Thursday, May 03, 2012

Trail of victims parents not told

BRENDAN BOLAND told the March 1975 church inquiry that he and five other young people of similar age to him had been abused by Fr Brendan Smyth.

He gave the young people’s names and address.

Three lived in Kilmore diocese, while the other two, a brother and sister, lived in Belfast. He also related how he had been present when the boy from Belfast was abused by Fr Smyth.

According to the BBC programme, the boy in Belfast was abused by Fr Smyth for another year into 1976, while that boy’s sister was abused by Fr Smyth for another seven years.

It also transpired that four of their cousins, members of the one family, were abused by Fr Smyth until 1988.

It is believed that theirs was the case which led to Fr Smyth being jailed in Belfast, in 1994. 

No parents of any of the five children named to the three priests in Dundalk by Brendan Boland as being abused by Fr Smyth, were told.