PROFILE:TONY WALSH is described by the commission as "the most notorious child sexual abuser" to have come to its attention. "It is likely that he has abused hundreds of children," the report says.
Walsh was born in 1954, and ordained in 1978. He had been a seminarian in Clonliffe College during which, it emerged many years later, he abused children there and at the home of another abuser Fr Noel Reynolds, to whose house he had a key.
Two days after Walsh took up his first appointment as a priest, in July 1978 as a curate in Ballyfermot, a complaint was received in Archbishop’s House that he had sexually abused an eight-year-old boy. That was alleged to have taken place in June 1978 at Fr Reynolds’s house.
The next complaint was in 1979 when a mother went to the parish priest of Ballyfermot, the late canon Val Rogers. Another priest in that parish, Fr Michael Cleary, was despatched to educate the woman’s son on male sexuality. In 1985 canon Rogers admitted this case had been “hushed up”.
Sometime between 1980 and 1982, there were complaints to Archbishop’s House about Walsh’s abuse of young girls at a summer camp.
In June 1985, Walsh began attending a psychiatrist. In October 1985, he denied he had indecently assaulted a young girl earlier that month.
Walsh was moved to Westland Row parish in February 1986. But complaints kept coming from Ballyfermot. A housekeeper at his house in Ballyfermot said there were always children there and on one occasion she saw two boys coming from his bedroom.
In January 1987 the housekeeper at Westland Row claimed to have found underwear of hers in Walsh’s room. She also found condoms and syringes and said “a number of boys had slept overnight in his bed and a boy from Ballyfermot had been visiting”.
Walsh denied all of this and protested he didn’t know what condoms were like. In April 1988 a woman alleged her son was in Westland Row with Walsh. The following month parents claimed Walsh had interfered with their daughter.
In May 1988, Walsh admitted to Mgr Alex Stenson that over the eight years he was in Ballyfermot “he was involved with boys about once a fortnight”. It was then 10 years after the first complaint was made to the archdiocese that Walsh was sent to Stroud in England for treatment.
He returned to Dublin in November 1988 and was appointed chaplain at a hospital for older people. He signed a contract of good behaviour with the archdiocese and nominated Fr Cleary as his spiritual director. He continued to receive counselling.
In August 1989 there were complaints about his dealings with a boy at All Hallows College.
Walsh returned to Stroud. They notified the archdiocese that Walsh intended accompanying the all priests’ show (with whom he had a spot doing an Elvis impersonation) on a UK tour. He was refused permission to do so.
In April 1990 archbishop Desmond Connell and Msgr Stenson gave Walsh until May 1st to decide on either dismissal from the priesthood or voluntary laicisation. Archbishop Connell also formally ended Walsh’s public ministry. In March 1991 there were further reports of his contacts with children. The Dublin bishops decided to begin canon law proceedings against him. In August 1991 and for the first time a parent complained to gardaí about Walsh’s attempt to pick up her son.
The following month Walsh was ordered by archbishop Connell to live at the St John of God psychiatric hospital in Stillorgan. The night before he did so he attempted to pick up another boy and gardaí were alerted.
Walsh returned to Stroud in January 1992 where he posed in nearby streets as a priest counsellor at the clinic and agreed to baby sit for a family. By chance the father found out who he was.
Back in Dublin, in July of that year, he befriended a 15-year-old boy. One of the boy’s parents contacted gardaí who contacted the archdiocese. More parents complained about his activities in December 1992 and again in May 1993.
In August 1993 the tribunal decided he should be defrocked. In October 1993 he appealed to Rome. While that was in train, he abused a boy at his grandfather’s funeral. The mother contacted gardaí alleging Walsh had abused her son a year earlier also.
In late 1994 there were media reports about this. Early in 1995 Walsh admitted to gardaí that he abused two boys in the 1980s. In February 1995 he was charged in connection with his abuse of the boy at the funeral in 1994 and sentenced later to 12 months.
In May 1995 the archdiocese provided gardaí with other complaints about Walsh. Meanwhile Rome decided Walsh would remain a priest but spend 10 years in a monastery. In November 1995 archbishop Connell petitioned pope John Paul to dismiss Walsh from the priesthood. In January 1996 the current pope, then cardinal Ratzinger, issued a decree confirming Walsh’s dismissal.
In December 1997 Walsh was sentenced to consecutive terms of six years and four years for assaults on six boys. On appeal this became six years. He was in prison until 2001. Following his sentence on December 6th last for further offences, he will be free in 2019.
