Part 1:
The Catholic Church and its Friends in High Places in Ireland.
1. Godless charlatans.
There were at least three types of priests in the Holy Ghost Order: the good, the bad and the grotesquely ugly.
The ‘good’ were those who had a true vocation. They were – and are – men of unfathomable decency. These are the priests who get up in the middle of a dark wintery night to visit the home of someone fading from this life, desperately seeking last rites. These priests represent the true heart of the Order and all that is good about it. There were many such men at Blackrock College.
Then there were the ‘bad’, those who might be dubbed clerical ‘politicians’. It was they who either drove, or acquiesced in the cover-up of child sex abuse at Blackrock College and elsewhere. They did so to preserve the reputation of the Church, something they deemed the greater good.
The third group – the ‘grotesquely ugly’ – consisted of iniquitous charlatans such as the late Fr. Aloysius Flood and Fr. Thomas O’Byrne. They were opportunistic predators who probably never had a Christian bone in their bodies. It is impossible to believe that when Fr. Flood drugged a boy in his care, donned his silk embroidered stole, and proceeded to mock the Holy Eucharist while orally raping the minor, he could possibly have believed in an afterlife. And what of the time he locked the door to the chapel behind him and made towards the altar to rape a boy who was tidying up after mass. This child, who knew his form, grabbed an object and threatened to strike him with it if came any closer.
The attraction of the Church to the criminals who made up this latter group was at least fivefold: {i} their material needs were catered for; {ii} they enjoyed an exalted position in society; {iii} they secured access to children, {iv} their ostensible vows of chastity acted as a cloak to conceal their true predatory nature, and; {v} they entered a domain where they were immune to police and media scrutiny.
Had Fr. Flood, Fr. O’Byrne and their ilk not gained access to children via the Church, they probably would have infiltrated scouting organisations, swimming groups, or sought out child brothels. There was one off the Lisburn Road in Belfast, and a number in London for men like them.
This article is an attempt to understand how these miscreants managed to pursue lives of criminal sexual depravity with impunity for decades.
The starting point is the influence of the ‘clerical politicians’ within the Church.
2. The supreme clerical politician, Archbishop McQuaid.
The foremost clerical ‘politician’ in the history of the State was Archbishop John Charles McQuaid. He served as dean and president of Blackrock College during the period 1925-39.
In 1932, McQuaid denounced the Jewish community during a Passion Sunday sermon he gave at Blackrock College: “From the first persecutions till the present moment, you will find Jews engaged in practically every movement against Our Divine Lord and His Church. A Jew as a Jew is utterly opposed to Jesus Christ and all the Church means….by Satan we mean not only Lucifer and the fallen Angels, but also those men, Jews and others, who…have chosen Satan for their head.”
In his mind the international press and Hollywood were controlled by the “Jew-enemy of our Saviour”.
The Great Depression was “the deliberate work of a few Jew financiers”.
He alleged an international conspiracy to dominate the world by the “Jew-controlled League of Nations“.
McQuaid left Blackrock in 1939. He went on to serve as Primate of Ireland and Archbishop of Dublin, 1940-72.
The horrors of WW2 did not soften his cough. In May 1949, he wrote to the young German-born Chief Rabbi in Dublin, Immanuel Jakobovits, to threaten the Jewish community in Ireland if the new state of Israel did not make suitable provision for Christian places of worship in Israel. In a letter to the Papal Nuncio, McQuaid wrote of using the tactic “which most worries a Jew: the fear of reprisals”.
Éamon de Valera, leader of Fianna Fail, 1926-59, six times taoiseach and the third President of Ireland, studied and later taught in Blackrock. He was an ally of McQuaid on most issues.
In September 1960 de Valera was made an honourary member of the Holy Ghost Order.
3. The ‘Crimine Solicitationies’, the basis of Vatican ordained cover-up.
In 1962, a 69-page document entitled ‘Crimine solicitationies’, was published in Latin. It bore the seal of Pope John XXIII. It was dispatched to every Catholic bishop in the world.
Bishops were instructed to deal with sex abuse cases “in the most secretive way… restrained by a perpetual silence… and everyone… is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office… under the penalty of excommunication”.
McQuaid’s response to clerical child sex abuse was very much in line with the edict from Rome. Paragraph 1.15 of the Murphy Commission’s report into the cover-up of clerical sex abuse of minors by bishops found that:
“The Dublin Archdiocese’s pre-occupations in dealing with cases of child sexual abuse, at least until the mid-1990s, were the maintenance of secrecy, the avoidance of scandal, the protection of the reputation of the Church, and the preservation of its assets. All other considerations, including the welfare of children and justice for victims, were subordinated to these priorities. The Archdiocese did not implement its own canon law rules and did its best to avoid any application of the law of the State.”
4. Complaints about sexual abuse perpetrated by McQuaid.
Two complaints of sexual abuse perpetrated by McQuaid were made to the Murphy Commission. One related to a 12-year-old boy who was abused in 1961.
McQuaid is but one of many members of the hierarchy of the Catholic Church to have become embroiled in child sex abuse scandals. The former cardinal and archbishop of Washington, Theodore E. McCarrick, is a more recent example. He faced accusations of misconduct against priests, seminarians, and several minors. Pope Francis ordered McCarrick to observe “a life of prayer and penance in seclusion” before accepting his resignation in July 2018.
