Interview about Abuse by Rev. Brendan Smyth, O.Praem., at Holy Trinity Abbey in Kilnacrott

By Chris Moore Interviewing "Alison"
1995

I come from a very religious family and so we all visited the abbey at Kilnacrott. I was there quite a bit as a child, attending devotions or going to concerts, and I liked going to the children's library they had. It was here that I met Fr Smyth. When we returned our books he would take time to ask us how we got on with the book, just chatting about the story. He was always pulling my ear or squeezing my nose. It hurt a bit sometimes but then he would ask me to go into a small room off the library where there was a table and chairs. In here he would lift me up on to his knee and then he would turn me over, lift my skirt and slap my bottom. This went on for a year when I was eleven years of age, that would have been around 1957. He always lifted my skirt and I did not like it but I told no one about it. Every time he did this he would give me loads of sweets he kept in another room. Once he had finished with me he would open the door to let me out to pick my next book and then he would take my brother into the room. What we did not realise until the whole Fr Smyth story broke last year on television was that he had been interfering with my brother as well. In fact, there was a gathering of the family last year at about the time the Smyth story hit the headlines and during conversation at that meeting, I discovered that my brother and two other men (one is my cousin and another very close family friend) all had problems with the priest. You can imagine the shock of sitting chatting and suddenly discovering that four people in the room had difficulties with Fr Smyth. My cousin said the priest fondled him, his private parts. He said he could not go to his family because he did not think they would believe him. They were all afraid to speak up against Fr Smyth. I have not gone to the police because what happened to me was so minor by comparison to what others had to endure and there are good priests at the abbey, very good priests and I would not want to hurt them. He was a very bad apple and I hate him. Some time around 1957 or 1958 he disappeared off the scene and it was seven years before I saw him again. He asked my mother about me when he got back and he asked to see me, to offer me extra lessons to help with my Latin. But this time before I went to the abbey I made sure there was someone with me … I took my sister and would not let her out of my sight. She doesn't know why, but that was my way of making sure I was not alone with him. I was eighteen years of age at this point, but I just did not want to be alone with the priest in his room. From that day he has never spoken to me and even though he still called at our house regularly to see my father, he would ignore me completely. I hate the man.

[Note from BishopAccountability.org: This letter was scanned from Chris Moore, Betrayal of Trust: The Father Brendan Smyth Affair and the Catholic Church (Dublin: Marino Books, 1995), pp. 218-20.]