PROFILE: TONY WALSH is described by the commission
as “the most notorious child sexual abuser” to have come to its
attention.
“It is likely that he has abused hundreds of children,” the
report says.
Walsh was born in 1954, and ordained in 1978.
He had
been a seminarian in Clonliffe College during which, it emerged many
years later, he abused children there and at the home of another abuser
Fr Noel Reynolds, to whose house he had a key.
Two days after
Walsh took up his first appointment as a priest, in July 1978 as a
curate in Ballyfermot, a complaint was received in Archbishop’s House
that he had sexually abused an eight-year-old boy.
That was alleged to
have taken place in June 1978 at Fr Reynolds’s house.
The next
complaint was in 1979 when a mother went to the parish priest of
Ballyfermot, the late canon Val Rogers. Another priest in that parish,
Fr Michael Cleary, was despatched to educate the woman’s son on male
sexuality.
In 1985 canon Rogers admitted this case had been “hushed up”.
Sometime between 1980 and 1982, there were complaints to Archbishop’s House about Walsh’s abuse of young girls at a summer camp.
In
June 1985, Walsh began attending a psychiatrist.
In October 1985, he
denied he had indecently assaulted a young girl earlier that month.
Walsh
was moved to Westland Row parish in February 1986. But complaints kept
coming from Ballyfermot.
A housekeeper at his house in Ballyfermot said
there were always children there and on one occasion she saw two boys
coming from his bedroom.
In January 1987 the housekeeper at
Westland Row claimed to have found underwear of hers in Walsh’s room.
She also found condoms and syringes and said “a number of boys had slept
overnight in his bed and a boy from Ballyfermot had been visiting”.
Walsh
denied all of this and protested he didn’t know what condoms were like.
In April 1988 a woman alleged her son was in Westland Row with Walsh.
The following month parents claimed Walsh had interfered with their
daughter.
In May 1988, Walsh admitted to Mgr Alex Stenson that
over the eight years he was in Ballyfermot “he was involved with boys
about once a fortnight”.
It was then 10 years after the first complaint
was made to the archdiocese that Walsh was sent to Stroud in England for
treatment.
He returned to Dublin in November 1988 and was
appointed chaplain at a hospital for older people. He signed a contract
of good behaviour with the archdiocese and nominated Fr Cleary as his
spiritual director.
He continued to receive counselling.
In August 1989 there were complaints about his dealings with a boy at All Hallows College.
Walsh
returned to Stroud.
They notified the archdiocese that Walsh intended
accompanying the all priests’ show (with whom he had a spot doing an
Elvis impersonation) on a UK tour.
He was refused permission to do so.
In
April 1990 archbishop Desmond Connell and Msgr Stenson gave Walsh until
May 1st to decide on either dismissal from the priesthood or voluntary
laicisation.
Archbishop Connell also formally ended Walsh’s public
ministry.
In March 1991 there were further reports of his contacts with
children.
The Dublin bishops decided to begin canon law proceedings
against him.
In August 1991 and for the first time a parent complained
to gardaí about Walsh’s attempt to pick up her son.
The following
month Walsh was ordered by archbishop Connell to live at the St John of
God psychiatric hospital in Stillorgan.
The night before he did so he
attempted to pick up another boy and gardaí were alerted.
Walsh
returned to Stroud in January 1992 where he posed in nearby streets as a
priest counsellor at the clinic and agreed to baby sit for a family.
By
chance the father found out who he was.
Back in Dublin, in July
of that year, he befriended a 15-year-old boy.
One of the boy’s parents
contacted gardaí who contacted the archdiocese.
More parents complained
about his activities in December 1992 and again in May 1993.
In
August 1993 the tribunal decided he should be defrocked.
In October 1993
he appealed to Rome. While that was in train, he abused a boy at his
grandfather’s funeral.
The mother contacted gardaí alleging Walsh had
abused her son a year earlier also.
In late 1994 there were media
reports about this.
Early in 1995 Walsh admitted to gardaí that he
abused two boys in the 1980s.
In February 1995 he was charged in
connection with his abuse of the boy at the funeral in 1994 and
sentenced later to 12 months.
In May 1995 the archdiocese provided
gardaí with other complaints about Walsh.
Meanwhile Rome decided Walsh
would remain a priest but spend 10 years in a monastery.
In November
1995 archbishop Connell petitioned pope John Paul to dismiss Walsh from
the priesthood.
In January 1996 the current pope, then cardinal
Ratzinger, issued a decree confirming Walsh’s dismissal.
In
December 1997 Walsh was sentenced to consecutive terms of six years and
four years for assaults on six boys. On appeal this became six years.
He
was in prison until 2001.
Following his sentence on December 6th last
for further offences, he will be free in 2019.
SIC: IT/IE