5. An obsequious media.
In 1963, Archbishop McQuaid was handed a report by one of his staff. It informed him that “many journalists believe that the Church enjoys a special protection from criticism in the editorial and letter columns of newspapers [and] believe that the clergy enjoy an immunity from unfavourable reports even in instances where the clergy figure as citizens rather than as priests, e.g., in breaking the law. It is well known among journalists that certain newspapers have a policy of keeping off issues in which the Church may be involved.”
It was “the intervention of ecclesiastical authority” that maintained this level of control over the media. The owners of papers and their editors were “so afraid of falling foul of the hierarchy and clergy that they always play safe”.
McQuaid retired in 1972 and died in 1973.
A sculpture of McQuaid was unveiled at Blackrock College in 1974.
At present one of the ‘houses’ in Blackrock College is named in his honour.
6. The Gardai bend the knee.
The Gardai bent the knee to the Church during the reign of Archbishop McQuaid.
Garda deference continued long after McQuaid stepped down. In 2019, former Garda Majella Moynihan told the public what had happened to her after she became pregnant out of wedlock, in 1984, while a young garda recruit. This was during the era of Archbishop Kevin McNamara.
Larry Wren was Garda Commissioner at the time. He consulted Archbishop McNamara about the Moynihan case. McNamara told him not to dismiss her from the force lest it encourage others to have abortions to preserve their careers.
She was then subjected to a disciplinary hearing at which she was charged with the offence of having had sex and giving birth to a child.
Majella Moynihan was brought into a room full of middle-aged men, sat down in the middle of them and grilled about her sex life.
She was also coerced into giving up her child, a boy.
Majella Moynihan was driven to such despair that she attempted suicide five times, and once ended up in St. John of Gods.
7. Larry Wren, the devout Garda Commissioner.
The Kerry Babies murder investigation also took place on Larry Wren’s watch as commissioner. It wasn’t until 2018 that the gardai apologised to the female victims of that scandal.
The Gardai were complicit in hunting down women who managed to escape the clutches of the Catholic Church’s Magdalene laundry network. All told, 30,000 women were exploited as de facto slave labour by the Church at various laundries. The last one closed down in 1996. The presence of Wren and religious zealots like him in the ranks, over decades, provides an explanation as to why these women were treated as if they were criminals by the police.
While Wren and his subordinates were tormenting Majella Moynihan and other vulnerable women, the gardai were taking no steps against an array of Holy Ghost priests – and their associates – who were groping, molesting and raping young children.
Why?
What type of a man was Larry Wren?
Wren was a notorious bully. Daniel Costigan, who served as Garda Commissioner 1952-65, was cut from a different cloth. Costigan had a respect for the people under his command. Costigan became outraged at Wren’s behaviour while he was serving as a superintendent in the early 1960s. Wren had been inspecting a number of garda recruits on parade and, as usual, he found one whom he deemed to have an insufficiently clean uniform. Stepping back, he lifted his gloves and slapped the young garda across the face with them. The individual in question was 18 years old.
After Costigan heard about the incident, he asked the young garda to make a statement so Wren could be prosecuted for assault but he declined. Had Wren been prosecuted and found guilty, he might have been drummed out of the Garda. At the very least, the incident would have been put on his record and damaged his prospects of any further promotion. (The recruit – now deceased – went on to enjoy great success and admiration in the force, particularly after facing down notorious criminals such as Rossi Walsh and Martin Cahill.)
In 1983 Fine Gael and Labour appointed Wren as Garda Commissioner. He used his standing to appoint religious gardaí to key positions. This practice became well-known within the force. One garda – described by his colleagues as a ‘wild’ man who liked a drink – decided to take advantage of it. He and a friend pitched up at the church at which Wren worshipped. The plan was to be seen by Wren at the mass and possibly bump into him after it.
He struck it lucky. Wren was outside collecting for St Vincent de Paul.
The officer turned to his friend and said: “Give me a few bob.” A pound note was pressed into his palm. He presented it to Wren. A short conversation ensued during which Wren came to learn that the man was a garda. A promotion to sergeant followed hot on the heels of the donation. The joke in the force was that the sergeant had “purchased his promotion for a pound”.
In 1984, Wren led a Garda Pilgrimage to Lourdes. This was not the first occasion on which this had occurred. In 1930, Eoin O’Duffy had led 350 police officers, albeit not in uniform. Wren led a uniformed delegation.
Wren stepped down as Garda Commissioner in November 1987. In retirement he continued to display his apparent piety at the daily mass at St Brigid’s. He served as President of the North Dublin Conference of the St Vincent de Paul and as a member of the Third Order of St Frances.
The Church also exerted its influence over the police via the Knights of St. Columbanus, a secretive Catholic organisation. Many senior gardai were knights.
When Wren died, he was described by The Irish Times as having had “a clear, incisive mind and a reputation for straight dealing”.
8. The Garda perspective was that the Church was a higher authority than the law of the land.
Larry Wren was far from the only senior garda officer who behaved in a servile manner towards the Catholic Church. Many officers viewed the institution as a “higher authority” than the State and its laws.
Gardai who served during 1950s to the 1990s, should be asked by the proposed judicial inquiry into the Spiritans to describe the general attitude of the force towards crimes involving clerics. It is clear that there was a culture of turning a blind eye to speeding and drink driving offences by clerics.
