DUBLIN (IRELAND)
Catholic Herald [London, England]
February 27, 2025
By Thomas Edwards
The Spiritan congregation has now paid out €8.8 million (£7.28 million) to 125 victims of clerical sexual abuse in the Republic of Ireland, according to recent reports.
The Irish Times reports that between 1998 and 2022, the religious order, formerly known as the Holy Ghost Fathers, made payments totalling €5.4 million in settlements to 73 survivors.
In November 2022, a harrowing radio documentary was released by national broadcaster RTÉ detailing abuse perpetrated by members of the religious order at Blackrock College in Dublin, a prestigious private all-boys boarding school.
The documentary follows the stories of brothers Mark and David Ryan, who were repeatedly abused at the college by multiple perpetrators.
The release of the documentary sparked a wave of allegations, with hundreds of men coming forward with similar accounts of experiencing abuse at Spiritan-run schools.
It also paved the way for the Scoping Inquiry, led by Senior Counsel Mary O’Toole, which examined sexual abuse at schools run by religious orders across the country. The inquiry recorded 2,395 allegations at 308 such schools.
Since the documentary’s release, another €3.4 million has been paid by the Spiritan order in settlements to abuse survivors.
Over a 50-year period, at least 77 members of the Irish Spiritans are thought to have committed abuse in some form.
In 2022, the Spiritans began employing independent experts to engage with victims of historical abuse at schools and institutions run by the congregation. As part of this, Tim Chapman, an independent restorative justice practitioner, facilitated an independent, victim-led restorative justice process.
The pilot restorative justice programme, attended primarily by pupils of Blackrock College in the 1970s and 1980s and its feeder school Willow Park, revealed further histories of abuse in Spiritan schools.
Fr Martin Kelly C.S.Sp., Provincial of the Spiritan Congregation in Ireland, has apologised for the abuse carried out by the community: “On behalf of the Spiritan Congregation in Ireland, I want to express my deepest and most sincere sorrow to every person who was abused by a member of the Spiritans, or by a staff member, in any of our schools.
“I sincerely apologise for this. What was done to you as innocent children was cruel and indefensible. We are deeply ashamed of these actions.”
Alongside a range of initiatives launched by the congregation, Fr Kelly has also encouraged anyone who has suffered abuse to come forward. He notes that the Spiritans are “committed to helping victims of abuse by providing access to counselling and other support services, as well as the Restorative Justice programme”.
Details for anyone wishing to contact the Spiritan Safeguarding Office are available here.
Photo: Photo: Gate entrance of Blackrock College; revelations of the scale of abuse at the college led to the scoping inquiry. (Screenshot from rte.ie.)