NORA WALL

Dear Editor

This may be far too late but I have never done an article before and this is only one quarter of it, though the crucial bit. The other three parts (almost concluded) are:
The fall of the Reynolds Government in November 1994 following lying allegations about a Catholic conspiracy to protect Father Brendan Smyth. (Resignation of Whelehan as High Court President, dismissal of Matt Russell etc). In fact there was no letter from Cardinal Daly that would "shake the foundations of the State" and the Duggan case was NOT a precedent for the Smyth case.
Broadcast of Dear Daughter by RTE in February 1996 (Lurid allegations by Christine Buckley against Sister Xaviera Lally, claims that a child had been killed)
Broadcast of States of Fear in April/May 1999 including allegations against Sister Stanislaus Kennedy and the late Brother Joseph O'Connor.
Regina Walsh first accused Nora Wall after the broadcast of Dear Daughter and Nora Wall was convicted a month after States of Fear. My point is that there was a gradual increase in the climate of hysteria.

1. The Reynolds Government may have fallen for no valid reason but the falsity of the allegations against Whelehan was recognised soon afterwards (not that it made any practical difference)

2. Dear Daughter also attracted a lot of negative publicity at the time e.g. from girls who had been in Goldenbridge with Christine Buckley and had completely different recollections of Sister Xaviera. So there was a stalemate.

3. Breda O'Brien demonstrated that Raftery's allegations against Sister Stan and Brother Joseph O'Connor were false e.g. a lurid and obscene story about Brother O'Connor's death in the Mater Hospital when he did not die in the Mater Hospital.

However there was no stalemate this time but undiluted hysteria. Mary Raftery was not asked to account for the discrepencies and States of Fear was actually broadcast unchanged in 2003.

Nora Wall was in the same category as Sister Stan and Brother Joseph. The latter were well known and popular Catholics in the field of child care. Like Sister Stan, Nora Wall was a pioneer in the new child-centered approach which involved the downsizing of the large institutions. They were all attacked as a way of demonising the Cartholic Church.

That is my thesis anyway. Hopefully all my research will have value for historians if nothing else.

I see you did 2 articles on Nora Wall but they did not really go into The Reason Why.

Happy Christmas

Rory Connor

Nora Wall - Summary
1. Miscarriage of Justice
On 1st December 2005 the Court of Criminal Appeal certified that former nun Nora Wall (Sister Dominic of the Sisters of Mercy), had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice. During the course of the hearing it was revealed that a young woman was lying when she gave an eyewitness account under oath of seeing Ms. Wall help to rape a 10-year-old girl. The girl was allegedly raped by Pablo McCabe, a homeless schizophrenic man, while Nora Wall held her legs.

Patricia Phelan 32, said that in 1996 a friend of hers (Regina Walsh) told her that she had been raped by Pablo McCabe and that Ms.Wall, then a Mercy nun had held her down. Regina Walsh had already made a complaint to Gardai and asked Ms. Phelan if she would make a statement. Ms Phelan did make a statement claiming to have seen the rape. She went to the Central Criminal Court in June 1999 and gave evidence at the trial of Pablo McCabe and Nora Wall. Her evidence was crucial in securing the conviction of Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe.

Just how crucial was Phelan's evidence? Well the second major charge against the two accused was that they had raped Regina Walsh in 1990 on her 12th birthday - not an easy date to get wrong. Pablo McCabe was in Mountjoy prison on that date!! Even in the atmosphere of hysteria and lunacy that blanketed Ireland at the time, the jury might have started to doubt Walsh's credibility if it had not been for her "witness" friend. As it was, the jury found the two accused innocent on THAT rape charge but convicted them on the other.

[On 16 December the three judges of the Court of Criminal appeal gave detailed reasons for their decision. In relation to Regina Walsh they accepted that there was a failure to disclose relevant evidence to the defence. This included the fact that Regina Walsh had made but not pursued an allegation of rape in England. (This was the ?black man in Leicester Square? episode ? see below). There was a failure to disclose her psychiatric history ? which included the fact that she had first made the rape allegations while she was in a psychiatric hospital. There was the fact that Ms Walsh had recalled alleged episodes of rape by reference to flashbacks but there was no scientific evidence adduced to explain the phenomenon of flashbacks.]

