The Trib by David Kenny Page B
Authors: David Kenny
Irelandâs cosy establishment?
The suppression of the report is now over. We are into stage two of institutional denial â the PR blizzard. Without any apparent concern for the emotional rollercoaster their actions were causing victims, Cloyne choreographed the release on Friday to ensure minimum damage for itself. While it was known in national Church circles on Friday morning that Cloyne was planning to release the report, a spokesman for the diocese was denying it to journalists. At that stage, they were going to release it exclusively to the Irish Examiner , the local newspaper where, perhaps, they hoped to get a kinder reception. (Unlikely, as the Examiner has recently been trenchant in its criticism of the diocese.) Next, we were told the diocese would post the report on its website at 4 p.m. Then it was 5 p.m. It came sometime after 5 p.m. by way of a press release, followed an hour later by a bland interview on RTÃâs Six One News with Bishop Magee. There was no press conference at which journalists who knew the details of the scandal and the cover-up could have asked pertinent questions.
Meanwhile, the facts are these. There is every chance that children, who could have been saved if Cloyne had acted correctly, have been added to the list of victims. A priest of the diocese who was abused as a child has left the priesthood. A woman who was abused by another priest and informed the bishop thirteen years ago is now dead.
While the diocese was immersed in its âsave-our-skinâ exercise, another woman was routinely attending her counsellor on Friday morning to try to cope with the damage she is left to live with.
Yes, Cloyne is worse than Ferns because the minister and the bishop stopped the truth coming out. But it is also worse for this reason: Cloyne does not appear to have even heard of Ferns.
F ERDIA M AC A NNA
Nobody died, so the concert must have been a success. But for a while in Punchestown last weekend, it was touch and go
5 July 2009
Y ou are standing with your twelve-year-old son in a field with 70,000 people. A small hyperactive fifty-three-year-old Australian with wild hair plays a storming twenty-minute guitar solo in teeming rain on a podium in the centre of the crowd while his bandmates stand on stage, dry as sticks. It is the climax of a wonderful concert by AC/DC.
You feel exhilarated, delighted to have had such a joyous communal experience and proud that your boy has had a good time, as has nearly everyone in the mixed, all-ages crowd â from teens to bikers to dads with their kids.
Afterwards, you trudge along heading towards the buses. The crowd from Slane had a terrible time getting home a couple of weeks back but the word is that all that has been sorted.
You take your place in the zig-zag queue like a good responsible heavy-rock citizen and wait your turn to board a bus home ... and wait ... and wait ... and wait. In front of you, packed bus after packed bus leaves yet the queue doesnât move. Overhead comes the whirr of departing helicopters ferrying the artists and the privileged.
An hour and a half later, the queue hasnât budged. Few stewards in sight. No police. No announcements. No news about delays. No news about anything. People are fed up. The mood changes to anger.
Suddenly, the crowd at the far end breaks through the barriers and gallops for the buses. Now the crowd at the other end follows suit. You and your son, along with thousands of others, are cut off, trapped inside a series of steel barriers. The crowd surges forward but there is nowhere to go. Where are the stewards? A group of them stands huddled together in a far field, as though this mess is now out of their hands.
Where are the police? Whoâs in charge here? Someone unhooks a barrier and slips through. Others follow suit and now itâs anarchy. People skip the queues. Barriers are pushed over.
Thousands dash for the buses. Some shout abuse at the few stewards who are
The suppression of the report is now over. We are into stage two of institutional denial â the PR blizzard. Without any apparent concern for the emotional rollercoaster their actions were causing victims, Cloyne choreographed the release on Friday to ensure minimum damage for itself. While it was known in national Church circles on Friday morning that Cloyne was planning to release the report, a spokesman for the diocese was denying it to journalists. At that stage, they were going to release it exclusively to the Irish Examiner , the local newspaper where, perhaps, they hoped to get a kinder reception. (Unlikely, as the Examiner has recently been trenchant in its criticism of the diocese.) Next, we were told the diocese would post the report on its website at 4 p.m. Then it was 5 p.m. It came sometime after 5 p.m. by way of a press release, followed an hour later by a bland interview on RTÃâs Six One News with Bishop Magee. There was no press conference at which journalists who knew the details of the scandal and the cover-up could have asked pertinent questions.
Meanwhile, the facts are these. There is every chance that children, who could have been saved if Cloyne had acted correctly, have been added to the list of victims. A priest of the diocese who was abused as a child has left the priesthood. A woman who was abused by another priest and informed the bishop thirteen years ago is now dead.
While the diocese was immersed in its âsave-our-skinâ exercise, another woman was routinely attending her counsellor on Friday morning to try to cope with the damage she is left to live with.
Yes, Cloyne is worse than Ferns because the minister and the bishop stopped the truth coming out. But it is also worse for this reason: Cloyne does not appear to have even heard of Ferns.
F ERDIA M AC A NNA
Nobody died, so the concert must have been a success. But for a while in Punchestown last weekend, it was touch and go
5 July 2009
Y ou are standing with your twelve-year-old son in a field with 70,000 people. A small hyperactive fifty-three-year-old Australian with wild hair plays a storming twenty-minute guitar solo in teeming rain on a podium in the centre of the crowd while his bandmates stand on stage, dry as sticks. It is the climax of a wonderful concert by AC/DC.
You feel exhilarated, delighted to have had such a joyous communal experience and proud that your boy has had a good time, as has nearly everyone in the mixed, all-ages crowd â from teens to bikers to dads with their kids.
Afterwards, you trudge along heading towards the buses. The crowd from Slane had a terrible time getting home a couple of weeks back but the word is that all that has been sorted.
You take your place in the zig-zag queue like a good responsible heavy-rock citizen and wait your turn to board a bus home ... and wait ... and wait ... and wait. In front of you, packed bus after packed bus leaves yet the queue doesnât move. Overhead comes the whirr of departing helicopters ferrying the artists and the privileged.
An hour and a half later, the queue hasnât budged. Few stewards in sight. No police. No announcements. No news about delays. No news about anything. People are fed up. The mood changes to anger.
Suddenly, the crowd at the far end breaks through the barriers and gallops for the buses. Now the crowd at the other end follows suit. You and your son, along with thousands of others, are cut off, trapped inside a series of steel barriers. The crowd surges forward but there is nowhere to go. Where are the stewards? A group of them stands huddled together in a far field, as though this mess is now out of their hands.
Where are the police? Whoâs in charge here? Someone unhooks a barrier and slips through. Others follow suit and now itâs anarchy. People skip the queues. Barriers are pushed over.
Thousands dash for the buses. Some shout abuse at the few stewards who are