Can we expect apologies from various distinguished defenders of the late Archbishop John Charles McQuaid, who denounced John Cooney for his claim in his 1999 biography of the late Primate that he stood accused of child abuse?A stream of significant historians and commentators derided Cooney for his allegations at the time and Cooney, one of a handful of serious religious commentators in the media was virtually blacked from RTÉ discussions panels in the years that followed.
When the Murphy Report on clerical child abuse in the Dublin Diocese was published in 2009, Cooney revisited the allegations against McQuaid but little or none of his claims were reported in the media.
Now, it has been established by The Irish Times that McQuaid is the unnamed cleric described as the subject of various abuse allegations in an addendum to the same Murphy Report.
Among the many commentators and academics who lambasted Cooney following his McQuaid biography were Professors Dermot Keogh, Ronan Fanning, John A Murphy and John Horgan as well as the late Garrett Fitzgerald.
Among various influential journalists who slammed Cooney were Vincent Browne, Eamon Dunphy, Marian Finnucane and Kevin Myers. Only Browne has so far offered Cooney a public apology.
RTÉ elder statesman John Bowman, chronicler of modern Irish history and a secular champion, demanded in the international Catholic weekly, The Tablet, that Cooney should withdraw his allegations against McQuaid. Also dismissive of Cooney's charges were avowed secularists Adrian Hardiman and Michael McDowell (remember the Progressive Democrats demand to take God out of the Constitution) and the former adviser to Taoiseach Charles Haughey, Mr Martin Mansergh.
Press Ombudsman, Professor John Horgan, a former religious correspondent himself, was especially critical of Cooney, arguing that Cooney had damaged his own credibility in his 'seriously flawed book.'
Cooney, argued Horgan, had painted an 'appalling vista' in which 'the most vulnerable children in our society were helpless because corruption stretched all the way to the top.'