After the Court of Criminal Appeal confirmed Nora Wall's innocence, she approached Patricia Phelan with her hand outstretched. According to Irish Independent journalist Ann-Marie Walsh "Ms Phelan threw her arms around the former Mercy nun and cried loudly before leaving the Court of Criminal Appeal with her sister Sarah, tears streaming down her face."

Nora Wall's main accuser Regina Walsh was not in court to witness this scene. Neither was Pablo McCabe. He died shortly before Christmas 2002 and was buried three weeks later after no-one had come to claim his body. Pablo McCabe never knew his parents. He had been brought up in St. Michael's and regularly returned there because he regarded it as his only home. That is how he came to be accused by women who were really looking for "compensation" from the Sisters of Mercy. Unlike Nora Wall he was an "accidental" victim!

2. Background to Barbarism

2.1 Convicted of Rape
On 11 June 1999 Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe were found guilty of raping 10-year-old Regina Walsh in 1988. Nora Wall then Sister Dominic, had been the girl's guardian while she was in care at St. Michael's Care Centre in Cappoquin, Waterford. Sister Dominic became the manager of the new Centre shortly after it was built in the 1970s. The centre heralded a new approach to childcare, moving away from the large industrial school system to a system of smaller group homes. (It is ironic that a pioneer of this new child-centered approach was to come under vicious attack.)

Sister Dominic ran the group homes from 1978 to 1990. She left the Mercy order in 1994 and worked in hostels in Dublin and in a Romanian orphanage. After her conviction the media were to speculate obscenely about her work in these places.

50 year old Pablo McCabe was a diagnosed schizophrenic. In court he was described by his own legal team as a "vagabond and hobo". He spent his early years in the care of the Sisters of Mercy in St. Michael's and first met Nora Wall when he was trying to trace his mother. He said in evidence that he was a regular visitor to St. Michael's during the 1980s.

2.2 After the Conviction - The Media
After the conviction the media felt free to howl obscenities at Nora Wall in particular - "Vile Nun", "Pervert Nun", "Mercy Devil", "I was Raped by Anti-Christ". Since Nora Wall seemed to have no reputation to lose, some editors decided to go beyond obscenities and openly print lies.

On 11 July 1999, the Sunday World carried a front page "exclusive" by crime correspondent Paul Williams. Entitled "Rape Nuns Abuse Pact with Smyth", it claimed that "evil nun Nora Wall, convicted for helping to rape a ten-year old child, also secretly provided children for sick paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth. The Sunday World has learned that depraved cleric regularly visited St. Michael's Childcare Centre in County Waterford where Wall - then Known as Sister Dominic - was working". A female counsellor "who works with the victims of this horror home revealed that Fr. Brendan Smyth may have abused children there. .....[she said] 'the information is very reliable and also very disturbing'".

[A few years later Nora Wall was to win Eur 175,000 libel damages from the Sunday World. THAT news was buried by the media].

However the viciousness of the media was to have unexpected results. On 17 June Regina Walsh gave an interview to The Star newspaper in which she claimed that she had also been raped by a "black man in Leicester Square" in London. This was news to Nora Wall's defence team. Moreover the Star published the names of Walsh and her "witness" Patricia Phelan. A Kilkenny businessman read the newspaper and recognised Phelan as the woman who had made a false rape allegation against himself! After some frantic searching he tracked down a brother of Nora's and the defence came into possession of this vital evidence. It was to prove the weapon which destroyed the State's case and saved the two accused.

2.3 Sentenced to Life
On 23 July 1999 Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe came before Judge Paul Carney for sentencing in the Central Criminal Court. Their Counsel Hugh Hartnett sought an adjournment or a stay on any sentence. He told the court that there appeared to have been a grave breach of non-disclosure of evidence by the State. The State had not disclosed that Ms Walsh alleged she had been raped in London. Neither had they disclosed that Patricia Phelan's allegations against an unnamed man had been dismissed in judicial review proceedings.

