I was a boarder at Blackrock College for two years between 1979 and 1981. I had transferred from a sister school, St Mary’s in Nairobi. Having spent a total of four weeks in Ireland in my entire life, Blackrock was something of a culture shock. I still tell people that the first class-mate I met – another boarder joining in fifth year – had such a strong Tipperary accent that I thought to myself this must be what Irish sounds like. They think I am making it up.
I can recall only one time in those two years when I felt uncomfortable in the presence of a priest. For some reason, which I don’t remember, the good of our souls maybe, the whole of the Castle – as the sixth-year boarders were known – was sent to confession. The priest – I don’t remember his name either – had an unhealthy interest in whether we masturbated. A simple “No, father” wasn’t going to get you off the hook. He had follow-up questions. He wanted details. We laughed it off. Looking back now, that was a red flag.
Other things also make a little more sense now. In Kenya, we had pretty much unlimited access to the school swimming pool. In my two years in Blackrock, despite being a keen swimmer, I was never once in the pool. No free swims for boarders. Nothing. Hearing now the central role swimming seemed to have played in the harrowing tales of abuse that have emerged, I found myself wondering if somebody somewhere in the school wasn’t trying to close a stable door.
[ Blackrock College abuse: ‘Code of omerta’ finally shattered by brothers’ braveryOpens in new window ]
Another thing that struck me back then, and now seems to make a bit more sense, is that quite a few of the priests had taught at my school in Kenya and had transferred back to Blackrock. They seemed different men. Authoritarian, joyless.
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Again, I find myself wondering what it must have been like for them. They were intelligent men. They must have known what was going on in their small community. But Blackrock would have been no different to the wider church. Errant priests were moved, not sanctioned. Protecting the reputation of the institution trumped the rights of children and the rule of law. The Catholic Church was still omnipotent in 1970s Ireland and the numbers who stood up to it are vanishingly small. Blackrock was no different.
There is a WhatsApp group now for my year. It has about 50 members which is not bad for a year that had close to 200 pupils in it
It must have been difficult for the good ones. And there were good ones. I will always remember as a child going to Mass at a small mission church in Marsabit in Kenya’s vast arid north. The priest was Irish – he may even have been a Holy Ghost father. It must have been a hard and lonely life for him. One that was lived for the benefit of others.
There is a WhatsApp group now for my year. It has about 50 members, which is not bad for a year that had close to 200 pupils in it. They are what you could call ordinary decent Rock boys.
One of my classmates bravely wrote in the group last week about how he had been abused. It was clearly a horrible and traumatic experience. Thankfully, he has come to terms with it and speaks positively about the Spiritans’ restorative justice programme.
The WhatsApp group was quickly flooded with sincere messages of support, many of which expressed genuine anger at what had happened. Like myself, I suspect many will have had an epiphany of sorts – seeing reasons for things that made little sense at the time.
None of them expressed true surprise that there had been chronic abuse at the school. That in itself was not surprising. I don’t think I have ever been at a past pupils’ occasion in recent years where, after a few drinks, the names of the abusive priests didn’t get mentioned and stories told.
But somehow concern for the true horror of what happened and the culture of obsequiousness that allowed it to go unchallenged got lost along the way. The past, as they say, is another country.
Ask someone why they sent their son to Blackrock — including myself — and they will start talking about its ethos and values
Something has changed now, if the comments in the WhatsApp group are anything to go by. There has been a reckoning of sorts. I suspect that some may still find it hard to accept that something so rotten was at the heart of an institution that shaped them. For many, the school was a very positive experience and to this day it remains at the core of their identity. They are members of the past pupils’ union (as am I). They go to SCT finals when Blackrock is playing. They spend their Saturday mornings cycling around with the Willow Wheelers. They will turn up in their droves at the union business lunch later this month.
The school will be tempted to distance itself from what happened, arguing it is a historical Spiritan problem, not a current-day Blackrock problem. They will not get away with it easily. Nor should they look to.
Ask someone why they sent their son to Blackrock – including myself – and they will start talking about its ethos and values. The inescapable truth is that Blackrock’s ethos belongs to the priests who ran the school for most of its 160-year history. The long list of decent men who made a positive contribution to the lives of the thousands of boys who have passed through the iconic gates on the Rock Road is tarnished. They allowed evil stalk its long corridors unchecked.
That is the ethos which has percolated down over the years. It was an ethos that caused irreparable damage to children. But it also lies behind a WhatsApp group in which someone can share their pain and get support from classmates some 40 years later. That is the paradox.
John McManus is opinion editor