What about child sex crimes?
An audit of complaints of sexual abuse perpetrated by priests which were submitted to the police only to be ignored or rebuffed, should be made.
It certainly appears that in the eyes of the police, preserving the reputation of the Church trumped the punishment of child molesters until the end of the Wren era. The media largely sang from the same Catholic hymn sheet. Such a culture would help explain why sexually abusive Holy Ghost priests behaved as if they were immune from police intervention.
Part 2:
The Vice Ring at Willow Park and Blackrock College
9. The network that employed drugs to subdue its victims.
Willow Park is a primary school. It is located on the Blackrock College campus and acts as the primary ‘feeder’ to the senior school.
Pupils at Blackrock College and Willow Park were raped by members of the Holy Ghost Order.
The culture of the time dictated that the Church hierarchy, gardai and any elements of the media aware of the abuse, failed to intervene to put a halt to it.
There was abuse at other Holy Ghost schools. The tally of offending priests has reached 77. Overall, they preyed upon children at Blackrock, Willow Park, St. Mary’s, St. Michael’s, Templeogue, Rockwell and elsewhere.
The number of victims at Willow Park and Blackrock College will never be known, but, at an absolute minimum, it was 57; realistically, hundreds.
The figure of 57 victims emerged into the public domain after RTE’s compelling Documentary On One (6 November 2022.) Since then, 113 people have contacted the gardaí – presumably about the Spiritans generally. The force has revealed that the contacts are primarily from victims, but they also include people who witnessed abuse and from people on behalf of victims.
In addition to offenders who were priests, there were two lay teachers, Edward Baylor and P. O’Cleirigh, and thirdly, Luke McCaffrey, a Christian Brother. All three were employed at Willow Park. A fourth molester was employed as a ‘caretaker’.
There is an emerging body of evidence these men were part of a paedophile ring which was active inside Willow and Blackrock.
Fr. Aloysius Flood, the priest mentioned at the start of this article, was part of this cabal. He was a prolific abuser who sometimes assaulted his victims in the company of another offender. He taught at Willow Park and served in other roles at the school between 1960 and 1977, including acting as director of the school musical. He went on to become principal of St. Michael’s in 1977. He returned to Blackrock College in 1983 as dean of the boarding school.
One boy who was unaware that Fr. Flood was an abuser, approached him to complain about the assaults he was suffering at the hands of another offender. Fr Flood dismissed him. It is inconceivable that Fr. Flood did not warn his fellow paedophile of this threat to him.
An ex-pupil called Chris Doris has spoken of how Fr. Flood and another priest “both wearing stoles” (religious scarves) drugged him with “something like chloroform” before Fr. Flood orally raped him “in a quasi-sacramental way with his penis being the host”.
Fr. Flood was a science teacher and may have sourced the ingredients for his soporific concoctions under the pretence they were for his classes.
Another ex-Willow Park pupil revealed to Doris that Fr. Flood and a second priest used the same tactic to molest him. During the session, the second priest became concerned that the boy was aware of what was happening. “He won’t remember”, Fr. Flood assured him.
Clearly, Fr. Flood had deployed this tactic before. The horrifying implication of this is that countless boarders may have been violated in this manner without their knowledge. This may have gone on for decades.
A similar tactic was deployed by Fr. Joseph Marmion at Belvedere College. It was run by Jesuits. Fr. Marmion indulged his perverted lust at Belvedere College for more than a decade, 1967-1978. It is quite possible that he had a connection to Fr. Flood and the Holy Ghost paedophile ring. Fr. Marmion died in 2000.
A 61-year-old man called Stephen told RTE that he had been abused by three priests: Fr Flood, Fr Corry and Fr Gerard Hannan. This raises the distinct possibility that members of a ring swopped information about boys who were available for exploitation.
Fr. Thomas O’Byrne was another paedophile. He abused a boy called Mark Ryan. When he reached 14, another priest began to prey upon Mark. “.. I’d had an operation in Vincent’s Hospital, and it was to remove varicose veins in my scrotum [and my] main perpetrator came along to visit me, and I remember him pulling the curtain back and he was very interested in looking at my stitches and the wound. And then I was back at school, this was actually in the swimming pool in Blackrock College, he was down swimming as well and, ‘Oh Mark, do you want to show off your scars’, and things like that to this other priest. And both of them examining me and looking at me.”
The abuse continued during his third and fourth year at the school. “I was very scared, very unhappy, this was part of my life..”
These priests were sometimes assigned to hear the confessions of pupils. It is unlikely in the extreme they had any regard for the sanctity of the confession box and may have exploited information they gathered inside it for their own benefit and that of the ring, e.g., to gather information to ‘groom’ potential victims.
(Section 12 infra provides an overview of ten abusers who frequented Willow Park and Blackrock College, and includes additional information about Fr. Flood and Fr. O’Byrne.)
10. Edward Baylor, the key to the existence of a vice ring with UK connections.
Edward Baylor had been a member of the Christian Brothers in Altrincham, Greater Manchester, England, until they discovered, in 1972, that he was a paedophile. Baylor was one of three abusers at Altrincham. He was dismissed (or ‘dispensed from his vows’). He used to ‘inspect’ boys to ensure their kit was in order. He would pretend that the uniform of his prey was not appropriate, and take the child away to a room with a mattress and rape him.