Incredibly Mr Denis Vaughan Buckley for the State refused to accept that anything was wrong. He said that the Gardai were not aware of these matters during their investigations. He rejected the claim that there had not been full disclosure of evidence and said that these issues were not relevant to the case!!

The behaviour of Justice Carney was equally bizarre. He said that Nora Wall was the leader and had carried out a "gang rape" on the victim. He sentenced her to life imprisonment and Pablo McCabe to 12 years. He refused leave to appeal. Nora Wall was the first woman convicted of rape in the history of the State and now became the first person to receive a life sentence for that crime. Justice Carney may have had no option but to pass sentence but he knew about the undisclosed evidence. Why the thuggish comments and the unprecedented sentence?

2.4 Convictions Quashed
Four days later on 27 July the Court of Criminal Appeal quashed the convictions of the two accused. The application to have the convictions set aside was made by the Director of Public Prosecutions. Had new evidence had emerged in the previous few days? No. It was just that the DPP had suddenly realised that Patricia Phelan should not have been called as a witness at all. The Office of the DPP had given this direction in 1997, but nevertheless, though inadvertence, she had been called. The staff of the DPP had not realised their mistake during the trial. The guilty verdict on 11 June had not jogged their memory, nor the article in The Star on 17 June, which named Ms. Phelan. Hugh Harnett's setting out the undisclosed evidence on the date of sentencing had not caused them to search their memories. In fact one wonders whether they would realise their mistake even today if Regina Walsh had not given that interview. Would Nora Wall still be in jail and would Pablo McCabe have died in prison rather than in freedom?

The question remained as to whether there should be a second trial. It took the DPP another four months to decide that they would not seek to retry the case. However the Attorney General declared that neither Nora wall nor Pablo McCabe would receive an apology. On 17 November 1999 a spokesman for the Attorney General told the media that the issue of an apology did not arise because the convictions had been quashed!

There the matter rested until 1st December 2005 when the Court of Criminal Appeal finally certified that Nora Wall had been the victim of a miscarriage of justice.

Pablo McCabe was not there to receive HIS certificate. He died shortly before Christmas 2002, his body remained in the mortuary for three weeks awaiting relatives who never came and he was buried in a paupers' grave in January 2003. In a sense he was the ultimate victim. He was accused by a woman who was really targeting the Sisters of Mercy but believed it would be more credible to name a man as the main rapist. The homeless schizophrenic Pablo McCabe became a convenient target because he was being helped by Nora Wall!

3 Conclusion
The case of Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe established a number of extra-ordinary precedents in Irish law.
Nora Wall was the first woman in the history of the State to be convicted of rape;
She was the first person to receive a life sentence for rape;
It was the only case in the history of the Office of the Director of Public Prosecution's that a witness was called contrary to the instructions of the DPP;
Regina Walsh said she had recalled the rapes after experiencing ?flashbacks?. This seems to be the ONLY time a conviction was obtained on such evidence in Ireland. (However in the USA ?Recovered Memory Syndrome? has a long and infamous history).

The behaviour of the DPP and of Justice Paul Carney is also incredible. Throughout the trial the DPP failed to realise their ?mistake? in calling Patricia Phelan as a witness. Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe were convicted on 10 June 1999; Regina Walsh gave her famous interview to the Star on 17 June including the bit about her other rape experience; the Kilkenny businessman recognised Patricia Phelan and contacted the defence and STILL the DPP remained in blissful ignorance. At the sentencing on 23rd July the DPP refused the defence's application for an adjournment and denied that the new evidence was relevant! Finally in full knowledge of the new evidence, Judge Paul Carney made thuggish comments about Nora Wall and gave her an unprecedented sentence of life imprisonment.

If Ireland was an anti-Semitic society and Nora Wall was Jewish, nobody would be in any doubt of how these ?mistakes? came about. I believe that our media are well aware that Nora Wall was convicted because she was a Catholic nun, in a climate of hysteria created by that media and in particular by Dear Daughter and States of Fear. [Regina Walsh made her allegations shortly after the former programme and Nora Wall was convicted one month after the latter series]. That is why there is no media campaign to punish those responsible for our very own Salem Witch-hunt.