the possibility of any improvement in Ireland - but perhaps the future is brighter in the UK!

***[NOTE dated 17 Feb 2018: The now retired Bishop of Killaloe, Willie Walsh showed a similar tendency to support false accusers against his own priests.]


Nick: second reply to Kilbarry1 
"...their strategy of apologizing to false accusers (in order to heal their pain) has been a catastrophic failure"

And that's key. In the wake of Savile, some (like Stuart Hall) were persuaded to 'confess' in order to assist in the 'healing' process. It's now clear that there is absolutely zero benefit to doing this for the accused- Hall even had his 'unduly lenient' sentence increased after conviction! Once people stand and fight, the emptiness of the Emperor's wardrobe will be revealed...

Kilbarry1: second reply to Nick 
On the basis of my experience in Ireland, I would suggest that one useful strategy is to constantly remind people that some very serious allegations of child abuse are OBVIOUSLY false. Remember the six months of media (and police) hysteria in 2008 about supposed bodies of murdered children at the residential home on Jersey - all sparked off by the discovery of part of a "child's skull" that turned out to be the fragment of a coconut shell! That lunacy has fallen completely out of public consciousness. If even the police had remembered it, they might not have been so keen to believe the recent allegations about Tory MPs murdering five children. As at Haut de la Garenne in Jersey, no names of missing murdered children were even mentioned in relation to the Westminster "scandal". I coined the phrases "Murder of the Undead" and "Victimless Murders" to describe similar claims in Ireland.

I would say that in Ireland, THIS specific kind of lunacy is practically finished - there have been hardly any such allegations since about 2010. The CHIEF reason is that the Gardai (police) are absolutely sick of the hysteria and the associated waste of police time but I hope that my own one-man-campaign had some influence. Is there anyone who could persuade Irish and UK security representatives to get together for a discussion on this subject? I don't think the Gardai will take the lead as it's something of a sore point for them. Are there any open-minded UK top cops who might request advise from their former colonial subjects?? We CAN assist you in your enquiries!

Conversations with Tom Burkard and Gordon McKenzie

Tom Burkard: response to Luke Gittos 
In all this child abuse hysteria, we seem to have forgotten the Cleveland scandal of the late 1980s, when Dr Marietta Higgs and Dr Geoffrey Wyatt removed 121 children from their parents on their diagnosis of rape made on the basis of their 'anal dilation' test. Had they not been fanatics like one of the more conspicuous posters on this thread, they might have troubled themselves to try their test on all children: on this basis, every child in the world would have been raped. We have had similar examples in the Orkneys and Rochdale where social workers and medical personnel were quite frankly deranged, and used the most unscrupulous means to get 'evidence' of abuse.

I once accompanied a single father to hospital--his 4-yr-old son had been with us when we stopped off for a pint. The boy fell off a bar stool and got a severe nose bleed. The father was reluctant to take him into the doctor, because he came from a working class home and he knew how he'd be received. The following day it was pretty obvious the boy's nose was broken, so he took him in to see his GP. Quite predictably, he was ordered to report to the nearest hospital, and he phoned me and asked me to go along. As I was the director of a children's charity, he hoped that they would take me word.

In fact it took a long time before I had a chance to say a word. Nurses and doctors fell upon us like vultures, making no attempt to disguise their glee at finding another 'victim'. The poor kid had his anus examined by three separate doctors--if that isn't child abuse, I'd like to know what is.

Fortunately, the registrar was a young German woman who quite clearly didn't think a lot of her colleagues. At last the father and I had a chance to say what happened. I'm glad to say that she didn't find it necessary to contact the landlord of the pub, who also witnessed the accident.

At around the same time, a friend of mine--an Army Officer--and his wife decided not to take their 9-mo-old son to a doctor after he'd got a second-degree burn. Even 'respectable' middle-class people were terrified of abuse allegations.

Long before this, my sister 'recovered' memories of child abuse and caused great distress in our family. She was so convincing that even I started to wonder if there might be something in it--until she made an allegation that could not possibly have occurred.

