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PB February/March 2024 February/March 2024 21
A
t the Terenure College Past Pupils
dinner in 1995 the alumni were
anything from five to fifty years out
of the school: some still boyish;
some grizzled; a coterie of wizened
and grey.
There was a power cut.
In the dark some wag shouted: “Get yer hand
outa there Father!”. Laughter ensued,
quietened down and suddenly morphed into a
football-cheer-like chant of: Paedophile,
Paedophile, Paedophile, (pause) Paedophile,
(rising in volume) PaeDO Phile… this was
repeated for maybe 20 seconds. Suddenly
power and light was restored and the brave
men in the dark became boys again and went
silent.
I looked up to the top table and saw Fathers
Madden and Weakliam and former rugby
svengali John McClean looking out, challenging
anyone to meet their practised steely gazes.
McClean, Madden,
O’Donovan, Whitty
Carmelites under Troy and O’Neill have never
admitted Terenure colluded in widespread
paedophilia, with the abusers named above
facilitated by Fr David Weakliam (right)
By Paul Kennedy
Here’s the thing, all tables joined in and it
quickly became feral, it started as laughter but
became very dark, very quickly.
I arrived for the first time at the doors of
Terenure College in 1971 aged nine, and spent
the next two years in the primary school during
which time I was repeatedly sexually abused by
Fr Aidan O’Donovan, something I repressed with
vigour over the decades since, so much so that
although I had an automatic repulsion on the
mention of his name, in my subconscious I felt
the need to delete the memory of the abuse.
Through compassionate and astute therapy the
truth slowly came out and was later clearly
specified to me by a pal of mine who told me in
2022: “along with breaking my leg, my most
vivid childhood memory I have is seeing you
being abused by O’Donovan in front of me”.
It was as if I had unlocked a door of memories
and I began to remember O’Donovan molesting
me at every chance, in particular reading
stories in class while sitting on his lap — being
chosen was considered by us young boys as
high praise indeed.
However, when on his lap in full view of the
class, he would insert his fingers up my anus
and also play with my genitals for however long
it pleased him as I continued to read. Inside the
openings in his habit he usually had his spare
hand on his own genitals masturbating and
frequently laughing. This happened over two
years, and at least 40 or 50 times. He always
seemed to have a large white handkerchief in
one trouser pocket on which he would publicly
wipe his hands and another in the opposite
pocket to blow his nose.
Often I would smear chalk on my genitals so
that his hands would reappear with chalk in the
vain hope that this would dissuade him. It
didn’t.
It’s strange how you remember certain things
more than others. I came home from the school
on at least four or five occasions without my
underpants as O’Donovan had made my anus
bleed and I threw them in the bin on the way
home so my Mom wouldn’t find out. She sat me
John McClen Denis Whitty Fr. Aidn O’Donovn
NEWS
22 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 23
down once to say that to soil your pants was
nothing to be ashamed of and that she would
buy me more and tell no-one. I was aghast at
the sight of fluids especially blood in my
underpants and in my innocence presumed
that the semen was pus and just wanted to
deny everything and anything.
As I write this, a chill sears my back,
remembering a particular occasion with
emotional clarity 50 years on.
Once, we went to a Feis Ceoil on a hired bus
and it was a big deal for the choir. I was to sing
a solo verse, my first, and he was very excited
about it. To calm my nerves he brought me into
an empty room down a short corridor away
from the lads and began to coach me. The door
was locked. In a matter of moments he flicked
his habit over his left shoulder with his right
hand, revealing his wide open trousers and
excited penis. He continued to talk exclusively
about the song I was about to sing as he raped
me from behind across an old desk as I stared
blankly at faded carpet the same colour as his
habit. He thrusted hurriedly as I recall him
saying sure we’ll be on stage in a few minutes.
As suddenly as it started it ended with him
saying: “I know we’ll be good, first place, so
don’t get it wrong!”. I got it wrong, I was not
remotely in my body and the worse thing I
remember was the feeling that I had let the lads
down as O’Donovan verbally laid into me
saying I couldn’t sing properly and had lost the
school the Feis. Despite my immense love of
music and my powerful professional speaking
voice, I never sang again.
I remember clearly now being run from the
priests’ bedrooms by older priests on the odd
occasions they intervened, thus undoubtedly
saving me from more abuse from O’Donovan.
Some would shout at me on the stairs or on the
corridor, “get out of here you filthy boy!”.
O’Donovan would brazenly laugh it o, disown
me and waltz o. On one occasion an old
retired priest whacked me on the head and
growled “Out you little rent boy”. I remembered
the phrase and tried to find out what it meant,
but I soon stopped asking as I got another
sharp slap from a teacher I asked. I would on
occasion then use the phrase on my
schoolmates when I would ‘Prune’ them. This
was when you squeezed a lad’s genitals hard,
unfortunately I would also kiss them and Hey
Presto they would all run away from me.
