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  Abusers Organised Trips with Young Boys

Kerryman
December 2, 2009

http://www.kerryman.ie/news/abusers-organised-trips-with-young-boys-1960873.html

IRELAND--ABUSE was carried out by a number of priests of the Dublin archdiocese on trips organised to Kerry in the 1970s, the Commission report reveals.

Kerry was the location for a number of trips organised by priests of the Dublin Archdiocese for young people in the 1970s during which abuse took place. The Commission also heard that one suspected abuser spoke to his superiors about bringing separated wives on visits to the Kingdom, in an apparent effort to deflect attention from complaints of abuse raised about him.

In evidence heard by the commission, one farm outside of Tralee was the scene for a week's holiday organised by an unnamed priest attached to the ProCathedral in 1972. A victim of this priest — an altar boy at the ProCathedral) recalled one trip to a farm outside of Tralee: "I would have been on one holiday in Kerry, which would have been his first from the Pro-Cathedral, his first to organise. So that was probably 1972. He ha d an arrangement with …there was a farm …near Tralee. A lady there […] and she had, I think it was a bungalow on her farm and she rented it out as a holiday home."

Abusers Fr William Carney (who pleaded guilty to two counts of indecent assault in 1983) and Fr Francis McCarthy (who was convicted for abusing an orphan in 1997) who were friends since the seminary also took young boys on trips to Kerry, in the late 1970s. On one ten-day trip, Fr Carney fondled one victim's penis. The abused told Gardaí that Fr Carney had fondled his penis with his hand, but that no other abuse had taken place. 'He said that no physical force was used by either priest on him to engage in these sexual acts.'

Another victim of Fr McCarthy's who had been abused on other trips cited a visit to Kerry. "He said he also had been brought to Kerry, but he had resisted any attempt by the priest to sleep with him or to interfere with him," the report set out.

Fr McCarthy

also accepted that he and Fr Carney took two groups of altar boys to Tralee for a week's holiday, but said he was unaware of anything happening during the trip. Fr Carney also told Archbishop Desmond Connell in 1988 of events in Dublin that were 'drawing attention to him'. On foot of this he told the Archbishop 'he took separated wives to Kerry. He felt that he could help some who had alcoholic problems.'

 
 

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