Of course, neither I nor anyone else has any evidence to prove how prevalent sexual abuse of children may be. This is all the more reason to let the legal system take its course--and to end the scandalous abuse of family courts, where due process is ignored, and reporting banned. When I was running the children's charity, BBC4's Children's Affairs reporter warned me to stay out of the clutches of social workers: she knew what happens when cases are tried in camera.

Courts of law are not infallible, but the only alternative is anarchy.

Kilbarry1: reply to Tom Burkard 
The late cultural historian Richard Webster suggested to me that the reason Ireland had practically no Satanic Ritual Abuse (SRA) cases was the influence of the Catholic Church and its strong opposition to Freudian ideas. The Church opposed Freudianism because of the implications for Catholic doctrines regarding sin, free will and personal responsibility. Richard Webster was an atheist (NOT of the Dawkins persuasion) but he was also a major critic of Freud and and believed that SRA was a logical development of his ideas.

Based on what Richard Webster suggested, I developed my own theory that false allegations of child murder in Ireland are our equivalent of SRA - except that in OUR case Freudian delusions are replaced by open lying. (I am thinking in particular of the cases where no child died of ANY cause during the period in question). However I don't know enough about Freud and he didn't know enough about Ireland to prove anything of the sort. It could be a useful subject for a law graduate looking for a doctoral thesis!

Incidentally the 2008 hysteria about child-killing in Jersey was possibly based on the with-hunt in Ireland re the old industrial school at Letterfrack in Co Galway. Letterfrack is as remote a location in my country as the island of Jersey is vis a vis the UK. Also the Jersey policeman largely responsible was born in Derry!


Gordon McKenzie: reply to Kilbarry1 
My mother was a disciple of the blessed Sigmund, and when I arrived in England in my late 20s I was relieved to find that Freud worship was a decidedly marginal enthusiasm. I never had the patience to read any of his gospels, and regarded advocates of psychoanalysis as narcissistic obsessives. However, I'm not sure how this could have developed into SRA. It's an interesting theory, and I'd be obliged if you could spell it out. I assume this entails something more than an obsessive antipathy to the church.


Kilbarry1: Reply to Gordon McKenzie 
Sorry I can only provide some limited guidance. Richard Webster's website is still maintained by his friends and includes several of his articles on Freud.

I find the theory behind his thesis difficult to understand. I think he is saying that modern society thought it had dispensed with the concepts of Sin, Evil and the Devil but that Freud was a kind of secular Messiah who brought them back in secular form. One of my difficulties with Webster's THEORY is that he emphasizes that Freud re-established the Christian doctrine of Original Sin. However that doctrine states that evil is a basic - although not dominant - element in human nature and that therefore we are all sinful. I would have thought that this doctrine works AGAINST the modern tendency to see child sex abusers as sub-human vermin. Evil is within us and we are not going to eradicate it by transferring our guilt and demonizing any section of humanity no matter how nasty their behaviour.

From a pragmatic point of view however, I think that Webster's theory has a lot to be said for it. Ireland is much influenced by American and British culture. Yet we had practically no trace at all of the Satanic Ritual Abuse hysteria. I can think of only one partial exception. That was in relation to the "Dalkey House of Horrors" case, where evidently real allegations of abuse were mixed up with some fantasies - including a hint of SRA.
http://www.alliancesupport.org/

"Two psychologists today told Dublin County Coroner Dr Kieran Geraghty that they were in no doubt that Cynthia Owen had been raped and gave birth to a baby that had been murdered.

The inquest [held in 2007] heard the 45-year-old told Dr Dawn Henderson that she had been the victim of satanic abuse and also mentioned a paedophile ring, details of which she did not want disclosed at the hearing."

The lady in question was born in Ireland but spent decades in the UK - which I think is very significant. I suspect that the absence of SRA here (and the lesser role of Recovered Memory compared to the US and UK) is due to the influence of the Catholic Church. OK this does not constitute scientific proof but I still think that it might provide a thesis for a law student to investigate.

THE "DALKEY HOUSE OF HORRORS" and SATANIC RITUAL ABUSE

Cynthia Owen was born in Dalkey, Co Dublin in 1961 and grew up locally in a family that was highly dysfunctional. Her parents were alcoholics and two of Cynthia’s eight siblings, and a niece who was reared with them, took their own lives in adulthood. Her niece left a detailed account of sexual abuse in their childhood home. In 1977, at the age of 15, Cynthia escaped her home when she was sent to live with relatives in Wales. She has, to a large degree, lived in the UK since, where she is happily married with a son.

