IRELAND
Irish Independent
T Ryle Dwyer
April 23 2017
During the eight years that I spent at university in the United States, I only heard of my home town of Tralee mentioned on the American news on one single occasion. And that was on this day 50 years ago – when Dr Denis Moynihan, the Bishop of Kerry, asked the people of Kerry to boycott the public appearance that night of movie star Jayne Mansfield at the Mount Brandon Hotel, Tralee.
Seamus McConville, the editor of The Kerryman, had informed the bishop of the appearance of the busty starlet, who boasted of her vital statistics – 40-21-35. He actually played down the controversy in the subsequent issue of The Kerryman.
Possibly the newspaperman just called the bishop for a comment. The Bishop may have actually been spurred into action by a letter from Archbishop John Charles McQuaid
This story played out against the backdrop of a complaint of the sexual and physical abuse of children in the Industrial school in Tralee. In his book, Holy Terrors, about the sexual and physical abuse that he experienced at St Joseph’s Industrial School, Michael Clemenger related that shortly after his release from the school in March 1967, he went to Monsignor John Lane, the Dean of Kerry.
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