I thought this was a clever way of avoiding a
fight, yet in truth it was a way to both lose
friends and be presumed gay years later. There
is no doubt that this was a learnt behaviour
from O’Donovan.
By the time I had advanced to the secondary
school of Terenure College it was a very safe
place: for paedophiles. We had several to
choose from, or should I say several we prayed
would not choose to prey upon us.
It was soul-destroying to be taught the
dierence between right and wrong by men
who were simultaneously trying to get their
hands down your trousers. A minority of those
in authority in our lives oended by committing
unspeakable acts: the majority oended by not
speaking up.
As new students in the secondary school we
were soon warned by the older boys who was
to be avoided, especially in a confined space. I
learnt this the hard way.
John ‘Doc’ McClean was one of those we were
warned against.
John McClean, who taught English, drama
and rugby — the school famously won the
Leinster Senior Cup twice with his coaching —
set his sights on me immediately after my
father’s terminal cancer diagnosis, reassuring
me that he’d look after and help me. “You can
rely on me”, he said., but it was a disgusting
lie. And so began his grooming, that inexorable
erosion of my innocence for his own callous,
warped desires.
I was one of the many raped by Fr Aidan
O’Donovan and handed on to McClean in First
year in Secondary School. There was clear
collusion between them both, O’Donovan liked
them younger, McClean, slightly older — 10 to
14 years old. O’Donovan would frequently ask
me if I was doing what Mr McClean wanted and
was I behaving myself for him. He often would
playfully tap my backside in a knowing way
before leaving.
I solemnly believe I fought McClean’s rapes
o, but still agonise whether this is true given
my incredible bottling up of my experiences of
abject abuse by O’Donovan.
McClean and Fr Madden were the primary
rugby coaches in the school and it was no
surprise when they both dropped me from their
first teams since I was unwilling to ‘play ball o
the field’.
By then, I had finally had enough, had grown
enough, to stand up to it all: having witnessed
my classmates being sleazily groped by
Madden I resolved it wasn’t going to happen to
me, I had had enough! I walked away from
Madden when he went to feel me; I walked
away, sat down ignoring his demands. He
leaned and drooled over me reeking of whiskey,
cigarettes, bad breath and BO. Then suddenly
he squeezed my genitals so hard I nearly
passed out. When I called him a “fuckin’
bastard” and elbowed his hands from my
crotch he bounced my head repeatedly o the
desk until I was concussed.
Days later I was called into Fr Weakliam’s
oce. I had no idea why, until he said: “I heard
you are not obeying Fr Madden and Mr McClean
and not doing what you are told”.
With that, Weakliam locked the door, beat
me to a pulp, focussing principally on my liver,
kidneys and internal organs keenly avoiding
any visible signs, on the o chance I might
report this to family and ensuring there was no
obvious evidence of it having happened. It took
me days to recover from it. I can still remember
his violent arousal and frothing excitement as
he inflicted the hammering. He said: “You
stupid boy. Who do you think you are? Do as
you are told or I will have to do this again and
again”.
All of the Terenure abusers are dead, (Fr
Aidan O’Donovan/ Fr Jackie Madden/ Denis
Whitty), incarcerated (John McClean) or
incapacitated (Fr David Weakliam).
The Carmelite Order claims — still — that
McClean and Fr Madden
were the primary rugby
coaches in the school, they
both dropped me from their
first teams when I was
unwilling to ‘play ball off
the field’
It was soul-destroying to be taught the
difference between right and wrong by men
who were simultaneously trying to get their
hands down your trousers
Pul Kennedy
22 February/March 2024 February/March 2024 23
they would have helped if they knew about the
abuse at the time. Numerous priests and sta
members were well aware of what was
happening. Indeed several went as far as
attempting to curb the immoral activities of
their colleagues. Boys who raised the issue of
sexual misconduct were immediately
reprimanded for telling lies and threatened
with expulsion, not by the direct oenders but
by the Carmelite clerics in charge.
Fr Michael Troy (Provincial of the order), in a
personal meeting with me in September, 2023,
said: we’ve checked the records and found
nothing! I replied: “Paedophiles don’t leave
records; do they?”. He bowed his head. I am
pretty sure Fr Troy is a decent man, but he has
been sent to bat on a bent crease for a crooked
order who have long since given their broken
moral compass to lawyers and accountants.
