ARMAGH (NORTHERN IRELAND)
Armagh I
February 7, 2018
Governors at a Newry school have expressed “absolute regret and sorrow” at the abuse of pupils by a former priest after it was revealed compensation payments had been made to some of his victims.
And photographs of Malachy Finnegan – who was employed at St Colman’s College 30 years ago – have been taken down.
The Board of Governors released a statement after confirmation payments had been made to some of the boys sexually abused by the paedophile priest, who died in 2002.
Finnegan’s association with St Colman’s spanned 20 years, from 1967 until 1987. He had taught at the college and was also President for the last 11 years of that period.
It later emerged that he had abused a dozen pupils – 10 of them only coming forward after Finnegan’s death.
Now the Diocese of Dromore has informed the Board of Governors of St Colman’s College that it has recently settled a claim in relation to the “sexual abuse of former pupils by Fr Malachy Finnegan (deceased)”.
Agreement has been made in terms of compensation for some of the victims and other cases are still ongoing.
The first of the allegations was made in 1994 and the remainder came to light in the intervening years, the most recent in 2016.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.