Nicola Tallant recalls the night she witnessed the secret burial of evil
monster Brendan Smyth
It was a final bizarre
epilogue to evil.
At 3:00 am in the dead of night, grave diggers worked under flash lamp as if
the darkness would cover up Brendan Smyth's blackhearted
crimes.
The burial ceremony took place on August 26, 1997, and I was the only
journalist there to record the final cover-up by the Catholic Church for its
most notorious son.
His Norbertine Order had tried to secretly inter him and hide his final
resting place, but in the stillness of night, the unmistakable sound of earth
hitting coffin betrayed their bid to bury a
monster.
There were no flowers and no epitaph for the priest who corrupted and
destroyed the lives of more than 80 children.
No-one stood to mourn his passing and in the blackness all that could be seen
was the grave diggers and the
freshly dug earth.
Fast forward 14 years and that same decision by the Norbertine Order at
Kilnacrott Abbey in County Cavan to bury the paedophile on consecrated ground is
coming back to haunt them.
Time is a strange thing and this tale, which has spanned over a decade in
Irish history, has seen out the boom years and is now reaching a new chapter
amid the debris of a recession.
While our sympathies are with many who have seen their finances collapse, it
is hard to feel pity for the Norbertines.
Ignored
Back in 1997, the same Order ignored the pleas of Smyth's victims not to bury
him in this country and tried to secretly lay him to rest, away from the glare
of a horrified nation.
The final chapter of Smyth's grotesque life had begun to play out days
earlier, when he collapsed from a heart attack at the Curragh prison after
serving just four weeks of a 12-year sentence.
He died while being taken to hospital in Naas. His body was removed from the
hospital morgue three days later, on Monday August 26. But despite repeated
requests by the media, the Norbertines refused to admit they had claimed his
remains.
Gardai said the post mortem wasn't finished and that Smyth wouldn't be buried
until the next day. And the Church's cloak and dagger attempt to hide the
funeral had begun.
But I had got a tip off that local grave diggers had already been booked to
work through that night and that the monks were preparing a funeral mass that
would fittingly take place in the black of night.
Kilnacrott Abbey, hidden away outside Ballyjamesduff, is
an eerie place in the darkness and a difficult spot to
locate.
We arrived shortly after 2:00am and hid our cars away from the entrance,
making our way along the country road towards the entrance to the 1950s
Abbey.
Through the cover of trees we saw the flash lamps lighting up the open grave.
Inside was the coffin; Smyth had been lowered to the ground after a midnight
mass in the Abbey.
As they worked, the grave diggers showed contempt for the beast they were
burying.
One told us: "Smyth is dead now and only good for the vultures.
He'll soon be
nothing but a bag of bones and his grave nothing but a mound of
soil."
As dawn broke they finished their work and placed a wooden slab across the
fresh earth on top of the consecrated ground where 13 other holy men had been
laid to rest. Dirt had been committed to dirt.
At the Abbey, the Monks prepared for another day of prayer safe in the
knowledge that Smyth was buried and with him almost 40 years of embarrassment.
Now it seems he will not be given the mercy of resting in
peace.
The Norbertines have a lot to answer for when it comes to Smyth, one of the
most predatory and notorious child abusers to ever stalk this
country.
The Catholic hierarchy knew about his crimes as far back as 1969, when he was
treated with aversion therapy, but he had already established a pattern of first
befriending mums and dads and then offering to take the kids off their
hands.
Children, some as young as six, were treated to weekends in guest houses,
seaside visits and trips to the pantomime. Then, with their guard down, Smyth
would pounce.
Destroying
The Church moved him from parish to parish, but wherever he went he spread
his germ of evil like an epidemic, raping children and destroying countless
lives.
His superiors ignored complaints which should have been passed to the Gardai
and covered up complaints made to them.
Eventually they had to face the intense embarrassment of Smyth when he
brought down Albert Reynolds's government in 1994.
The North had been trying to extradite him to face charges of indecently
assaulting nearly 60 youngsters in Belfast, but the request lay gathering dust
on the Attorney General's desk and he spent nine more months on the prowl in the
Republic before the order was pushed through.
He served two years and nine months in Magilligan Jail and then the
extradition process went into reverse and he was brought back to the Republic to
face charges of molesting boys and girls. He died without a word of remorse for
his deeds.
For months his grave lay unmarked, but eventually the Norbertines marked his
passing with a small headstone. In preparation for his second anniversary they
erected the memorial and surrounded it with
flowers.
Now the Norbertines are hoping to get an exhumation order from Cavan County
Council so they can complete a sale of the Abbey.
In the final irony, the paedophile priest will be moved on once more to help
the Church he shamed and did as much as any individual to bring to its
knees.