Sexual abuse ‘pretty rife’ at Spiritan-run Rockwell during 1970s, ex-pupil says

A deceased Spiritan priest who taught Latin and Greek at Rockwell College in Co Tipperary during the 1970s has been described by a past pupil there as “very obviously a paedophile”.

Dublin-based TV and film distributor Andrew Fitzpatrick, who was not abused himself while at Rockwell between 1972 and 1977, said “everyone knew” about the activities of the priest. “He would sit in the class correcting homework while ‘fiddling’ with the same three or four boys. He was well able to identify those who would not fight back.”

The other pupils “were terrified of him”, Mr Fitzpatrick told The Irish Times. “He tried it on with a friend of mine once and he [his friend] came into class the next day with a knife down his trousers. He put his hand down his trousers and felt the knife and never went near him again. He [the priest] was enormous and violent.”

[ Dublin brothers relate how both, unknown to the other, were abused by priests at Blackrock College ]

One day the priest viciously kicked a boy in front of the class. “We were all terrified of him,” he said. They “never complained because they were afraid of the reaction” and couldn’t tell their parents as they weren’t sure how they would react either.

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When this priest died Mr Fitzpatrick came across a glowing obituary to him in a west of Ireland newspaper. He had it removed. In his time at Rockwell, he said, it was believed “that there were four or five priests who were reputed to be paedophiles”. Earlier he had tweeted that abuse in his time at the college was “pretty rife”.

In 2015 another priest Fr Henry Moloney received a four-year prison sentence for abusing a boy at Rockwell while there between 1980 and 1996.

[ Radio review: Gut-wrenching, essential radio: Blackrock College sexual abuse accounts are tough to listen to ]

The Irish Times has also received details of serious abuse allegations against a Spiritan priest who was in Dublin’s Templeogue College during the 1970s. The priest was later moved to North America.

A spokesman for the Spiritans, formerly known as Holy Ghost Fathers, was unable to say whether six priests accused in recent days of abuse at their Willow Park and Blackrock College schools operated a paedophile ring.

On Monday’s Documentary on One, broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1, brothers David and Mark Ryan recalled being abused by Fr Tom O’Byrne but also by another priest and a layman. On Tuesday’s Liveline programme a man who referred to himself as Stephen spoke of his abuse by three other priests: Fr Aloysius Flood, Fr Senan Corry and Fr Gerard Hannan.

In response to queries about whether a paedophile ring operated on the Blackrock campus at the time, the Spiritan spokesman said: “It is difficult to say yes or no. As far as we know now all six abused separately [as serial abusers]. Others might say that they were a group if they knew each other as abusers. It is difficult to give a definitive answer either way.”

He also said that, since the RTÉ documentary was broadcast, “there have already been a number of new contacts alleging abuse and we expect that this will continue”.

[ How cover-up by Spiritans in Ireland led to child abuse in leading Sierra Leone school ]

On Tuesday’s Liveline “Stephen” (61) spoke of his abuse by Fathers Corry, Flood and Hannan at Willow Park and Blackrock College. He attended Willow Park from 1968, as a seven-year-old. The abuse by Fr Flood began when he was nine and by Fr Corry when he was 10 or 11. The latter would breathe in his ear “‘This is our secret,’ with 29 people watching us [in the classroom]”.

The priest would say: “You can’t tell anybody. Nobody is going to believe a young lad like you against a priest and don’t forget we can get you expelled. You have brothers that are following you up and they won’t be allowed into the school.”

Fr Flood “was the same”. He would say: “You and your family will be disgraced. Your brothers won’t get into the school. There was a total and utter fear factor with them.” He remembered Fr Corry “for being extremely vicious and brutal”.

His third abuser at Blackrock College was Fr Hannan.

The Spiritan spokesman said it had “no dispute with Stephen’s account on Liveline”.

On the same programme another former pupil at Willow Park and Blackrock, Peter Cafolla, who was not himself abused, remembered the same three abuser priests. “Corry was an absolute sadist,” he said and recalled how another unnamed priest came into their class one day, when they were 13 or 14, and “asked us did any of us ever lie naked on silk sheets?”

He felt “it was crazy what went on” and is “delighted it is coming to light now”.

He said it was well known among pupils in Blackrock that Fr Hannan was “touching boys” but in his experience “he wasn’t the worst”. Mr Cafolla is convinced there was a paedophile ring operating. “There’s no doubt about it,” he said.