The Carmelites can now apologise profusely
for both Fr David Weakliam, a former Prior of
Terenure College and Irish Provincial, and Fr
Simon Grace, a senior science teacher, for the
brutal violence they regularly inflicted on boys
in their care. They can do so as legally physical,
as opposed to sexual, abuse is beyond the
statute of limitations ensuring they cannot be
prosecuted. Yet when it comes to sexual
abuse…they are ‘saddened it happened’. It is
quite something when you hear them say they
have investigated and interviewed the accused
but it has yielded no evidence. The naive
expectation of paedophiles telling the truth is
revealing. The real evidence is in all the
generations of scarred men from Terenure who
have to deal with this daily.
Nor can members of the Order admit they
violated their duty of care to the children in
their care and they remain steadfast in their
determination to deny their collusion at the
time and, risibly, to claim that the four active
paedophiles on their sta were operating
separately and without the knowledge of any
of their order or sta, over three decades — yet
somehow with the full knowledge of the
students at all times!
Well everyone knew, even children in
neighbouring schools.
Since I went ‘public’ I have been contacted
by almost 100 men who were abused, some
most severely and the bulk by more than one
abuser.
We the victims have realised through
speaking to each other that maybe 18 men
have committed suicide due in no small part
that they were sexually abused in Terenure
College.
Many died young through the common trait
of using substance abuse to escape the
memories.
Others are institutionalised, or leading
damaged lives. Don’t underestimate the
damage done to the boys who weren’t directly
abused but witnessed their classmates being
abused and lived under the daily black
shadow that they could be next.
For most of us in Terenure College every
school day was loaded with the possibility of
rape, sexual assault, violent physical abuse,
humiliation — of ourselves or others.
The four paedophiles mentioned and their
ringmaster Weakliam were obviously sharing
information on victims with each other. It is
documented that sharing stories ameliorates
paedophile guilt and tends to normalise
abuse, and emotionally cauterises any victim
empathy.
The current Carmelite worldwide Prior
General, Fr Míceál O’Neill, was a student in
Terenure College in the 1960s and a teacher,
and then Prior from the 1970s to the 1990s.
He was a pleasant, decent man — I can say
from personal experience, but the silence
from him and the Carmelite Order is
deafening.
All the victims I have spoken to say the
approach of the Order is insulting.
Yes a mealy-mouthed apology has been
released to the media, but those young boys,
now men, the warriors who daily did battle to
avoid their squalid clutches have not had a
genuine apology, men who have been stained
and brutalised as children — nothing.
This is not an attempt to increase the
payments in civil cases as the redress
scheme as fashioned by the devout Minister
Michael Woods enshrines a limit on payouts
– so ensuring they pay out a fraction of what
they should. In truth most of us who were
abused will merely get a refund of around our
school fees if you multiply the years they
attended the school by the cost of a year’s
fees today. They are also compelled to sign
legally binding non-disclosure agreements.
What impact has this had on me for almost
50 years?
Well, as another English teacher in Terenure
College once said to me: “Kennedy you are
truculent”. Is it any surprise I quickly became
aggressively defiant and sought to
outmanoeuvre the constant bullying,
humiliation and sexual sleaze that was our
daily lot in Terenure College.
What did this make of me in my formative
years? I soon learnt to fight for survival using
humour and cunning. As a mere boy I was no
match physically, so I devised — along with
so many other boys — ways to avoid the
constant possibility of being groped, raped,
humiliated, beaten or just bullied. Those who
promised to protect and nurture me became
those who either wished to defile me or those
who looked the other way. And so began a
lifetime distrust of authority.
I developed a persona of non-conformity, I
chose to live outside the system. Now I don’t
apportion blame for this on McClean or
anyone in particular but the abusers did have
a profound eect on me at a subconscious
level. I have found that you can only suppress
these experiences for so long and I was good
at that for nearly 50 years.
Then in 2019 my first child was born. An
amazing boy whose innocence and
vulnerability tore down my defiant defences.
It seems I didn’t know I had gold in my
pockets until I was turned upside down.
Something profound happened, and I faced
my past in Terenure College, I stopped
running, I took my power back and
remembered my abusers in all their poisoned
glory.
I so admired the small boy who resisted
McClean, I saw his shining face again, I
thanked him for saving me. I took
responsibility, I realised that often the Joker
is the thief. Holding my infant son in my arms
I gravely realised that laughing it o and
saying ‘ah sure I survived’ was Weakness and
talking about the theft of my innocence and
the enduring stain of paedophilia was in
fact... Strength.
I am now 62 and I am responsible.
Yes I survived the lechery. Yet to thrive I
have needed to acknowledge being stained
by the experience, which lasted over two
years.
In writing this, I honour the young boy in
the 1970s who was defiant and who did his
damn best to dodge and sidestep the
abusers’ tackles and run out the gates of
Terenure College into a tough old world but a
safer one.
The four paedophiles
McClean, Madden,
O’Donovan, and their
ringmaster Weakliam
were obviously sharing
information on victims with
each other
Terenure College: uthorities not doing
enough