In 1995, she made a number of allegations about abuse in the home in which she grew up. Included in this was an allegation that she was the mother of a baby found stabbed to death in Dún Laoghaire in 1973. She claimed that her pregnancy had been the result of rape when she was 11. [A coroner’s court  ruled in 2007 that she was the mother of the murdered baby but her father and three of her sisters disputed this.]

Over the years after 1995 she also alleged that her parents — both of whom are deceased — hired her out to a paedophile ring consisting of a total of 12 local men - including three who were Gardaí (Irish police).  She said this arrangement sometimes happened through her father’s role as caretaker in the local hall, where he came into contact with these men. One of the men Frank Mullen is a retired member of the Gardaí and a founding member of the Garda Representative Association. He went public and spoke to the Irish Examiner newspaper.

Frank Mullen says he can’t fathom how his name, or that of the other men, were the subject of these allegations. “All of us whom she accused were well known within the community so maybe that was why she used our names. That’s the only reason we can think of,” he told Michael Clifford a journalist for the Irish Examiner in May 2016. Mullen, aged 78 in 2016, had been investigated a number of times by gardaí. On eight occasions a file was sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. Each time the DPP recommended no prosecution. In 2007 - following the verdict of the coroner's court -  the case was also examined by senior counsel Patrick Gageby on behalf of the then Minister for Justice Michael McDowell.  No further action was recommended by the barrister. The allegations were also investigated by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) in 2011, which told Mr Mullen that nothing had been proven against him.


Satanic Ritual Abuse
The HSE told Frank Mullen in 2011 that among the allegations against him that it was investigating, was one that Cynthia Owen had been “brought to Dalkey Island on two or three times where she was abused in a ‘satanic’ way. There were goats involved in the ritual.”

In January 2016, Cynthia Owen uploaded further allegations on a Facebook page. She identified Frank Mullen by name, along with others who she claims abused her. One line of the post stated: “I was also taken to a place called the Hellfire club in Rathfarnham by garda Frank Mullen and sold to me there too during the satanic abuse rituals [sic].”

This was the first time Mr Mullen had ever heard an allegation of taking her to the Hellfire club, which is located in Rathfarnham, some 15km from Dalkey village. The posting was taken down within a week.

Frank Mullen died in July 2017. In an Irish Examiner article entitled "Frank Mullen Dies Trying To Clear His Name", Michael Clifford wrote about the virtual impossibility of being able to disprove an allegation of historic sex abuse. Seven of the 12 men, Cynthia Owen named as members of a "paedophile ring" were deceased at that stage. Mr Mullen was named by Ms Owen as a main mover in this group but no other person had come forward to claim to have been a victim of the alleged ring.

Clifford wrote:
"He was left with a conundrum: How do you disprove an allegation of historic sexual abuse? Recently, in a different context at the Charleton tribunal, it was suggested that that kind of allegation is “undisprovable”.

"There is no forensic evidence. There are no witnesses. In most cases the circumstantial evidence is threadbare. To a large extent it is entirely down to the word of the alleged perpetrator and alleged victim. This makes an allegation difficult to prove for a criminal prosecution, but at least as difficult to disprove in the court of public opinion. .......

There is rarely much help for somebody trying to disprove these kinds of allegations. Not from politicians, for whom the cause could easily lose votes. Most of the media shy away also. Everybody is acutely aware of the history of a failure to listen to abuse victims. "


Cynthia Owen and the Catholic Church
There seems to be no direct link in this saga, with allegations of child abuse against the Catholic Church.  However in 2010 Cynthia Owen published a book about her life "Living With Evil" and I was not particularly surprised to find the following passage - regarding her time in the local Convent school:

Mother Dorothy marched up the steps to the rows of desks at the back getting closer and closer to mine. "does anybody know what that awful smell is"? she demanded. My stomach was doing awful somersaults by now and I was feeling very hot. I thought I might faint.

