Nireland Abuse Victims Call for Inquiry to Be Widened

By Barbara Miller
ABC News AUSTRALIA
June 5, 2013

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-05/nireland-abuse-victims-call-for-inquiry-to-be/4735138

[with audio]

Victims of clerical abuse in Northern Ireland which did not take place in an institution are campaigning for their own government inquiry into their experiences. The Northern Ireland Historical Abuse Inquiry only covers people who were abused when they were under the age of 18 and in a state or church-run institution.

ELEANOR HALL: To Northern Ireland now and the child abuse inquiry that is being run there is strikingly similar to Australia's Royal Commission.

As in Australia, there has been controversy over which instances of abuse will be considered by the Inquiry.

In Northern Ireland, abuse which took place outside institutions but at the hands of the local parish priest are not covered, but a campaign is being launched to try to change that.

As Europe correspondent Barbara Miller reports.

BARBARA MILLER: It takes some victims of child abuse many years to speak of their experiences.

Michael Connolly who says he was abused in the 1970s by a priest he'd turned to for help is no exception.

MICHAEL CONNOLLY: I was 48 years of age before I spoke about my abuse, and it came as quite a shock to my wife when I first told her about this. In fact it's so painful even now when I speak to you, it's so painful thinking back on that.

I couldn't tell her. I had to write her a seven page letter... and that was difficult.

BARBARA MILLER: Michael Connolly says he thinks the stark sectarian divisions within Northern


Ireland made the situation even more difficult.

MICHAEL CONNOLLY: We had paramilitaries operating in the area and if you went to the local police or if you went somewhere and made a statement about somebody who was sexually abused and you were in the community, you wouldn't survive it. Quite simply, you would be dealt with.

The paramilitaries didn't want to have anybody within their community communicating with the police or giving any information about anybody within their community. And failure to obey those laws could result in your death.

If I had have spoke about my abuse back when it happened in the early 70s they may have well been looking for my body in a bog someplace around the Irish border.

BARBARA MILLER: Michael Connolly's experience is not covered by Northern Ireland's inquiry, because the abuse he suffered did not take place in an institution.

The same goes for this woman, who wants to be referred to as Mary.

MARY: It just felt when I had originally heard about the inquiry coming that it was an opportunity for my voice to be heard. And when I contacted the inquiry, just like a lot of people have said, the door was slammed in my face because I obviously don't fall into the categories.

But I recognise I was abused and I just want my voice to be heard.

BARBARA MILLER: Mary and Michael Connolly are backing calls for a separate inquiry to be held into clerical abuse in the community, so their accounts can be heard.

MARY: To be quite honest it's like a dirty little secret that you keep hidden. I always was brought up in the Catholic faith and wanted to be a good person and to lead a good life. And this was something I felt dirty and unclean about and wouldn't want to have spoken to anybody about.

I feel because I put myself in the position to be with this priest, I looked up to him and respected him. So I feel I put myself in that position, and I feel guilty about that.

BARBARA MILLER: Do you talk openly in your family about what happened?

MARY: No. My husband and my two children are the only people who know about it in my family. My other siblings and my mother don't know anything about it. I think it would break her heart, to be honest.

BARBARA MILLER: Victims of clerical abuse out with an institution are joining forces with women who were over 18, and therefore no longer children, when they were admitted to the type of Magdalene laundry-type workhouse made famous by a film of that name.

(Excerpt from The Magdalene Sisters)

WOMAN: The philosophy here at Magdalene is a very simple one. Here, you may redeem yourself working beyond human endurance to remove the stains of the sins you have committed.

WOMAN 2: What in god's name have we done to deserve this?

(End of excerpt)

BARBARA MILLER: Patrick Corrigan from Amnesty International.

PATRICK CORRIGAN: I think it makes those groups who don't have recourse to the Northern Ireland Institutional Abuse Inquiry, I think it makes them feel that they have been neglected, ignored again.

I think it's quite hurtful for them, unless the political leadership here in Northern Ireland is willing to indicate that they will do right by them as well.

BARBARA MILLER: There have been a number of broad-ranging inquiries into abuse in the Republic of Ireland, and Amnesty says there's no reason why that shouldn't happen north of the border.

This is Barbara Miller in Belfast reporting for The World Today.