Derek Coyle had no idea about boarding school when he was sent to Blackrock College in the 1960s.
At 13 years of age, he felt abandoned.
Emotionally distraught, he asked his mother if he could leave the school and come home, but she refused.
As Derek tried to deal with his new environment, another student who was a year older gave him some advice.
It was okay to be emotional and to cry because he would get over it.
However, he issued Derek with a warning. He needed to watch his back and to watch out for particular priests.
Derek didn't understand what he was being told.
"I had to ask him 'what are you talking about?’ And so, he mentioned what it was, and he mentioned names. So that made me aware," he told RTÉ News.
Those words of warning stood to Derek Coyle during his time at Blackrock College where day boarders filled their time doing extra-curricular activities.
In order to get out of the study hall, Derek took up music. The allocated room was on the fourth storey in the attic.
One evening, Derek was playing the piano when a Brother aggressively entered the room and started pushing himself against the teenager from behind.
"I could feel him and what he was doing, and he's aggressively grabbing me around the neck.
"I stood up and one of us was going out the window and it wasn't going to be me. So, he backed off and he left the room."
In another incident, Derek was invited to the bedroom of a senior member of the school. There, the man, who was dressed in his robe, showed Derek pornographic material.
"He's coming close to me and wants me to sit down. I was used to this grooming aspect of it. And at that risk of being expelled.
"I told him, ‘forget it, I'm out of here. There isn't anything that you're ever gonna teach me’."
When another pupil told Derek he was molested by a priest, Derek believed his friend and stood by him "whatever the consequences".
This led to intimidation and physical punishment, according to Derek, which would occur at any time of the day or night to those boarding.
"This guy was in a room off his bedroom, I’m over a desk with him whipping me with canes and sticks and putting bruises and welts on me," he said.
Derek switched off academically, emotionally and competitively. While he tried all sports, he backed out of becoming captain of the basketball team.
He left Blackrock College in 1967, happy to leave it behind. However, the trauma he experienced impacted every relationship in his life.
Twenty years after leaving the school, Derek Coyle returned to the Blackrock College campus to confront the Brother who abused him at the piano.
He said: "I went back as a Christian, and I forgave him, and he was quite humbled by it, and quite stunned by it.
"I said ‘this is between you and me. I know what you did. You know what you did, and I am forgiving you’."
Walking away from that meeting, Derek felt a "sense of relief and power".
Today, the 73-year-old says he is not looking for revenge.
"This is not about retribution, but it's about justice, and it's about due process and it's about fair compensation."