"Shall I tell you what it is", she boomed. She was sniffing very dramatically, as if she had found the source of the foul smell and she was walking straight towards me with her eyes on fire. "The smell is dirty knickers" she shrieked. I was so shocked by what she said I blushed bright scarlet. I could feel my heart pumping blood furiously to my face. Nobody ever talked about underwear in our house, let alone dirty knickers. To hear a nun say that took my breath away. 

"You might well feel embarrassed Cynthia Murphy", she went on. "You are the culprit. You are the girl wearing dirty knickers. I can smell them I can smell your dirty knickers".  I wanted to shrivel up and die with shame. My palms were sweating and I hung my head so low that the back of my neck ached, but she hadn't finished yet.

"I'm warning you Cynthia Murphy, wash them out every night or I'm doing a knicker inspection", she barked. "I'm pulling your knickers down and caning you if they are dirty." 


This is bog standard, off the shelf stuff that we have been getting since Frank McCourt started the Mis Lit genre of "literature" with Angela's Ashes! However it is the Gardai and not the Catholic Church that are the main targets in this saga.

CONCLUSION

Apart from the devastating effect on the 12 men accused (and their families) , enormous resources were expended on investigating these allegations by the police, the office of the DPP, health officials etc - without producing any concrete result. Since investigating allegations of child abuse is a specialized procedure, the persons whose time was wasted were often those who would otherwise have been working on CURRENT cases involving the safety of children.  

As far as I am aware, this is the only case in the Irish Republic that featured claims involving Satanic Ritual Abuse. However while Cynthia Owen was born in Ireland she has spent most of her life in the UK and that probably explains a great deal!

Are There Very Few False Allegations of Rape and Child Abuse? [2]

Colm O'Gorman, Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland

This is a follow up to my original article
Are There Very Few False Allegations of Rape and Child Abuse? [1]
(The first two paragraphs below are adapted from the original article. )

Colm O'Gorman and the Insignificance of False Allegations.

Colm O'Gorman is dismissive of the idea that false allegations of rape or child sex abuse, constitute a significant problem.  He wrote in the Irish Times on 29 March 2006 that:
“In the past few months a number of commentators have suggested that grave injustice is being done to priests falsely accused of child sexual abuse. Such suggestions rightly concern fair minded people, but remarkably, no evidence of any kind has been presented to suggest that false allegations are being made or that the rights of those accused are being abused.”

At the time, Colm O'Gorman was head of the child abuse victims' organisation "One In Four" which he had founded. Two years later, in February 2008 he became Executive Director of Amnesty International Ireland a post he still holds. Evidently Amnesty is in agreement with his views on the non-importance of false allegations!

In response to O'Gorman's March 2006 article,  I wrote a letter to the Irish Times. It wasn't published (I didn't expect it to be) but here it is anyway.

Editor
Irish Times

9 April 2006

Madam,
Writing in the Irish Times on 29 March last, the director of "One in Four" Colm O'Gorman made some remarkable statements in an article headed "There is no evidence to show that the rights of those accused have been abused".

Mr O'Gorman stated: "In the past few months a number of commentators have suggested that grave injustice is being done to priests falsely accused of child sexual abuse. Such suggestions rightly concern fair minded people, but remarkably, no evidence of any kind has been presented to suggest that false allegations are being made or that the rights of those accused are being abused."

Did Mr. O'Gorman never hear of the case of Nora Wall, formerly Sister Dominic of the Sisters of Mercy?  In 1999 she became the first woman in the history of the State to be convicted of raping a child AND the first person to get a life sentence for rape. She was also the first person to be convicted on the basis of "Recovered Memory Syndrome". (This kind of evidence is very rare in Ireland but has a long and infamous history in the USA).

Nora Wall was convicted on the word of two women Regina Walsh and her "witness" Patricia Phelan, BOTH of whom had made a string of allegations against other people (mainly relatives and boyfriends). The case started to collapse when they sold their story to The Star newspaper and one of the men who had been accused by Patricia Phelan read it and contacted Nora Wall's family. In December 2005 in the Court of Criminal Appeal, Patricia Phelan finally confessed publicly that she had lied.

In the same newspaper article Regina Walsh stated that she had also been raped by a "black man in Leicester Square". Again it was the first the Defence had heard of this allegation.

