A former past pupil of Blackrock College who claims he was physically and sexually abused by a priest has said nobody should be shocked at recent revelations about the school.
John O’Dwyer, who attended Blackrock College and its feeder school Willow Park, until 1976 said priests and pupils there were “clearly aware of what was going on”.
He described Blackrock College as the “wild west of private Catholic education” and that it being a single sex environment contributed to the opportunities for abuse as recently outlined in a RTÉ radio documentary.
Mr O’Dwyer (65) now lives in Chicago and said he blotted out much of what had occurred to him until recently.
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He was minded to go public following a statement from the Blackrock Union which represents past pupils of the school.
Last week RTÉ's Radio 1′s Doc on One broadcast a programme featuring brothers Mark and David Ryan who were repeatedly sexually abused both in and around the grounds of Blackrock College. These abusers were from the community of the Holy Ghost Order who run the college. The order is now known as the Spiritans.
In a statement on its website, the Blackrock Union responded by stating it could offer “practical and moral supports on a confidential basis”. The union represents 8,000 pupils of both schools of whom 3,000 are part of its online community.
The Spiritan congregation, formerly the Holy Ghost Fathers, have disclosed that 233 men have made allegations of abuse against 77 Irish Spiritans in ministries throughout Ireland and overseas. Of that number, 57 men have alleged they were abused on the campus of Blackrock College in Dublin.
Mr O’Dwyer said he had not made a formal complaint, but had been physically abused by a priest on an almost daily basis.
“I’m not quite sure I missed a day when I would have to visit his office after school at the end of the hall on the 5th-year corridor, as I remembered it,” he told The Irish Times.
“He would strap me and when I laughed at him to ask out loud if that’s all he had, he got ruby red in the face and would hit me harder and longer. That was almost every single day! That was the price of going to Blackrock College.”
On at least one occasion he said he was sexually abused. When he told his mother she didn’t believe him and told him not to repeat it elsewhere.
Mr O’Dwyer, who has lived in the United States since 1984, said there is a need for a “permanent independent watchdog overlooking and taking seriously any future complaints that may occur in an all-boys school.
“This watchdog should be overseen by a board that is completely independent of Blackrock College and should also cover any other secondary school run by religious organizations that have these very same issues.”
[ ‘They roamed freely at night. We were easy prey,’ says Willow Park abuse survivorOpens in new window ]
Also on Wednesday, a victim of Blackrock College paedophile priest Fr Tom O’Byrne has accused other priests of turning a blind eye to the abuse.
The man known as Michael said he was abused in a similar way to brothers David and Mark Ryan who told their story in a RTÉ Doc on One documentary which was broadcast this week.
Michael told Liveline that Fr O’Byrne had abused him in the swimming pool of Blackrock College and then in his private rooms in the priests’ quarters during the 1970s and early 1980s.
He said Fr O’Byrne would make him read from the Bible before abusing him. Michael recalled that the other priests turned a blind eye when he left the priest’s bedroom.
“Walking out of his bedroom, my eyes were as big as saucers. I passed priests on the corridor while leaving his room,” he said.
“If they didn’t confront him and ask why there was a young child in his bedroom, they were either complicit in it or there was a culture of cover-up and intimidation where the people who lived there did not speak about it.”
The three of them were involved in a court case against Fr O’Byrne which went first to the High Court and then to the Supreme Court before it was thrown out because of the lapse of time. Michael had to give evidence in the High Court which he described as a “harrowing experience”.
The Director of Public Prosecutions charged Fr O’Byrne with 37 offences arising out of sexual abuse, but in 2007 the Supreme Court dismissed it on the basis that the priest was then 87.
Michael wondered how Fr O’Byrne had the resources to take a case to the Supreme Court.
Michael, who did not give his second name, said Fr O’Byrne’s defence legal team appeared to suggest that because he had made a professional success of his career, he was not affected by the abuse.
Michael said it was right that the legacy of abuse was tarnishing the reputation of Blackrock College given its status as one of the most elite schools in the county.
“That needs to be the case. They (parents) are continuing to send [their] children to a school like Blackrock College that has such terrible double standards. You really have to question why they are doing that,” he said.
“They enjoy a reputation within the country because so many political leaders and captains of industry went there. The values they teach when they say one thing and do another are really not Irish values that you want to live by today.”
He added that after the settlement, the Spiritans did not want to deal with him. “They felt they really hadn’t done wrong,” he said. “They just wanted to fix the problem.”
