THE CHURCH AND CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE
1994 was the year when paedophile priests were finally forced out of the closet. But the Church is still refusing to answer the vital questions. Report: Eamonn McCann.
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Latest Articles by Eamonn McCann
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01 May 2013 - McCann
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One of Britain’s most senior clerics has had to resign after accusations of inappropriate behaviour towards other priests. Given the litany of child abuse in the Church, isn’t that a bit rich?
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31 Aug 2012 - McCann
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In September 1988, John Gallagher drove to Lifford, collected a rifle from behind the wardrobe in his father’s bedroom and headed for Sligo, where he murdered his ex-girlfriend Anne Gillespie, and her mother Annie. When the case came to court John Gallagher pleaded – and was found – guilty but insane and he was remanded to the Central Mental Hospital in Dundrum. In July 2000, Gallagher successfully escaped from Dundrum and absconded to England, before returning to Northern Ireland, where he was able to live freely, because of the unique absence of an extradition treaty for people in his position. Earlier this month, in a bizarre twist, apparently in the hope of taking advantage of a bequest from his father, Gallagher turned up at the Central Mental Hospital and handed himself in. It’s open to him to apply to the Health Review Board for release on the grounds that he does not now suffer from a mental illness. The Minister for Justice, Alan Shatter, has already acknowledged the possibility that he might be released within a matter of weeks. But as far back as 1991, in a special investigation carried out for Hot Press, Eamonn McCann questioned the original verdict of the court – and whether Gallagher was ever ‘insane’ within the meaning intended by the act. In the light of the growing controversy about the case, we reprint here in full the extraordinary story as it was originally published in Hot Press.
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The hate directed at the QPR player tells us all we need to know about the hypocrisy of the media in Britain and Ireland.
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29 May 2012 - McCann
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24 May 2012 - McCann
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11 Apr 2012 - McCann
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29 Feb 2012 - McCann
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22 Aug 2011 - McCann
Feminist campaigner and literary critic Germaine Greer is still taking stick for suggesting that British soldiers involved in war might be capable of rape.
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As good as Madonna? Or Beyoncé? All this – and how the USA makes a mockery of the International Criminal Court.
08 Jun 2011 - McCann
Military Intelligence analyst Bradley Manning has been shackled, drugged and kept in solitary confinement at Quantico for the last year for supplying damning video footage of US war crimes to Wikileaks.
01 Jun 2011 - McCann
Unspeak labels it collateral damage, but murder is murder. Remote operated drone missiles shot from Nevada have killed an estimated 2000-plus Pakistani civilians in the last five years.
10 May 2011 - McCann
Why our columnist is part of The Clash of local politics. And more on wrecking the Royal Wedding!
27 Apr 2011 - McCann
An encounter with the Reverend Jesse Jackson provokes a spot of musing on matters spiritual...
13 Apr 2011 - McCann
The parentage of Great Britain’s sovereign monarch is a matter of some speculation...
30 Mar 2011 - McCann
The Libyan leader may have seriously lost his way, but he’s not the one-dimensional, mad despot he’s been made out to be by the Western media.
16 Mar 2011 - McCann
Criss-crossing the North with unnecessary roads was always a waste of money. With the economy cratering both sides of the border, perhaps the folly will finally be abandoned.
02 Mar 2011 - McCann
The King’s Speech might work well as feel-good fodder, but its portrait of George VI is fraudulent. On the other hand, Pat Robertson’s gone pro-pot...
16 Feb 2011 - McCann
Now that the arse has fallen out of his property empire, whither Sean Dunne’s well-connected chums?
02 Feb 2011 - McCann
When it comes to premature death in Northern Ireland, heroin and cocaine area in the halfpenny place beside tranquilisers and anti-depressants
19 Jan 2011 - McCann
It’s now widely accepted in scholarly circles that a sizable proportion of other gods born to virgins around December 25 used dope. But was the man from Bethlehem of the same dreamy mind?
08 Dec 2010 - McCann
Lily Savage has been urging revolution in the UK, and she may well have a point
25 Nov 2010 - McCann
The true and amazing story of the little Wimbledon club that could. Plus, Paula Meehan’s requiem for Jean McConville.
10 Nov 2010 - McCann
Six hand shandies a week heads off cancer at the pass.. And what precisely are we to make of Peter Sutherland?
03 Nov 2010 - McCann
Palestine and Bono, a salute to Betty Doherty and an elegy for Solomon Burke...
03 Nov 2010 - McCann
What ensues when a posse of serious men and women of letters pay a visit to a rock festival?
01 Nov 2010 - McCann
Usually when you see a bunch of brightly dressed men in funny hats poncing around Derry, the Orange Order is involved. This year, however, the local Gay Pride Community was getting in on the act for the first time. And no one discriminated against women!
27 Sep 2010 - McCann
In the same year that the findings of the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday were finally published, how ironic that the powers-that-be in the North should try to clamp down on the public’s right to protest.
29 Jul 2010 - McCann
It took the British government 38 years to apologise for the massacre in Derry. Meanwhile, they're going all-out to obscure the truth about a far more recent massacre in Basra...
14 Jul 2010 - McCann
Why are so many nations so reluctant to challenge Israel? Plus, the Catholic church gets its gaydar working. Pity it won’t work on paedophiles.
28 Jun 2010 - McCann
Diarmuid Martin was wrong when he said 'forces' within the Church are covering up sex abuse cases. When it comes to clerical scandals, the entire edifice of Catholicism is corrupt
14 Jun 2010 - McCann
Our correspondent takes a few minutes off from weightier issues in order to savour the delights of Derry’s finest record store, Cool Discs.
12 May 2010 - McCann
Once he fronted The Screaming Bin Lids and The Whole Tribe Sings. Now ace songwriter Paddy Nash is back with the Happy Enchiladas.
28 Apr 2010 - McCann
It’s official. The Brits are as bad as the Irish when it comes to sleaze. Plus, the delirious genius of And So I Watch You From Afar
14 Apr 2010 - McCann
Why the wound left by Bloody Sunday will ache for as long as the State refuses to acknowledge the truth of what happened that fateful day.
13 Apr 2010 - Frontlines
The Hurt Locker is the toast of Hollywood, with a slew of Academy Awards under its belt. But why are we rushing to cheer a film which so fundamentally distorts the truth about the Iraq war?
31 Mar 2010 - McCann
As if we were in any doubt whose side Jesus is on, the bearded bringer of fishes and loaves has apparently given his blessing to one of the companies who furnish the US military with bullets. Go get ‘em tough guy.
19 Mar 2010 - McCann
Why the Catholic Church went out of its way to protect, rather then punish, the countless clerics who were raping and abusing innocent children.
05 Mar 2010 - McCann
There appears to be a double-standard at work in the press coverage of the Bishop Martin Drennan and Gerry Adams stories.
04 Mar 2010 - McCann
Why the wrong-headed hysteria being drummed up against legal highs is putting lives at risk. Also, fresh revelations about Brendan Smyth’s trail of abuse shows just how deeply corrupt the Catholic Church really is...
18 Feb 2010 - McCann
Plus: Raytheon pull out of Derry. And Cardinal Cahal Daly – what he really knew...
11 Feb 2010 - McCann
Not to mention self-pleasuring. Plus: a very good joke that you can tell at the Christmas parties and pretend it’s your own...
11 Dec 2009 - McCann
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