At the trial Regina Walsh claimed that one of the rapes occurred on her 12th birthday. She said that Nora Wall held her down while Pablo McCabe raped her. Pablo McCabe was in Mountjoy Prison on that date!! When this was pointed out to the jury they acquitted the two accused on that charge but convicted them on the other allegations. I believe that the only reason for this incredible decision is that Nora Wall had been a nun.  Does Colm O'Gorman have an alternative explanation?

Mr. O'Gorman might like to look at the Judgement of the Court of Criminal Appeal on the Nora Wall case. It is dated 16 December 2005 and is readily available on the Internet.

But perhaps the Nora Wall case is just an aberration? Consider the following.

There are  wild claims that the Christian Brothers and other religious have murdered up to 'hundreds' of the boys in their care. (For example an interview with Mannix Flynn about Letterfrack Industrial School in the Sunday Independent on 22 December 2002). Gardai at Clifden, Co Galway, investigated claims that there were bodies of boys who had died as a result of foul play buried in the grounds of Letterfrack. Early in 2003, the Gardai reported that they had found no evidence to back this up. Superintendent Tony O'Dowd said: "There was no evidence available that would suggest that foul play led to the deaths of anybody buried inside or outside of the cemetery at the old Industrial School in Letterfrack." He added: "There was no evidence of a mass grave."

Then there was the case of former Letterfrack resident, Willie Delaney. His body was exhumed in April 2001 because of claims that he had died as a result of head wounds inflicted by a Christian Brother. The subsequent autopsy revealed that he had died from natural causes and that there was no evidence of a blow to the head.

The list goes on. Patrick Flaherty, who spent some years in the Holy Family School in Renmore, Co Galway said he made two allegations against members of the Brothers of Charity because of 'false memory syndrome'. He later withdrew the allegations. He has also said that while attending a public meeting of the Laffoy Commission in 2003 he overheard other former residents discussing among themselves whether or not to accuse a particular Brother. Some in the group said the Brother had never abused anyone. Others said he should be accused anyway.

The evidence of Patrick Flaherty was not widely reported in the media (I saw it in the Irish Independent on 1st November 2003 and nowhere else). However as head of "One in Four", surely Colm O'Gorman should be aware of it?

 There is no way that Mr. O'Gorman can have missed the allegations about the "killing" of Willie Delaney. The media screamed obscenities at the Christian Brothers. About 20 April 2001,  Evening Herald posters were all over the streets of Dublin proclaiming "Now it's Murder Enquiry". Then the autopsy report was published and the entire media dropped the story like a shot. Yet this was a Blood Libel against the Christian Brothers which was no different from Nazi Blood Libels about the Jews.

Did Colm O'Gorman have anything to say at the time? Will he say something now? How can he possibly maintain that "no evidence of any kind has been presented to suggest that false allegations are being made or that the rights of those accused are being abused."

Yours etc.

Rory Connor

NOTES:
(1)  I was so sure that the Irish Times would not publish this letter that I sent it to Mr. O'Gorman on the same day saying that I did not expect publication and requesting his comments. Maybe he would care to give them now?

(2) I forgot to include the case of Waterford priest Fr Michael Kennedy. In January 2006 i.e. only two months before O'Gorman's statement, two brothers were convicted of trying to extort money from the priest by threatening to make false allegations of child abuse against him.

Colm O'Gorman and the Catholic Church

There was a discussion on the Politics.ie website in May 2009 at the time Colm O'Gorman published his biography 'Beyond Belief'. Naturally I contributed!

In reply to a comment that "It's hard to be very critical of someone who has suffered like that, even when you disagree on the most basic point, as you always have some sympathy", I wrote

I am not so sure about that. The following is part of an interview Colm O'Gorman did with Emily Hourihane in the Sunday Independent today [10 May 2009] - entitled 'The Man Who Faced His Demons'

In 'Beyond Belief', O'Gorman writes, bleakly, "there were two men living in our village who hurt children ... they raped and abused ... I was one of the children they hurt." When I ask him now how this could have happened, why he was not better protected, he responds, "because I was five at a time when this wasn't possible. It was 1971, child sexual abuse didn't exist. I didn't have anything like the level of understanding to know what was happening to me. And at that age, one of the things I knew was that grown-ups hurt you when you'd been bad. So my experience of adults who hurt me, was that they hurt me if it was my fault." ................

