“calvary” Star Brendan Gleeson Reveals He Was Abused by Christian Brothers

By Jane Walsh
Irish Central
August 14, 2014

http://www.irishcentral.com/culture/entertainment/Calvary-star-Brendan-Gleeson-reveals-he-was-abused-by-Christian-Brothers.html

Beloved Irish star Brendan Gleeson revealed, on US national radio, that he was molested by a Christian Brother as a young boy, in school.

Gleeson, who is in the United States to promote the movie “Calvary” said a brother had “dropped the hand” on him once but that he was not traumatized by it and never told his parents.

He told National Public Radio’s Bob Edward’s Weekend show it was “just one of those things where something odd happened.”

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

“I remember that was in primary school and, I frankly, I was not traumatized by it at all.

“It was just a bit weird and obviously the vibe was 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 wasn’t he.

“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.”

Gleeson, who worked as a teacher in Ireland’s Catholic school system before he become an actor, plays a parish priest in “Calvary”, his latest release which was written and directed John Michael McDonagh.

In the movie he plays Father James who is under a death sentence from a man who was abused as a child by a priest.

About the movie Gleeson added “I think one of the great triumphs of this film is that we feel and we understand that abuse is a lifelong sentence, this is not something that you just toss aside…Abuse is a horror, it’s a lifelong sentence. It cannot just be forgotten.”

“Calvary” made its mark with the Irish public raking in $2.6 million at the box office. After critical acclaim it is now on limited release in the United States where it has already taken $347,400 at the box office. The Irish movie with a cast including Chris O’Dowd, Dylan Moran, Kelly Reilly, Aiden Gillen and more is now set for Academy Award success with Gleeson himself rumored to be in line for an Oscar.