IRELAND
Irish Central
Kate Hickey @KateHickey_ January 10, 2017
Today marks five years since Irish journalist, filmmaker, and writer Mary Raftery died of ovarian cancer, aged 54. Nominated in 2011 for “NNI National Journalist of the Year” for her work in exposing the clerical abuse of children in Ireland, Raftery was regarded as one of the country’s finest investigative journalists exposing not only clerical abuse but abuse in the Irish childcare system and the appalling conditions within the country’s psychiatric units.
Raftery famously made the 1999 documentary “States of Fear” and the “Cardinal Secrets” in 2002 and her work was widely viewed as having led to the establishment of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse. The Commission reported its findings in May of 2009.
Beginning her investigative career with “In Dublin” magazine in the 1970s, Raftery later moved on to “Magill” magazine and then to RTÉ.
Speaking to RTE radio at the time of her death, Dublin’s Archbishop Diarmuid Martin paid tribute to journalist and documentary maker, stating, “Bringing the truth out is always a positive thing even though it may be a painful truth.
“I believe that through her exposition of sins of the past and of the moment that the church is a better place for children and a place which has learned many lessons.”
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