When he was seven or eight, an older boy from the area began abusing Colm, abuse which he was by then tragically inured to "accept as normal". 

And after that there was Father Sean Fortune who was the FOURTH person to abuse him - at the age of 14. Most people's character and personality are well formed by the time they are 14 years old. I do intend to read the book but it seems strange that Sean Fortune and the Catholic Church should be the sole focus of O'Gorman's human right's campaign.

Perhaps it's because of the power of the Church? In an interview with John Spain in the Irish Independent yesterday [9 May 2009] - entitled 'About a Boy' Colm O'Gorman explains:

"You have to remember the social and political power the priests had at the time." In the book he brilliantly describes the flagrant way Fortune would arrive in the house and be feted with food as he waited for Colm. In every house he visited in the area, O'Gorman remembers, people deferred to him and lavished attention on him. His own parents were no different."

But does that explain how two other men - and a youth - were able to abuse him, long before Father Fortune appeared on the scene? Why has O'Gorman's entire career been based on the behaviour of the fourth male to have abused him?

Colm O'Gorman and Fr Sean Fortune

Comment by 'asset test'
Yes it is strange that the other abuse happened also. The fact that O'G doesn't refer to this much is again, because those people did not have a worldwide protectorate around them like the clergy did. Maybe he now sees that as a one off travesty. However the ability of priests in any parish to do the same with impunity was rampant (not all did of course, but could have).
Institutional cover up is probably the reason for his focus on Fortune.

My Reply to 'asset test'
I wish I could be more charitable. The following is from a Profile of Colm O'Gorman that appeared in The Sunday Times on 30 April 2006 - entitled Profile: Champion for the abused valiantly joins political fray - Times Online

It was July 1984 and Colm O’Gorman wanted to tell his sister that he had been sexually abused by Fr Sean Fortune. But the words wouldn’t come. Instead, he told her he was gay and that he had been having an affair with the priest, a monstrous character who eventually committed suicide in 1999 while facing 66 charges of molesting young people.  ......When his sister Barbara tracked him down [in Dublin] in 1984, he had found a job in a restaurant and a place to stay. Even though he couldn’t tell her the truth, just telling someone he was gay helped. He became part of the gay scene in Dublin. Previously, when confused about his sexuality, he had thought of himself as “something sick and wrong and evil”, but now this changed. “I will never forget the first time I walked into a meeting and realised, ‘My God, all these people are like me’,” he has said ........

[In London] Things improved in 1994, after he trained as a physical therapist and, for the first time, began to think deeply about his teenage experience.

Word reached him that Fortune was going to celebrate a family wedding, so he didn’t attend. But the priest, according to his sister, was surrounded at the event by a crowd of teenagers. The news triggered O’Gorman into action. He went home, told his father what had happened, and then walked into Wexford garda station and made a statement in March 1995. That action triggered an investigation into Fortune’s activities and led to the uncovering of the widespread sexual abuse in the diocese of Ferns and elsewhere.

Colm O'Gorman was 18 in 1984. According to this article, he was too ashamed to tell his sister that he had been raped by Father Sean Fortune so instead told her he was gay and had an affair with the priest. Am I the only one to see something strange about that scenario? My suggestion: Colm O'Gorman was gay and had been having an affair with Father Fortune!

When O'Gorman denounced Fr Fortune in 1995, the latter was in no position to tell the Gardai that he had been having a sexual affair with O'Gorman prior to 1984. After all, that would have been statutory rape!

This may also explain why Colm O'Gorman finds it so difficult to acknowledge the fact that false allegations of child abuse are a significant problem in Ireland today.

Colm O'Gorman and the Power of the Catholic Church in 1980s Ireland

I wasn't the only one in the Politics.ie discussion to find something strange about Colm O'Gorman's narrative. The following is a comment by 'Utopian Hermit Monk'

Did anyone else hear the interview with Colm O'Gorman on this morning's Tubridy Show? [12 May 2009]link to audio

I caught the second half in the car, but I've just listened to the whole interview (almost 40 minutes).

