Dublin brothers relate how both, unknown to the other, were abused by priests at Blackrock College

Two Dublin brothers have spoken of how both were sexually abused by priests at Blackrock College in the 1970s and how it was 2002 before either became aware of the other’s abuse. Mark (61) and David (58) Ryan grew up off Mount Merrion Avenue near the college in south Dublin and Mark began attending there in September 1973 when he was 12.

He recalled how Fr Tom O’Byrne, then 54 and who had been teaching maths, Latin, and religion at the college since 1967, took a keen interest in him and would bring him swimming at Willow Park school, the junior school to Blackrock. He also began visiting the Ryan home. “My parents thought he was fantastic,” said Mark, who is now based in London.

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Retrospectively, he realises he was being groomed by the priest but at the time and even though Fr O’Byrne would take pictures of him at the swimming pool and other boys referred to the priest as “a bender”, Mark “didn’t know what it meant”. When Mark was 14 another priest would join in the abuse, which now also took place at the school library. He became “very scared” and “very unhappy” and at 15 developed an ulcer. “I never told anyone. Abuse was not in my vocabulary,” he said.

His younger brother David was 12 when he was invited by Fr O’Byrne for private swimming lessons at Blackrock. He recalled how the priest always locked the pool door and wore thongs. “He would take pictures of the lower half of my body.” In the showers the priest would be “totally naked” and used to grope David underneath when the boy was swimming.

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Speaking in the RTE Radio I Documentary on One series on Monday, David related how he began to bring along friends to these swimming sessions, including Maura Harmon, who remains a close friend of his to this day. She recalled how at the time four friends would go along but she was soon distrustful of Fr O’Byrne, who would ask her to sit on his knee in the pool. She began to avoid him.

[ How cover-up by Spiritans in Ireland led to child abuse in leading Sierra Leone school ]

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David at the time had ambitions of becoming an Olympic swimmer but his abuse by Fr O’Byrne was becoming “really bad”. “I didn’t know what to do. I said nothing to anyone.” Another priest began to take part in the abuse also, a different priest to the one who had joined Fr O’ Byrne in abusing Mark. By this time Mark had finished in Blackrock College.

David began to confide in Maura about what was happening to him. She expressed suspicions about Fr O’Byrne to her father, Prof Maurice Harmon, then of UCD’s English department. He spoke to the principal at Blackrock College and Fr O’Byrne disappeared for a few months.

When he returned, he got David a summer job in Blackrock College’s library and the abuse resumed. It even took place in Fr O’Byrne’s bedroom at Clareville, the residence of priests and teachers on the school campus. David was warned that what took place between them was their secret “and nobody else’s. If you tell anybody there will be consequences.”

David recalled how “he violated my whole body” and how “I was unable to fight him off. It was awful. I was his pawn.”

As an altar boy in the local Blackrock church David would serve Mass celebrated by Fr O’Byrne. After their Leaving Certs, both Ryan brothers ended up in the UK. Both had difficulty with relationships.

By 2002 David was back in Ireland – he now lives in Tipperary – and was watching a news bulletin one evening about clerical child sex abuse in Ireland. His father asked David whether “that priest” had ever abused him. David broke down and told his devastated parents.

Their father than rang Mark in London to tell him what David had been saying. Mark said he believed David and then said it had happened to him as well. He recalled his father’s sharp intake of breath. It was the first time he and David “found out about each other’s abuse” involving Fr O’Byrne.

David, then 38, made a statement to gardaí in Blackrock Garda station, as did Mark some time later, and another man who came forward. Fr O’Byrne was then 82 and living on the Blackrock College campus. In 2003, the Director of Public Prosecutions charged Fr O’Byrne with 37 offences arising from the boys’ abuse. The priest initiated a judicial review which went all the way to the Supreme Court, where it was decided in 2007 that as Fr O’Byrne was then so old (87) and the events referred to had been so far in the past the case should not proceed.

The Ryan family “never understood that decision”, David said. “It was so, so wrong,” and left him with “complete disgust at the judicial system in Ireland”.

Following a civil action initiated by the brothers, a six-figure settlement was agreed in 2003 with the Spiritans without admission of liability or apology.

Last Saturday, the two Ryan brothers and Maura Harmon met current Spiritan provincial Fr Martin Kelly and the congregation’s designated safeguarding person, Liam Lally, in the library at Blackrock College, where both brothers were abused. The venue was at the brothers’ request and they described the meeting as “very successful”.

In the meeting, Fr Kelly said that, particularly in the last 18 months, more people who had been abused had come forward and had engaged directly with the Spiritan safeguarding office. Fr Kelly said some victims had asked for a personal apology and others had not sought or wanted personal apologies.

The Spiritans were continuing to explore new ways of reaching out to those who had been abused and those who had not yet come forward about their abuse, he said. The Spiritans, he said, expected to make a public announcement on this process very shortly.