According to the Christian Brothers in England, he was not furnished with a reference, and they have no record of where he went. (Liveline, RTE Radio One 22 November 2022.)
The Spiritans (as the Holy Ghosts are now known), have told RTE that as Baylor came to them as a lay teacher, they have no record of him.
If Willow Park has a file on him – and it should have – it should be seized by the police without delay.
Baylor made his way to Dublin after spells in Leeds, Stoke and Gibraltar. In 1973, he secured a teaching position at Willow Park, one of the most prestigious primary schools in Ireland. It stretches credulity beyond breaking point to suggest that this could have happened without a reference, or at least a background check, by the Holy Ghost figures who controlled what went on at the school. If an inquiry was made with the brothers in Manchester, the sordid truth should have emerged (assuming the brothers would have told Dublin the truth of what they knew).
Baylor hardly presented a forged reference as such a ploy would have been rumbled by the making of even a simple telephone inquiry with Manchester.
Clearly, something sinister was taking place behind the scenes to land a job for Baylor at Willow Park.
The existence of an extensive vice ring offers the only plausible explanation for Baylor’s astonishing coup in obtaining the much sought-after post in Willow Park.
Such a vice ring must have been one with an Anglo-Irish dimension.
In the past, Fr. Stanley, the school principal, had taken a direct role in the recruitment of teachers. There was a growing number of women on his staff. The majority of non-clerical males were married.
An incident described at section 13 below, indicates that Fr. Stanley was aware that at least one of his teachers had an unhealthy sexual interest in boys and he – Fr. Stanley – took some timid steps to thwart him.
Bearing all this in mind, it is impossible to believe Fr. Stanley {i} appointed Baylor on what he perceived as merit; {ii} without a reference; {iii} without making an inquiry with Manchester; {iv} in circumstances where Baylor did not – presumably – have an Irish teaching qualification.
The figure or figures who actually secured the post for Baylor must have enjoyed a significant level of control over the affairs of Willow Park. That type of power was exercised at the highest levels of the Holy Ghost Order and at the office of the Archbishop at Drumcondra.
Archbishop McQuaid resigned at the end of December 1971, and died on 7 April 1973, so it is unlikely he was involved in the rescue of Baylor after his dismissal in 1972, and his appointment to Willow in 1973. This raises the chilling possibility that a high-level clerical cabal of paedophiles was established and it secured a fellow abuser – Baylor – the post. Baylor presumably knew quite a lot about active child molesters in the Church in England, hence the possibility of blackmail cannot be discounted either.
McQuaid’s successor adhered to the Vatican’s cover-up policy. Paragraph 1.36 of the Murphy Commission states that: “During the period under review, there were four Archbishops – Archbishops McQuaid, Ryan, McNamara and Connell. Not one of them reported his knowledge of child sexual abuse to the Gardaí throughout the 1960s, 1970s, or 1980s.”
Once ensconced at Willow Park, Baylor began to prey upon, groom and rape multiple boys. He was also a sadist who enjoyed beating children with hardback books, sticks and his fists.
A former pupil, Aidan Moore, who was abused by Baylor, has described his sadism. Moore told RTE’s Liveline: “While in fifth form, one day in class I got to see the violence that he was capable of. He absolutely pummelled a classmate of mine in a fit of violence I’d never witnessed before. That’s how life in class with him was, you lived in fear.” (Fifth formers were about nine years old.)
This type of violence was commonplace in Baylor’s classes, an almost daily occurrence. One of his tactics was to choose a child for punishment at the start of the class and make him wait a while before launching into it. On at least one occasion he made a boy bend over for approximately 20 minutes. During that time, he walked from desk to desk examining all of the rulers belonging to the boys before finding a long heavy metal tipped one. He then beat the boy up with it in a terrifying frenzy of sadism.
Bailor would prowl around the school during the lunch break looking for an excuse to beat up children. On one occasion he found boys playing a game of marbles in a class room and set upon one of them with his usual vicious ferocity.
Baylor also took advantage of the school’s sporting activities to satisfy his depraved lust for brutality. One of his practices was to remove a knife from his pocket in front of the boys, cut a fresh branch from a tree and pare the skin from it. Eight-, nine- and ten-year-old boys who could not run fast enough from him were set upon and beaten until they sprouted red weals on their legs. All this was carried out in front of multiple witnesses – including other members of staff – on a pitch beside the road between Willow Park and Blackrock College.
At least one parent, a father, went to Fr. Stanley in 1974, to complain about the excessive violence in Baylor’s class. He was told that the teacher was an ‘old fashioned disciplinarian’ as if this somehow justified his behaviour. This happened in 1974. The response has the ring of one that had been trotted out before.
At least one complaint was made to Fr. Devine who served as principal after Fr. Stanley retired. Nothing was done as a result of this claim.
One of Baylor’s subjects was English. Another of his tactics to gain access to boys was to tell their parents they needed some private tuition in grammar. He would then take the child to his residence after school ended. It was within walking distance of the school, very close to the Old Punch Bowl pub. (Baylor later moved to Stillorgan.)
A number of questions arise:-
- If Baylor had no reference, how did he secure his post at Willow Park?
- Who chose to employ him at Willow Park?
- Has his Willow Park school file been preserved in full?
- If it has been filleted, by whom, why and when?
