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	Swore an Oath of Secrecy By Anne Campbell The Argus December 7, 2011 http://www.argus.ie/news/swore-an-oath-of-secrecy-2956554.html FOR ALL intents and purposes, Brendan Boland believed that the reign of the notorious paedophile priest Brendan Smyth was stopped in its tracks in 1975. He had reported the abuse in March of that year to a priest he trusted, Fr Oliver Mcshane and had even been interviewed by Fr Francis Donnelly and Fr John Brady. Mr Boland and his father had been given assurances by Frs Donnelly and Brady that by putting this matter on the record, by allowing a 14-year-old to be asked intimate and personal questions about his sexuality, that by swearing an oath of secrecy, Smyth's actions would be swiftly dealt with and he would no longer be a danger to children. But Smyth, who was first convicted in Belfast in 1994 on sex abuse charges, had a reign of terror that reached well into the 1980s and it is estimated that as many as 100 children were abused from the time Mr Boland told the Church authorities about him and when Smyth was first charged with sex crimes in Belfast in 1991. Mr Boland said: 'It was only many years later that I found out they (Frs Donnelly and Brady) had not kept their word about Smyth. They said he wouldn't interfere with boys or girls again after I told them about him'. A 1994 Counterpoint documentary, by UTV journalist Chris Moore, was sent to Mr Boland by his sister. He said: 'I couldn't believe it – I was devastated. He should have been taken out of circulation in 1975. The guilt I felt about the children who were abused after me . . .I felt I didn't do enough, I felt I should have gone to the Gardai'. Three years later, in 1997, Mr Boland saw an article alleging that Cardinal Brady knew about Smyth's abuse in the 1970s. It was then that it dawned on the Dundalk man that this cleric was the third priest in the room in the Friary in March 1975.
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