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Brendan Smyth victim shocked by abuse revelations

Brendan Boland, an abuse victim of Brendan Smyth
Brendan Boland, an abuse victim of Brendan Smyth Brendan Boland, an abuse victim of Brendan Smyth

A VICTIM of notorious paedophile priest Brendan Smyth said last night was he stunned that warnings before his ordination were not heeded.

Brendan Boland, who was abused in Dundalk in the early 1970s, spoke of his horror that Smyth was accused of abusing a boy while training in Rome during the late 1940s.

The Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry heard yesterday a senior cleric's advice not to ordain Smyth was ignored.

Following his ordination in 1951, Smyth admitted he went on to abuse hundreds of children.

Mr Boland was an 11-year-old altar boy when Smyth began his campaign of sexual violence against him.

"I am totally shocked that even before his ordination they knew and still ordained him," he said.

"It's devastating really that they knew this all along."

Mr Boland was 14 when he reported the abuse. After he was interviewed by three priests, including former Primate, the then Fr Sean Brady, he was made to sign an oath not to discuss the matter with anyone other than authorised priests.

Mr Boland said the Church had wasted several opportunities to stop Smyth.

"I thought the first they knew of it was the 1960s," he said. "In my opinion they (the Church) lived under canon law and they thought they were superior to civil law."

Smyth, who died in 1997, was convicted of 117 indecent assaults on children in Northern Ireland and the Republic from the 1960s to the 1990s.

There were also reports that he abused children in Scotland, Wales and the US.

Campaigner Margaret McGuckin from Survivors And Victims of Institutional Abuse, who attended yesterday's hearing, said she was appalled that Smyth had been ordained.

"I am astounded that no-one had the courage and strength to stop him," she said.

"If he had been stopped way back then, then the abuse would not have happened."