IRELAND
Irish Independent
Donal Lynch
PUBLISHED
07/08/2016
‘So I suppose this makes me like Annie Murphy”, I said to the recently ex-seminarian sitting on the edge of my bed. He smiled wryly at me. This was the early 2000s, we were still very young, and post-coital banter felt like a strange kind of progress – gay sex in Ireland still had a furtive air to it. And every extra taboo we could violate – including a religious vow – made the whole thing even more exciting.
A relationship would not have been possible, even if we had wanted it. The years of pent-up sexual energy this man had accumulated had by now given way to even more years of reckless promiscuity. That began in the seminary itself – at least five of his classmates had been gay – but it quickly became untenable to stay there. Even then there was a tipping point for rumours.
After he left Maynooth, even by libertine gay male standards, his single-minded pursuit of new encounters was legendary. In the years after we first met there were tales of his life that seemed alternately swashbuckling and tragic.
Through the addictive fog of this behaviour, little glimmers of insight came to this man. He told me the years in the seminary had not made him like this. Joining it was supposed to have been a solution to an obsession. He had grown up in a world that had told him that his sexuality was bad. Like a lust-obsessed Victorian this shame and secrecy around sex had placed it at the centre of his life. The seminary seemed like the logical panacea. And yet it only made things worse. As Camille Paglia said of the church scandals in the US, “when the wires go underground they raise their voltage.”
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.