Northern Ireland

Former St Colman's pupil tells how he was expelled for 'fighting back' against priest

St Colman's College in Newry
St Colman's College in Newry St Colman's College in Newry

A FORMER St Colman's College pupil has told how his education was ended after an attempt to fight back against an abusive teacher led to him being expelled and blackballed from other Catholic schools.

Past pupils and lay teachers have lifted the lid on how a brutal regime at the Newry school during the 1970s extended beyond sadistic paedophile priest Malachy Finegan.

Dundalk businessman Joe Mulholland, who attended the school in the 1960s, said he never suffered at Finegan's hands but saw many examples of violence including another priest who was known to "beat the face clean off people".

From Banbridge, Co Down, Mr Mulholland told how he fell under the displeasure of another priest who "threatened for a year" that he was going to beat him.

He said things finally came to ahead in a study hall in front of 50-60 people when the priest "attacked me".

"I was hit three or four times and retaliated. The two of us got into a fight - I was 16 at the time," he said.

"It was a major, major event for anyone to hit a priest, to `hit the collar' as they said."

Mr Mulholland said he was called at 6pm the following evening to the office of then school head Fr John Trainor and found his father there.

"Fr Trainor said, `We have talked this over with your father and decided the best thing for you to do is go home' and that was it, I was expelled six months before my A-levels.

"It had been the talk of the school and I know the lay teachers all thought that was going to be the end of his career (the priest who struck him) and were shocked that I was the one expelled."

He said his father was told by the school that it would "make every effort to let me continue my education".

However, when they went to a school in another town they were told "There's no way I could take your son in here. The report I have from Violet Hill (St Colman's) is both shocking and frightening."

"It was the first time I saw my father really, really angry. What he had been told was obviously a black lie."

Mr Mulholland claimed at that time the system was set up to allow children to be beaten at school.

"The lay teachers couldn't do very much against the power of the Church," he said.

"Where were the Catholic parents in all this, while it was happening? They were told `You are the flock, we're the shepherds'. The Catholic populace was lying down and letting their children be beat to a pulp."

Frank Feely, who was a teacher at St Colman's before leaving to pursue a political career which saw him elected to the 1973 assembly and serve as SDLP mayor of Newry, said boys didn't speak to lay teachers about the violence meted out by clerical staff.

"I would have got on well with the boys and gone with them to football matches, but it was only years later after they left that they started to tell me when we would be out at the pub," he said.

"It was like there was a vow of silence, like Omerta."

Mr Feely said it happened at a time when corporal punishment was legal and parents even endorsed physical chastisement by teachers.

"We would have parent/teacher meeting and parents would tell us to `Make sure you're tough with them and lap them if you need to, to help them with their work'."