BishopAccountability.org
	Let's End the Pain One in Four [Ireland] April 23, 2006 http://www.oneinfour.org/news/news2006/pain/ Today we publish exclusive extracts from the book "The Irish Virus" by clerical abuse victim Peter McCloskey, who sadly took his own life a few weeks ago. It is and extraordinary book by an extraordinary person who-despite his personal suffering-found the courage to translate into words the most profound thoughts and feelings. Many other people like Peter McCloskey suffered at the hands of paedophile clerics-and suffered more torment from a Catholic Church that would not listen and sided with the abusers against the abused. Every Irish cleric would do well to read Peter's book and then resolve that this pain must never be repeated. I tried to escape to a magical world where the horror was gone. Nobody will ever know the true torment suffered by Peter McCloskey-but a book he wrote in 1999 gives a glimpse of his demons. The Irish Virus - which Peter wrote under the name Peter Flynn - gives an insight into how sexual abuse by evil Fr Denis Daly affected the rest of his life. The 37-year-old, who took his life just three weeks ago, spent years trying to deal with the horrors he suffered at the hands of the sick priest. He was brutally raped as a child and spent the rest of his days trying to come to terms with what happened. He felt alone and isolated from his family. He became an alcoholic, living on the streets. He attempted suicide a number of times and was in and out of mental institutions. In his own words, he became "homeless, destitute, starving, cold, thinking of suicide and generally f***ed." "Childhood is precious and should be nurtured. Mine wasn't," he wrote. "I wanted total removal from my world and deliverance to a magical world where I could be alone, untouchable and whatever I wanted to be. My purpose was survival, my solution-drink. After five or six pints, nothing mattered anymore. The pain was gone-until the demons of slumber returned in an unforgiving onslaught," he said. Tragic Peter's family yesterday admitted that dealing with his problems was not easy and that, with hindsight, they hadn't supported him as much as they should have. When the Irish Virus was published seven years ago, his brother Joseph first reacted with anger. "Up until about six years ago, I didn't understand that Peter's problems were caused by something much deeper and when I first read the book I felt that the family had been attacked," Joseph told The Star yesterday. "It took months to come to terms with what he wrote but when I took a step back, my gut instinct told me there was something terribly wrong here, something that demanded that I treat Peter differently and with a greater compassion than I had in the past." In the book, Peter also criticized his mother, who believes she failed her son. He said: "My mother professed love to me but betrayal was the only thing she ever showed me. Maybe hers was a tough kind of love, I don't know… I have never understood." Last Monday, Mary McCloskey said: "As a mother, I acknowledge that I encountered serious behavioural and discipline difficulties with Peter over those years. I now realise that my response was wholly inadequate. Peter and Joseph later reconciled and he also patched up his relationship with his mother before he took his own life. He had contemplated suicide many times but, in the book, he said he would fight on for the sake of his three daughters. "I have children now and I'll never run, no matter how bad it gets. "Anyway, I loved them and love doesn't run," he wrote tragically. Peter was determined to find out the truth about his evil abuser and he even travelled to Australia to find out about Fr Daly when the Diocese of Limerick kept information from him. In emails to victim support group One In Four, Peter's frustration with the Diocese and with Bishop Donal Murray is clear. On August 12, 2004, he wrote: "I'm very tired at the moment and I am trying to hold on. My back is tightly against the wall and the escape routes are not apparent. It's getting very black. I feel that I am swimming against the tide. "The reality that the church, both here and in Australia, have been concealing this information for so long, is hard to reconcile with…I feel helpless and quite isolated." On April 1 last, talks with the Church broke down and distraught Peter ended it all. Aine Bonner. The Star.
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