Brendan Gleeson: I was molested by Christian Brother

By John Breslin
Irish Examiner
August 12, 2014

http://www.irishexaminer.com/ireland/brendan-gleeson-i-was-molested-by-christian-brother-279194.html

Brendan Gleeson has revealed he was molested as a child by a Christian Brother who "dropped the hand" on him in primary school.

But Gleeson, in an interview on National Public Radio in the US, said he was not “traumatised” in any way by the incident.

“It was just one of those things where something odd happened,” said Gleeson, speaking following the US release last week of his latest film Calvary, in which he plays a priest in a small town in Ireland.

“Yeah, it’s odd, I remember a particular Christian Brother dropped the hand on me at one point. It was not very traumatic and it was not very, it was not at all sustained, it was just one of these things where something odd happened,” Gleeson said.

“I remember that was in primary school and, frankly, I was not traumatised by it at all. It was just a bit weird and obviously the vibe was that he never came at me again.

“The same guy was in secondary school and I remember a couple of us starting trading stories and really that he was a bit off.

“But nobody ever thought to tell anybody, nobody ever thought to tell even my parents, who would have been enraged and would not have taken it lightly. I never even thought about telling them.”

Calvary, written and directed by John Michael McDonagh, was released last week, playing in a limited number of US venues. It has taken close to $350,000 (€260,000) at the box office.

Gleeson plays a thoroughly decent person — “recreating the notion of morality and decency, integrity” — under a death sentence from an individual abused as a child by a priest.

In Gleeson’s case, contact with the Brother was minimal and not sustained but others he knew were beaten or sexually assaulted.

He added: “I think one of the great triumphs of this film is that we feel and understand that abuse is a lifelong sentence, it is not something that you just toss aside.

“Abuse is a horror, it’s a lifelong sentence that cannot just be forgotten.”

McDonagh, also interviewed on National Public Radio’s Bob Edward’s Weekend, revealed his next movie, starring Gleeson, will be based in London and features as its hero an angry, “scabrous, paraplegic” who hates all people who can walk.

Meaning just about everybody, McDonagh said.