Jennifer O’Connell: It’s a fantasy that nobody knew about child sex abuse in schools

Did we really not know?

There is, sadly, nothing new about the revelations that children were the victims of an unholy alliance between a megalomaniacal, sexually repressed Catholic Church and a passive, complicit State. The part we have yet to acknowledge is that it wasn’t actually a bipartisan alliance. It was a profane trinity, and its third arm was a wilfully ignorant society.

Children were screaming at night behind the high walls of Daingean and Letterfrack, but the decent people of Ireland were asleep in their beds and didn’t hear a thing – or so goes the fantasy we have told ourselves since the first allegations of institutional abuse emerged. The more we have learned since then, the more cognitive dissonance required to keep this pretence alive.

It is an insight into the how untouchable these abusers felt. The question isn’t how they got away with it, but how they knew that they would

We have known for a long time that the self-styled men of God targeted vulnerable children in industrial schools, children without the protective shield of a visible family. Thanks to the courageous accounts of a few individuals of their experience of sexual abuse in Blackrock College and Castleknock College, we know that the privileged children of middle-class Ireland were their prey too. This is not, for a moment, to suggest there is a hierarchy of victims. But it is an insight into the how untouchable these abusers felt. The question isn’t how they got away with it, but how they knew that they would.

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The various reviews by the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church, set up 2008, are illuminating reading on the question of what was known when and by whom. The reviews cover the period from 1975 onwards. They don’t mention individual schools, but break their findings down by religious organisation. Read in full, they are a grim catalogue of horrors that chip away at any notion that this abuse went on entirely out of sight.

The review of the Spiritans, dated July 2012, reveals that allegations of abuse were made against 48 individuals, and a total of 143 allegations were reported to gardaí and Tusla. Of those, three were convicted of criminal offences. “There is evidence that there were serial abusers who worked in school communities in Ireland. They went undetected and unchecked giving them unmonitored access to children during the 1960s, 70s and 80s,” the report notes.

“One prolific abuser – Father A – abused 28 children between 1968 and 1993. He was not removed from ministry until 1996.” “Father B had an abusive career of 13 years.” After concerns were raised, “he abused children for a further ten years.”

This review was published 10 years ago – and yet it took the courage of brothers Mark and David Ryan, and others such as Corry McMahon, to break what has been described as a “code of omerta”.

Fortress of terror

Blackrock wasn’t the only so-called bastion of privilege that became a fortress of terror for some. The 2015 safeguarding board review into the Jesuit order – which is involved in seven schools including Clongowes, Belvedere, Gonzaga and Crescent Comprehensive in Limerick – found 79 allegations had been made against 36 priests. Gardaí were involved in investigating 57 of those allegations. The number of Jesuits convicted by 2015 was zero.

The review offers a grim insight into an ad hoc, contradictory and paternalistic attitude to child safety: “the Jesuit touched the child’s breast… given his age, he is unlikely to return to ministry.” Another priest – “Case File 4” – was reported to gardaí in relation to “credible” complainant on three occasions in the 1990s, but the DPP decided not to prosecute.

This is a summary of what happened to him next: he was returned to ministry; later removed from ministry with children; described as “being in good standing”; abruptly removed from ministry again; returned to ministry; the recipient of another complaint in 2010 and another DPP decision not to prosecute.

This atmosphere of chaos and obfuscation acted as a convenient shield to abusers in schools across the country, including some of those regarded as among Ireland’s finest.

[ Blackrock College abuse: ‘Code of omerta’ finally shattered by brothers’ bravery ]

Child sexual abuse wasn’t just a Letterfrack issue or a Blackrock issue. It was a Catholic issue. And it was a societal issue

Benedictine monks of Glenstal: 10 allegations against six brothers, all of which were reported to gardaí. Number of criminal convictions: zero.

Carmelites, who run a fee-paying primary and secondary school in Terenure: 17 allegations against 11 friars, all of which were reported. Number who had been convicted of an offence at the time the reported was published in 2015: zero.

Augustinians, who run schools in Dungarvan and New Ross: 33 allegations against 11 priests and brothers, 17 of which were reported. Number of criminal convictions: 0.

We already know that it was happening in schools runs by the Christian Brothers and De La Salle Brothers, where hundreds of allegations have been made and a number of criminal convictions resulted. But for reasons that are hard to understand, it seems to be the case that the more “elite” the school, the slower the allegations have been to emerge.

Unable to act

Child sexual abuse wasn’t just a Letterfrack issue or a Blackrock issue. It was a Catholic issue. And it was a societal issue. The fantasy that we didn’t know, that we weren’t aware, that we didn’t heard their screams or see their bruises, is no longer sustainable. Many people did know.

[ ‘He was a vicious paedophile, a horrible man’: Abused pupils share their experiences ]

But for some reason – either because of the church’s stranglehold on society; because they had been inculcated themselves at a young age; because they were paralysed by shame or fear or some warped sense of loyalty – all but a brave handful were simply unable to act.

Those residual shreds of loyalty may be what still accounts for our inexplicable inertia about the Church’s influence over Irish life. There is ample evidence for why outsourcing the education of our children to religious orders is a bad idea. Yet even today, the Church controls roughly 90 per cent of our schools. And still we choose to do nothing.

If you have been affected by any issue in this article, help and support are available from Pieta (1800-247247, or text help to 51444), Samaritans (116123, or email jo@samaritans.ie or jo@samaritans.org).