DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Irish Times
January 21, 2018
By Elaine Edwards
[Note from BishopAccountability.org: This article cites as source an unnamed “newspaper report.” That report is Brother Accused of Abuse Was Left in Africa, by Michael O’Farrell, Irish Mail on Sunday, January 21, 2018. The article also alludes to Bringing hope to Africa’s poorest, by Eithne Donnellan, Irish Times, December 14, 2010.]
Br Aidan Clohessy ‘still worked with children in Africa’ after Irish sex abuse claims
The St John of God order has said it has told the Garda Síochána about new allegations of child abuse against a former school principal who subsequently went to work with children in Africa.
Br Aidan Clohessy was head of St Augustine’s, a school for boys with special needs in Blackrock, Co Dublin, from 1970 until 1993, when he was relocated to Malawi. The first serious child-abuse allegation was made against him in 1985; two new claims by former St Augustine’s pupils emerged as late as this week, a newspaper report said on Sunday.
The report claimed that up to 20 allegations were made against Br Clohessy up to 2014, and that when the State established the Residential Institutions Redress Board, in 2002, payouts were made to Irish accusers of Br Clohessy but he continued to work with children in Africa after that time. It also alleged that he had converted a garage at his home to house boys who had been on the streets.
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