- Were the people who helped Baylor secure a coveted teaching position at Willow Park, the same as those who moved offenders from one school to another as complaints were made about their sexual misbehaviour?
- Why was nothing done about Baylor’s sadism, particularly as he openly chased after young boys with a demented red face on the playing fields with a whip fashioned from a fresh stick?
11. The behaviour of Fr. J. Dowling.
While no allegation of sexual abuse has been levelled against Fr. J. Dowling, he was another teacher who beat up small children with impunity. The type of fear he and a few others generated with their fists added to an atmosphere that all but guaranteed that the victims of the various wrongs at the school were reluctant to talk out or complain.
In the case of Dowling, his victims were typically 8- or 9-year-olds who weighed about five or six stone, and were a quarter of his size. The type of violence meted out by the likes of Baylor and Dowling took place at a time when corporal punishment was practiced in the school. All of this added to the atmosphere of fear at Willow Park, something which suited the abusers.
On one occasion, Dowling emerged from the attic-type room he may have used as a bedroom next to the cramped music class he taught in the loft. He was in a heavy sweat with his trousers loose around his waist. Large visible drops of fluid were popping out of his pores as he tugged his trousers up. An astonished pupil, PD, sputtered: “You’re leaking, father.” This was not an act of insolence, rather a response to the startling appearance of the man. Fr. Dowling exploded into a fury, kicked and hurled a few rows of the metal and plastic fold-up chairs out of his way as he lunged at the child. He grabbed PD by the throat, hoisted him off his feet and punched him so hard he flew through the air and crashed against the wall.
Another former pupil, DL, was assaulted in a similar manner for arriving late to class.
Yet another boy, PW, recalls being punched down the narrow flight of steps that led from the loft.
Approximately seven years after suffering his assault, PD, now in his fourth year in Blackrock, spotted Fr. Dowling approach from the opposite direction. He dropped his shoulder, moved deftly across into his path at the last second, and knocked him to the ground. The priest beside Fr. Dowling was outraged but Fr. Dowling did not complain, then or later. Instead, he let PD assist him up off the ground while the large teenager muttered insincere platitudes of concern about his welfare.
12. A lot more than a dirty dozen.
The Spiritans have informed RTE’s Liveline that they are aware of complaints against twelve figures at Blackrock College and Willow Park.
This and subsequent sections will deal with eight perpetrators of sexual abuse at Willow Park, and three in Blackrock.
Only five of this group were Spiritan priests.
The eight in Willow were: E. Baylor, Fr. Corry, Fr. Flood, Br. McCaffrey, Fr. Stanley, Fr. Dwane, P. O’Cleirigh, and an employee at the school who had a non-teaching role.
The three in Blackrock College were: Fr. Gerard Hannan and Fr. O’Byrne and ‘G’, a Christian Brother with an interest in physiotherapy.
Fr. Thomas O’Byrne hailed from Limerick. He arrived at Blackrock College in 1967. One of his techniques was to take boys swimming in Willow Park. “He’d wear strange togs which were different shapes and things like that and had no real back on them, I’d say that’s a thong now,” recalls Mark Ryan one of his victims.
He also wore a female bathing cap with a rubber flower.
Fr. O’Byrne had at least one of his victims read the bible as he assaulted him.
Fr. Senan Corry, a teacher in Willow Park, was another degenerate who mixed violence with abuse. He enjoyed simulating anal sex by pressing boys against their desks during his maths classes. Stephen has described how “he’d ram me between the corner of the desk in such a way that I couldn’t move because he’d have his hand around my neck. And then he would proceed to put his hands down the front of my trousers, down the back of my trousers and at the same time he would be rubbing himself against me.” Afterwards, he would breathe in his ear and say: ‘This is our secret, you can’t tell anybody, nobody is going to believe a young lad like you against a priest’.”
Former pupils remember how Fr. Corry beat up boys as part of rugby training. Pupils recall a layer of white foam which sometimes formed on his mouth. The excuse offered for his aggression by other members of staff was that he was a ‘great’ man who had contracted malaria while on the missions in Nigeria.
Fr. Corry often pretended to check boys for rugby injuries, but in reality, this was an excuse to grope them.
One young man had his revenge. In 1976, as the summer holidays beckoned, Fr. Corry was taking a class in a prefabricated room. There was a knock on the door. The priest opened it only to be grabbed and hurled down the two steps to the ground. After he hit the surface, the young man started kicking him in the face. It is not clear if Fr. Corry wore dentures or had his own teeth, but a few molars lay scattered on the ground after the beating. The priest was seen applying a handkerchief to his bleeding face as he retreated back inside the class. The police were not called, at least not at that stage. “I think the assailant was a boy who had probably just finished at Blackrock”, a witness to this incident has disclosed.
Stephen was also molested by Fr. Gerard Hannan. When he was 13, he was injured during a fight with another pupil who hit him in his crotch area. Fr. Hannan “saw me drop to my knees and asked me was I okay, said come into the office .. ‘we better check to make sure there’s no serious damage done’, and he just began to massage me and at the same time he had his hand in the pocket of his cape”. Stephen had to endure a couple of similar encounters with him during the year. Hannan was his dean in fourth year.”
Fr. Hannan has been accused of abusing at least three boys while a serving as a missionary to Mombasa, Kenya.
Fr. Hannan’s brother, Patrick, is alleged to have abused children while teaching at St. Teresa’s secondary school for boys in Nairobi, Kenya.