I have to say that there is something about his story and/or his way of telling it that leaves me uneasy, because I find it very difficult to believe him. He went into detail about being repeatedly abused by a local old fellow when he was five. In spite of this happening repeatedly and, according to himself, having a devastating effect on him, absolutely nobody seems to have noticed that something was wrong. He explains away his parents' failure to notice anything, but he had five siblings, pals, teachers, etc. Apparently, nobody noticed a change in his personality, signs of depression, terror, confusion, etc.

Then, just three years later, as an 8 year old, he was sexually abused by another local - a teenager this time - and, again, nobody noticed.

Then, when he was 14, he had his first encounter with S. Fortune, who enticed him into bed and abused him, only for C.O'G. (after making a cup of tea for himself) to return to bed and, thereafter, allow Fortune to bully him into continuing the abusive relationship.

Later still, aged 17 and studying hotel management at Cathal Brugha Street, he supplemented his finances by working as a male prostitute (still unaware that he was gay - and this in 1984, not 1948!!).

Repeatedly, Colm depicts himself as lurching between exceptional self-possession (e.g., at 14, he decided to 'take charge' of the relation with Fortune, and even started addressing him as 'John' from the night of their first encounter) and exceptional innocence (in Dublin, several years after the Fortune episode, a man in a public toilet invites him back to his place, and Colm is innocent enough to think that there is nothing sinister about this).

Listening to him, I want to believe his account, but I find it impossible to do so. Even when he describes himself in the present as "a very happy man", I can't believe him. It just doesn't ring true. To me, listening to this interview, he comes across as a troubled individual.

At the end of the interview, I was curious to hear him speaking about himself and his partner having adopted children. Not having read the book, I don't understand the legal status of this adoption, but I would imagine it is unusual in Ireland.

Anyhow, I wish him well.

There followed an exchange of views between 'wexfordman' and 'Utopian Hermit Monk'

Comment by wexfordman

Yes, because in the 70's everyone was an expert in spotting children who were victims of abuse, sure you cold spot them a mile away, thats why we were so quick to react to protect the victims and punish the perpetrators

Reply by 'Utopian Hermit Monk'

wexfordman, I think there is an elaborate mythology about how benighted and innocent Ireland was back in the 70s. I am older than Mr. O'Gorman, and I can assure you that, from an early age, my schoolmates and myself were well able to spot a dodgy teacher, priest, neighbourhood pest (or even older schoolmate!). Any suspicious behaviour did not pass without comment. By the 1970s, Ireland had been well exposed to the 50s/60s 'youth culture' of sex, drugs, rock'n'roll, etc. Whatever about 'the older generation', a more or less normal teenager would have to have been suffering from sensory deprivation not to be aware of the birds and the bees, and most variations of bird/bee behaviour. It was on TV, in cinemas, in song lyrics, books, magazines, etc., etc.

Comment by wexfordman

Of course he allowed him, sure did;nt all 14 year olds know how to tackle yer basic pervert priest in the 80's, it was part of the school curriculum.

Reply by 'Utopian Hermit Monk'

I have seen several photos of Fortune, and I can assure you that if a weird looking creep like that had looked sideways at me when I was 14, I would have been fully aware of the appropriate reaction!

Comment by wexfordman

Ah, I heard differently, perhaps we both need to listen again, cos one of us got it wrong...

Reply by 'Utopian Hermit Monk'
I am listening again, just to be clear. He agrees with Tubridy's depiction of himself as 'a farm boy' (= 'innocent'?) in Dublin. He spent a few weeks with a student friend, freeloading, and then lived on the streets on and off for six months, "either on the streets ... or I'd get picked up". One night he was sleeping in an underground toilet cubicle in O'Connell Street, and a man asked him if he wanted "to do business", and he agreed (to do business) in order to have a place to sleep. He said he never made much money because "I was a bad prostitute", because he had no business sense. Well, my own recollection of coping with student penury is that there was no shortage of ways to earn a little extra income from part time jobs in bars or restaurants, etc. The best source of information on part time work was fellow students. Had Colm O'Gorman's no friends whatsoever at Cathal Brugha Street? Perhaps his book explains why not?

Comment by wexfordman

WITH REGARDS 1984 V 1948, things were not as different as you think, ffs, condoms were still prohibited, never mind homosexuality.

