Spiritan abuse survivors call for independent inquiry as allegations grow

Survivors of child sexual abuse by members of the Spiritan congregation have called for an independent inquiry as the number of allegations against the order continues to grow.

On Wednesday, a number of adults who were abused while attending schools run by the Spiritans along with family members detailed further allegations involving individual members of the order or staff employed by it.

The allegations, which were broadcast on RTE Radio’s Liveline programme, come in the aftermath of a radio documentary on Monday in which two Dublin brothers spoke of how they were separately sexually abused by priests at Spiritan-run Blackrock College in the 1970s.

The Sexual Crime Management Unit at the Garda National Protective Services Bureau has received referrals about a number cases relating and is reviewing them. The Irish Times understands investigations are ongoing into alleged abusers who are still alive and the Garda has also urged more victims to come forward.

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The school, meanwhile, apologised to victims, describing the abuse as a shameful period in the school’s history that it deeply regretted.

In a letter to parents, principal Alan MacGinty said the school would work diligently to ensure the highest standard of care for all students and staff.

He expressed sympathy to past pupils, their extended families and friends who suffered such “harrowing and life-changing experiences”.

The letter included a statement from Fr Martin Kelly CSSp, head of the Spiritan Order in Ireland, who also apologised to victims and survivors of abuse.

He said the order would do all in its power to help all who had been injured and ensure that the schools were “safe places for the present generation of pupils”.

Blackrock College Union, the body representing some 8,000 past pupils of the school and its feeder school, Willow Park, described the revelations as “profoundly upsetting”.

In a statement on its website, the union said it could offer “practical and moral supports on a confidential basis”.

On Liveline, Aidan Moore described how he was abused by a lay member of staff at Blackrock and former Christian Brother, Edward Baylor, in the latter’s house in Stillorgan in 1978.

He described Baylor as a “viciously violent” man who had “absolutely pummelled” a classmate in the school.

Mr Moore, speaking from Kenya, described how Baylor drove him to a number of schools rugby games and, afterwards, took him back to his house. “I was standing in the livingroom and it was getting dark.

“He came up behind me. He pressed himself against me. He put his hands around the front of my trousers and touched my privates.”

Mr Moore said “more happened” but he went blank with the trauma and did not recall it at the time. It only resurfaced when he was in his mid-twenties and suffering issues with depression and anger. His then girlfriend suggested the issues may have had something to do with his childhood.

Although initially he could not think of any link, the memory then came to him “all of a sudden”.

“It was as if the abuse was actually happening again. I couldn’t stop it. It was devastating to go through that after all those years.” Mr Moore said he favoured an independent inquiry into what went on in the school.

A spokesman for the Spiritans confirmed “Mr Baylor - a former Christian Brother” was a lay member of staff at Blackrock from 1974 to 1986.

Another woman wrote to the programme as follows: “I’m sick to the pit of my stomach today as I remember my dear brother who suffered terrible sexual abuse as a border at Rockwell College in the late sixties.

“My brother struggled after the abuse and eventually took his own life. My parents never knew what had been happening. It wasn’t until you told another family member before he died, that we discovered the abuse. My poor late brother was never heard or consoled before his death.

“Every time I drive past the gates of Rockwell, I want to drive at speed into them. I feel we as a family should have pursued those priests. But in those times priests were not answerable and were protected with silence and non-admission.

“My brother was the softest kindest dear person and of course the ideal for evil predators who are protected by their elders. I’m sick, sick, sick to hear that he was not alone and that so many other young lives have been destroyed by evil men. I’m reliving my brother’s pain today. It’s devastating. May all those young men find healing.”

A spokesman for the Spiritans said all but four of the 77 members of the order who are the subject of allegations are dead. The four still alive live in Ireland. Three of the 77 have been convicted of abuse charges in court.

Asked how many new allegations have been made since Monday’s documentary, the spokesman said the number was “in single figures but expected to rise”.

He said the allegations around Blackrock College relate to the 1960s-80s “but a full check of the records may reveal a longer timeframe”.

Since 2004, the congregation has paid out over €5 million in settlements surrounding abuse claims and for support services, including 12 claims in connection with abuse at Blackrock College.

Edward told Liveline he went to the headmaster of Blackrock College after he was abused by Fr Senan Corry. He ended up in a meeting with the headmaster, the priest and his parents where Fr Corry denied any abuse.

“In those days, the priest’s word was sacrosanct,” Edward told the programme. “I was 12. I never go over it. I left that office a different child.”

He said he went from being a high achiever and the captain of the football teams to being a destructive angry child and, later in life, a heroin addict.

A second woman wrote to the programme describing how she was abused by Fr Aloysius Flood when she was 16.

She said she first met him in 1981/82 when he was a frequent visitor to her family home. Her father asked her to deliver a Christmas present to Fr Flood.

“Aloysius took me to his room where we chatted for a while. After a bit, Flood asked me to lie on his bed and he then proceeded to take off my t-shirt and suck and fondle my breasts. He told me about his wet dreams. I felt really dirty and contaminated. I was 16.”

After that, Fr Flood somehow became a good friend of her parents, she said, and was even invited on holidays with the family. “He’d continue to ask my parents if he could take me for a drive, where he constant told me he loved me and constantly groped me and told me to tell nobody.”