As described earlier, Fr. Flood, was a prolific abuser who sometimes drugged his victims.
On other occasions, he resorted to brutal rape. One past pupil recalls being woken up at night: “I was a pious, innocent 11-year-old asleep in my bed, boarding at Willow Park. I had no idea what was going on.”
He abused Stephen when he was nine.
He deemed the chapel at Blackrock College a suitable locus at which to commit rape – once he had locked the doors behind him. The altar at which the host was consecrated, the walls lined with paintings depicting the stations of the cross, and the statues of religious figures, did not act as a deterrent.
Fr. Flood’s depravity knew no limits: another of his victims was his niece, Michelle. He first assaulted her at her home when she was five years old. She later reported what happened to gardaí and to the Holy Ghosts. “I’ve never had a voice in this. Nobody has ever listened. I don’t feel the church listened..” she asserts adding that the “Holy Ghost Fathers could have stopped this long ago and they didn’t. It destroyed people’s lives.”
Fr. Flood also organised trips which took boys away from their parents. One of these trips was to Rome.
Br. Luke McCaffrey infiltrated Willow Park by first securing a post as a gardener. He later became a teacher of religion. He presented himself as a devout, quietly spoken man. His classes involved the incessant recitation of the rosary. One former pupil recalls a long trip on a train with a group of boys during which most of the journey was spent praying. “I don’t think we sat on the seats at all. It was mad.”
But it was all an act.
Another pupil has exposed the real Br. McCaffrey. He has divulged how McCaffrey targeted him. He tried to resist “as best I could” but that “was when the anger came into it. The violence. The first time he raped me the pain was unbelievable – he did it in rage.”
Chris Doris was abused by Br. McCaffrey in the tuck shop in Willow Park: “It’s hard to say how many times but I imagine, approaching 10 times. The smell of muskiness is part of it as well, and sweat and stuff. At the end of whatever he did, he would always give you, which I thought a really odd thing, two stale Marietta [biscuits] and an over-ripe banana.”
Yet another priest at Willow Park, Fr. Dwane, was, according to one of his targets: “Hugely handsy – down the back of the trousers and inside the underpants, very buttocks-focused. All the time and for a lot of the first term of 6th Form with me. He visited my home (as did Flood and Corry) which I now look back on and shudder as I recognise what they were doing by checking out the family background. They all three would have observed a fiercely protective father .. along with a devout mother, but one who had a very quick mind and a sharp tongue on her and who was not at all eyes-cast-down in the presence of ‘powerful’ men. And so they all three moved on to other targets. He was a nasty piece of work and never seemed remotely bothered by how bothered his playthings were visibly becoming.”
The eighth offender was P. O’Cleirigh, a lay teacher nicknamed ‘Skinner’ by the pupils at Willow Park. He groped numerous boys in his class. His practice was to call them to his desk and put his hand up their shorts. He was also prone to caressing their legs.
There are dark rumours about a ninth figure, a Christian Brother, ‘G’, who studied physiotherapy, a venture which he may have taken up to gain access to boys injured on the playing fields.
The tenth individual is a man who is referred to in the Supreme Court decision in the Thomas O’Byrne case. He is described therein as a ‘caretaker’.
An eleventh offender (described in the next section) is Fr Robert Stanley, the dean of Willow Park.
E. Baylor, Br. McCaffrey, P. O’Cleirigh, ‘G’ and the caretaker were not Spiritan priests. The Spiritans have indicated that twelve priests were involved in abuse at Willow and Blackrock. We only know the names of six of them (Fr. Hannan, Fr. O’Byrne, Fr. Corry, Fr. Flood, Fr. Stanley and Fr. Dwane.) That means there are another six yet to be named.
There are also rumours about a Fr. S and a Fr. D., which might account for two of the group of six.
13. The perplexing case of Fr. Stanley, the junior school principal.
In the 1970s John (not his real name) was a pupil at Willow Park. John went into St. Vincent’s Hospital as an in-patient to have his appendix removed. O’Cleirigh went to visit him and sat at his bed. Fr. Stanley, the school principal, contacted ‘John’s’ mother and told her she should not let this continue. Fr Stanley explained that O’Cleirigh had stayed for so long, his attendance had become a ‘vigil’.
It is likely that one of the nuns at the hospital rang Fr. Stanley having witnessed the ‘vigil’.
It appears that Fr. Stanley knew – or at least suspected – that O’Cleirigh’s interest in the boy was unnatural but did not feel he could intervene directly to help him for some reason.
Fr. Stanley’s protective behaviour towards John is perplexing as abuse allegations have been made about him.
Dr John Connolly was a pupil at Willow Park. He told Patsy McGarry of the Irish Times that Fr Stanley fondled his private parts. Connolly ‘wriggled, squirmed and fought to get away’, with the pair ‘gasping, pulling and pushing’ until finally the priest ‘growled and grabbed him like a bear, throwing him away’.
Fr Stanley directed him down a side corridor to an empty classroom. He told Connolly to take his trousers down for “12 of the best. On your bottom.” Terrified, the boy began to urinate and the “hugely angry” priest ordered him to clean himself up in the toilets, before walking him back to his classroom.
14. A question of who in authority in Blackrock did not know about the abuse in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
When direct, detailed and specific complaints were made, nothing happened.