Reply by 'Utopian Hermit Monk'

I beg to differ. I think things were VERY different indeed. For goodness sake, this was 20 years (!) after The Beatles, Stones, Hendrix, Dylan, Late Late Show, etc., etc. By the 1980s, even Ireland had been well exposed to the best and the worst of what the post-60s world had to offer. Even the stuff that was still officially banned was available via late night British TV channels. How anyone could have remained 'sheltered' from all of that is beyond me.

Comment by wexfordman

He has a partner, a family, kids, a home of his own ...

Reply by 'Utopian Hermit Monk'

I just wondered about the legal status of his children. I am not an expert on adoption procedures or criteria in Ireland, but I haven't heard of other legal adoptions by either single men or gay couples.

Comment by wexfordman

... why should he be happy, having come from where he once was....

Reply by 'Utopian Hermit Monk'

I may be mistaken, and I going strictly on the content and tone of that one interview, but his profession of happiness does not ring true for me. My impression (it is no more than that, since I know very little about the man) is of a troubled individual.

Exchange of Views between Myself and 'Wexfordman' during Politics.ie Debate

I had several exchanges with 'wexfordman' and supporters of his during the discussion on Politics.ie - these included a threat of violence by one of the supporters. I reproduce part of the discussion below - but excluding the physical threat. [I also corrected some spelling errors]

Comment by 'wexfordman' on 12 May 2009
No kilbarry, you have said that o'gorman was having an affair with fortune and as such made false allegations against fortune, you further qualified your statement by inferring that that is the reason he has difficulty acknowledging false allegations, by virtue of the fact that he made one himself.

Now apart from the vileness of the suggestion that a 14 yr old is capable of having an affair with an adult in his late 20's or thereabouts, apart from the fact that you claim fortune is guilty of nothing more then than statutory rape, I would suggest you retract it i the interet of the dgds rule!!

My Reply to 'wexfordman'
A 14 year old male is certainly capable of having an affair with an adult - as distinct from being violently raped by an adult - but the actions of the adult are still illegal. The same applies to a 14 year old girl who has consensual sex with a man of 30.  That is why there is an offence of "Statutory Rape" distinct from Rape. A 14 year old is not a helpless infant.

Colm O'Gorman has certainly made a false allegation by stating that "no evidence of any kind has been presented to suggest that false allegations are being made or that the rights of those accused are being abused" and it is NOT a minor issue.

That does not fill me with confidence in relation to other allegations that he has made.

Reply to Me by 'wexfordman' on 12 May 2009
Really, you were in the room, and can verify that he made a false allegation that what heppened to him was against his will ? I think if you beleive he made a false allegation, you should report it to the authorites immediately, you are after all it seems concerned very much with those who do make them, and you have stated as fact that he has done so himself. I suggest you report this to the gardai immediately

Comment by 'wexfordman' on 14 May 2009
Have you reported the false claims you allege cog made re fr fortune to the authorities yet kilbarry?

My Reply to 'wexfordman'
Many people have been found NOT guilty of child abuse by the courts over the past decade and more, but few accusers have been convicted of making false allegations. It is a very difficult thing to prove - unless the accuser actually confesses and maybe not even then. One of the two women who slandered Nora Wall  admitted years later that she had lied and was duly forgiven by the former nun. The Gardai and the DPP took no action against her. (Having prosecuted and jailed Nora, they would have looked a bit foolish going after their own witness.)

Strangely enough (or not so strangely) O'Gorman's organisation "One in Four" was involved in one of the few cases where a false accuser was convicted. This was Paul Anderson convicted in June 2007 of falsely accusing a priest of buggering him while giving him First Communion prayer tuition more than 20 years previously. Anderson had been sponsored by "One in Four".

Comment by 'wexfordman' on 16 May 2009
Kilbarry, why dont you come out from behind the anonymous veil you have and make your allegations against a public figure publicly ?

My Reply to 'wexfordman'
I have discussed this kind of issue in public on other websites and in public fora. However where other parties use aliases, so do I. My letter to the Irish Times (see contribution no 15) was of course sent under my own name. Also I was so convinced that the Times would not publish that I sent it to Colm O'Gorman on the same day (9 April 2006). So he knows my name.