John Downes, News Investigations Correspondent
A newly released section of the Murphy report has detailed for the first time how five of the country’s most notorious clerical child abusers forged close links with one another as they raped and molested their victims.
The revelation, which prominent abuse survivor Andrew Madden said “sends a chill down the spine”, has prompted fresh concerns about the existence of a paedophile ring within the Dublin archdiocese at the time.
The five priests involved are the Ballyfermot-based “singing priest” Fr Tony Walsh, who was the subject of chapter 19 of the report published last Friday,
Fr Bill Carney, Fr Noel Reynolds, Fr Francis McCarthy and Fr Patrick Maguire. A previously unpublished section of the main Murphy commission report, which along with the whole of chapter 19 was held back for legal reasons until last week, outlines how Walsh used a room provided to him by Fr Noel Reynolds in Kilmore to abuse his victims after Reynolds gave him a key.
It then goes on to outline how Walsh took over responsibility for leading altar boy trips to Clonliffe College from two other priests who would subsequently be convicted of child abuse, Fr Bill Carney and Fr Francis McCarthy. These two men, the report notes, brought children on holidays and shared accommodation with two separate complainants. “A boy who was initially abused by Fr McCarthy was subsequently abused by Fr Carney,” it states.
Finally, the section notes how Carney abused children at swimming pools and was “sometimes accompanied to swimming pools” by a fifth child abuser named in the report, Fr Patrick Maguire.
The publication of the second half of section 1.77 of the report last week, which contains the references to Walsh’s links with the other priests, means for the first time the extent of the interaction between all five abusers, as established by judge Yvonne Murphy and her team, has now become clear.
Madden said the revelation added “another dimension” to what we have previously known. “The only thing that is missing is a record of the private conversations between these men,” he told the Sunday Tribune. “Paedophile rings are informal by nature. While somebody who is determined to abuse children will do so regardless, if there are people there who know the other will not say anything, then it facilitates the sexual abuse of children. “It is certainly no coincidence that these five men appear together in the report and knew each other.”
The Murphy report published last year found “no direct evidence” of a paedophile ring. However, it found “worrying connections” between a number of priests, although up until now the suppression of the references to Tony Walsh meant the extent of these links was unclear.
Meanwhile, auxiliary Dublin bishop Eamonn Walsh, whose offer of resignation was refused by the pope earlier this year, yesterday refused to comment on chapter 19 of the report. While the chapter noted that he suggested to his fellow bishops that the civil authorities should be informed about Tony Walsh’s “homosexual orientation”, neither he nor any other bishop did this at the time.
December 19, 2010
Sunday Tribune.
Paddy Crazy Guy, I just had a thought. I do not believe any of the redress victims have being affected by their claims of mistreatment. Thereby since the Irish Government are not heartless enough. I must take a case on their behalf to prove your conditions where not translucent to the abuse you claimed to have suffered. Thereby the Irish Government and there Children and the Legal Profession must go through the same procedures as you did. If they have the same conclusive conditions then you are correct in your claim. But if they do not you are left even with out a wheel chair. Do not be offended we are on the same side. I love Eire and will die for her freedom for our Children to Tir Na Nog. Thank you Paddy for your Strength. Beware I may not be diplomatic or sensitive like them but do they deserve to avoid the truth and shame they put on us. Give them what they Deserve Shame Them till they drop. My Case they want Thai Children to go to poverty to protect a paedophile I have battled 12 years to see justice. Not as long as you but I will not stand down till I can no longer stand liken you! You gave me back my Faith!
YES Bernadette, please …….write a fuller article about the happenings in Ballyfermot……
It’s MORE witnessing we need, MORE RE-SENSITIZING to wake us from our GENERAL AMNESIA, and DENIAL even when we are confronted with the Truth.
Write more as soon as you can.
It must have been common knowledge that in the church thay would be protected no matter what thay did.So that gave them freedom to abuse again and again. talking about vows already broken what was the point in protecting that and the confessional secret.It drew perverts and gave them an everlasting second chance
Not only were the five paedophile priests abusing children in Ballyfermot, but they ruled and terrorised the whole Ballyfermot community by fear and threats. I was born and grew up on Ballyfermot Road and attended their church. They ordered the beating up of my brother by a local gang of thugs because he was a juvenile offender, they tried to force my mother and many other women into staying in married relationships with brutal and vicious men, Many of the women suffered very serious injuries but were told by those that they had to return to their husbands or “his soul would not go to heaven and they would be damned forever”. A woman’s role was to be subservient and obedient to their husbands and to bear him as many children as he wanted, so the priests preached and enforced. Father Cleary took advantage of many women in the area and it was well known that he fathered many of the children in the area. Fortunately my mother defied the priests and was the first ever woman in Ireland to obtain a legal Separation Order . I often also defied the priests and on one occasion when I was 17 years old Father Carney ordered a priest to give me a drug which left me almost comatose for days. This was done to stop me giving the police information on the priests’ activities as a religious Mafia.
Whether the women who bore Father Cleary’s children did so willingly or were drugged and raped, is a matter for full investigation.
I married at 27 years to a former novice priest who told me after we married, that he had joined the priesthood because he knew that he could practice sexual abuse of children and adults and would be fully protected by the priesthood and the R.C. church. I intend to write a fuller article about the happenings in Ballyfermot during the oppressive and brutal reign of these priests so that people will begin to understand the pernicious and foul cultural influences the Roman Catholic Church has had in Ireland.
The Roman Church is one big paedophile ring. For some people to get that into their thick skulls Ratzinger would have to register the name “Child Rapist Inc” with the companies office and put a big neon sign over the Vatican.