One victim complained that he had been abused by Fr. Corry. A meeting was arranged at which Fr. Corry denied the abuse in front of the boy, his parents and the headmaster. “I was 12. I never got over it,” the former pupil told Joe Duffy on RTE’s Liveline. He transformed from a high achiever and sports captain to an angry destructive child. He became a heroin addict in later life.
Maura Harmon was a friend of David Ryan. In the late ’70s or very early ’80s, she told her father about Fr. O’Byrne. Her father went to the school and complained to either the principal or the president of Blackrock College. Fr. O’Byrne was moved out of the school for a few months. Upon his return, he lured David Ryan into a trap, tied his arms behind his back and raped him viciously, so much so, his underwear became blood soaked and he was unable to sit on the seat of his bicycle later on. Fr. O’Byrne told him that this was his ‘punishment’ for telling on him.
It is unclear if the complaint about Fr. O’Byrne was made to the president or principal. Nonetheless, it must be the case that both men became involved in Fr. O’Byrne’s temporary banishment.
It is crystal clear that since Fr O’Byrne spoke of a ‘punishment’ to David Ryan, he was told why he was being moved, i.e., on account of his sexual misbehaviour. Put simply, the authorities knew what he had done; told him they knew; did not bother with a hearing; sent him away temporarily before letting him back to his former hunting ground.
Fr. O’Byrne either admitted what he had done, or his form was so well known to the president and principal prior to the complaint, that the temporary relocation took place.
In the worst case scenario, Fr. O’Byrne may have turned to paedophiles higher up the chain of command, to demand his reinstatement.
It is beginning to look like most of the figures in authority at the college in the ’70s and early ’80s knew what was afoot and were prepared to let a known offender back onto the premises to continue his criminal activities.
A minimum of 21% of the class of 1979 at Blackrock were sexually abused.
The number of former pupils who committed suicide is not known. Some, if not most of them, may have done so because of the actions of priests such as Fr. O’Byrne, their protectors and enablers. Other victims developed personality disorders.
15. The tide changes.
Larry Wren retired as Garda Commissioner in November 1987. He was succeeded by Eamon Doherty. Doherty was an independent minded officer. He was – to put it mildly – not a member of the Wren faction within the force. He was appointed by Fianna Fail, then led by Charles Haughey. (Doherty was one of those who had supported Haughey during and after the Arms Crisis of 1970.) Doherty was also a religious man. He led another garda pilgrimage to Lourdes in 1988.
Edward Baylor was still at Willow Park where he was enjoying his fourteenth year as an abuser. His luck was about to run out. He was arrested by the police. The new garda commissioner did not step in to thwart his prosecution. Baylor was convicted for child abuse at Dundrum District Court in July 1988.
Baylor died on 2 February 1990, at Orwell Road, Dublin. Rumours in ex-Willow Park pupil circles have it that he committed suicide; by some accounts, he hanged himself. “I went to his funeral because no one else was going”, one priest who taught with him in Willow Park said.
Fr. Gerard Hannan died in 1990 without ever having been charged. He was described later in a Spiritan publication as a man who acted as an “unofficial counsellor” and was “particularly caring for problem students, who found him very approachable and understanding”.
A litany of scandals in the 1990s brought about a sea change in the attitude of society towards the Church. One of these involved Fr. Brendan Smyth, a Norbertine priest and child molester. He was arrested in 1991 in Northern Ireland but fled to the Republic of Ireland. He spent the next three years on the run, hiding mostly at Kilnacrott Abbey. His case eventually led to the collapse of the Fianna Fáil–Labour Party coalition government. It fell in December 1994 as the result of the mishandling of an extradition request from the RUC by the office of the Attorney-General in Dublin.
Br. McCaffrey escaped justice too. He left Willow Park around 2000, and died in 2002.
In 2002, a survivor of child sex abuse complained about his experience to a senior figure in Blackrock College. There was no offer of ‘restorative justice’ for him, rather he was told to go away and only return if he had ‘proof and a solicitor’. The survivor’s account was first hand evidence of what had happened. It is a well established fact in psychiatric medicine that victims of child sex abuse require recognition of their experience, to relieve their ongoing trauma. To all intents and purposes, this victim was treated as if he was a liar.
In 2003 that the Director of Public Prosecutions charged Fr. O’Byrne. When he did, it was for 37 offences.
In 2005, Mark Ryan and his brother David received a settlement from the Spiritans without any admission of legal liability, or form of an apology, for the abuse perpetrated by Fr. O’Byrne and others.
In 2007, the Supreme Court overruled a decision of the High Court and ordained that as Fr. O’Byrne was 87, and the abuse had taken place so far in the past, his prosecution should not proceed. He died three years later.
The High Court decision which ruled that the criminal prosecution against Fr. O’Byrne could proceed can be downloaded via this link: T. O’B. v DPP, High Court 2006
The Supreme Court decision can be downloaded via this link: O’B v DPP, Supreme Court 2007.
Fr. Dwane and Fr. Corry also escaped justice. Fr. Corry died in 2004. His obituary states he is “remembered for his coaching of the junior rugby teams”.
O’Cleirigh was never charged either.
In 2012, the Spiritans (formerly the Holy Ghosts) issued a general apology after an audit described how serial abusers within the Spiritans went undetected and unchecked, giving them unmonitored access to children during the 1960s, 70s and 80s. The review, conducted by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland, revealed that 48 members of the Holy Ghost Order had abused over a 50-year period. This was an underestimation and the figure now stands at 77, not including Baylor, McCaffrey, O’Cleirigh, ‘G’ and the caretaker.
Fr. Flood escaped justice too. He spent a number of years as a curate in Dalkey parish in the 1990s. He died in 2013.
16. The Irish Times.
Roisin Ingle, a star columnist in the Irish Times, has described the experience of the child rape victims at the “fee-paying, private Blackrock College, a place we all knew Official Ireland sent its boys to become men”, as a reason for those “not being as well-bred as them” to feel “better off”.
Ruadhán Mac Cormaic, the new editor of the Irish Times, does not seem unduly concerned about the appearance of this type of an article in his paper.
Mac Cormaic was not the only supporter of the article at the Irish Times. Journalists at the paper tweeted the link to it, so it could be read by their followers.
The reaction of Irish Times readers was not as complacent as that of the new editor. Their responses can be viewed by clicking the blue ‘Read 140 replies’ button at the bottom of the tweet graphic reproduced below. See: –
https://twitter.com/roisiningle/status/1592806031532650496?t=Lza0vwjaF-WLhQTB6UWfig&s=19
17. At least three accused offenders are still alive. Will the DPP prosecute them?
There are three Spiritans who are still alive and are the subject of garda inquiries. The DPP faces a dilemma in respect of them: in light of the Supreme Court precedent in the Thomas O’Byrne case, is there a realistic prospect of a prosecution proceeding to a full hearing?
The police did investigate complaints made against the ‘caretaker’ approximately two decades ago, but no prosecution took place. He is still alive and living on the campus.
The Spiritans also face a predicament: if a prosecution is launched against any of these men, will they pay the legal costs of their defence as they did for Fr. O’Byrne?
The alleged perpetrators, if charged, will have to decide if they are prepared to risk igniting the fury of the nation by relying upon the Supreme Court’s ruling on delay in the Thomas O’Byrne case.
The man who dismissed the abuse survivor who approached him in 2002, i.e., the senior figure who told the former pupil to return with ‘proof and a solicitor’ is still alive.
18. Questions for the Spiritans and the surviving perpetrators.
Ivana Bacik revealed in the Dail on 16 November 2022, that an accused offender was living on the grounds of Willow Park. That would place him only yards from where young boys assemble each day for class. The school has acknowledged to certain parents that an accused child molester is living on the grounds but that he is ‘infirm’ and not a threat to the pupils. This raises more questions than answers:-
- Does the fact that he is being held out as infirm indicate that the school has grounds to believe he was an abuser? If not, why is it necessary to provide an assurance he is infirm?
- Has he admitted wrongdoing? If so, when?
- If he has admitted perpetrating abuse, has this development been relayed to the police? If not, why not?
- How long has he been living on the grounds?
- What steps, if any, were put in place to monitor him? When were they put in place?
- When did he become infirm?
- What is the nature and extent of his infirmity?
- Has he been asked to provide an account of his deeds?
- Has he been asked if he spoke to other abusers, including those mentioned in this article, about their sexual contact with children?
- Has he been asked if he was a member of a vice ring?
- Why is he not part of the ‘restorative justice’ programme being offered by the Spiritans?
- Restorative justice is meant to involve meetings between victims and perpetrators. The proposed restorative justice programme on offer by the Spiritans does not appear at this point in time to involve the perpetrators who are still alive. Why?
- What attempts, if any, have been made to involve the living perpetrators? Have they refused to participate?
- There have been a number of unexplained suicides among the ranks of former pupils of Holy Ghost schools, some of which must be related to sex abuse. Others resorted to drugs and alcohol abuse. Bearing this in mind, have the three surviving abusers been asked for a list of boys they know to have been abused, and has any such list been cross referenced with suicide victims and deaths caused by drug abuse?
It is a truly a shame that the unwillingness of the clerical ‘politicians’ in the Holy Ghost Order to address the horrors that were taking place in their ranks has so besmirched the diligence and brilliance of so many decent priests and hard-working educators in Willow Park and Blackrock College. Edmund Burke said it best: “The only thing necessary for evil to triumph in the world is that good men do nothing.” In this case, the clerical politicians who did nothing or actively covered-up the evil in their ranks, destroyed or damaged the lives of countless innocent children who were entrusted to them. It makes a mockery of the College’s motto Fides et Robur and a travesty of the current ethos that the school trumpets: “Be Caring, Be There, Be Truthful, Be Grateful.”
If you were abused or have useful information about an offender, the gardaí can be contacted via the Sexual Crime Management Unit Office at the Garda National Protective Services Bureau, or at local garda stations across the country.
David Burke has written extensively about the Kincora Boys’ Home child abuse scandal in Belfast. He is also the author of: –
‘Deception & Lies, the Hidden History of the Arms Crisis 1970’, and;
‘Kitson’s Irish War, Mastermind of the Dirty War in Ireland’ which examines the role of counter-insurgency dirty tricks in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s, and;
‘An Enemy of the Crown, the British Secret Service Campaign against Charles Haughey’, which was published on 30 September 2022.
These books can be purchased here:
https://www.mercierpress.ie/irish-books/kitson-s-irish-war/
https://www.mercierpress.ie/irish-books/an-enemy-of-the-crown/
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