MARY RAFTERY AND THE PASSION OF NORA WALL
Added on November 5, 2006Ladies and Gentlemen,
This is the final section of my essay "The Passion of Nora Wall" in which I concentrate on the role played by Mary Raftery in setting up this gross miscarriage of justice. Some months ago I sent it to Ms. Raftery, her co-author Dr. Eoin O'Sullivan and colleagues at Trinity College.
Yours sincerely,
Rory Connor
11 Lohunda Grove
Dublin 15
Rory Connor
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 2006 23:31:47 +0100 (BST)
From: Rory Connor
Subject: THE PASSION OF NORA WALL
To: "Dr. Eoin O'Sullivan"
Mary Raftery
CC: "amccshin@tcd.ie"
"erna.oconnor@tcd.ie"
"hbuckley@tcd.ie"
"maeve.foreman@tcd.ie"
"osheaju@tcd.ie"
"pawalsh@tcd.ie"
"robbie.gilligan@tcd.ie"
"rtorode@tcd.ie"
"sbutler@tcd.ie"
"woodsma@tcd.ie"
27 April 2006
Doctor Eoin O'Sullivan
Trinity College
This is the last section of an essay I wrote last December after Nora Wall finally received her Certificate of Miscarriage of Justice from the Court of Criminal Appeal. The essay is called "The Passion of Nora Wall" and the last section is about the role of the TV series "States of Fear" in bringing about her wrongful conviction.
In fact I was told by one of her defence team (Sean Costello of Frank Ward and Co. Solicitors) that she -and Pablo McCabe- had been convicted in a climate of hysteria created by the media and specifically by States of Fear. I recall that last December an editorial in the Irish Times did finally acknowledge the part played by those programmes.
I see that Mary Raftery is still at it - as per her article in the Irish Times today. Will the woman ever learn?
(A few paragraphs in my essay are based closely on Richard Websters article "States of Fear, the Redress Board and Ireland's Folly" - see www.richardwebster.net. However his article is firmly based on material I sent him so fair exchange....).
And why am I sending this to you and your colleagues? Well the media which created our Irish Salem has no intention of bringing our Witch-hunters to justice. So I intend to do what I can.
Regards
Rory Connor
11 Lohunda Grove
Dublin 15
087 675 1169
Background to Hysteria (3)
3. Mary Raftery and States of Fear
3.1 The Broadcasts
In April and May of 1999 RTE broadcast a much more extensive account of the industrial schools in the form of a three part documentary series, States of Fear, which was written produced and directed by the journalist Mary Raftery. The programmes contained much historical material which seemed to be soundly based. They portrayed the industrial schools as part of a chaotic childcare system in which grisly Dickensian conditions had prevailed for decades.
The programmes featured a series of claims by former residents that they had been physically or sexually abused by members of orders such as the Christian Brothers, the Sisters of Mercy and the Sisters of Charity. References were also made to a number of unexplained deaths which allegedly took place in those schools.
Raftery herself has explicitly rejected the 'bad apple' theory which seeks to explain the acts of abuse which were alleged as aberrations from a system which was essentially benign.
"Were this true it would be a valid point. However the scale of the abuse of children within the industrial schools system was so vast as to pose the most fundamental questions about the nature of the religious orders in this country ............Children were savagely beaten and treated with extraordinary levels of cruelty by their religious carers in almost every single one of the fifty-two industrial and reformatory schools which existed in Ireland for most of the twentieth century. Very large numbers of the boys in particular were sexually abused and raped by male members of religious orders into whose care they were entrusted.
It is undoubtedly the case that by no means all nuns or brothers within institutions were cruel to the child detainees. However, it is equally clear that those who did not either beat or abuse children, did not stand in the way of the often sadistic excesses of their fellow religious."
In other words they were all guilty!
3.2 The Response
The series provoked a huge public response. As Raftery puts it, "Outrage at the crimes committed against these children was expressed continuously for the three weeks of the series, across acres of newsprint and hours of radio broadcasts all over the country."
The reaction of the government was swift. On 11 May 1999, the day that the final programme in the series was due to be broadcast, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern made the following statement:
"On behalf of the State and of all the citizens of that State, the Government wishes to make a sincere and long overdue apology to the victims of childhood abuse for our collective failure to intervene, to detect their pain, to come to their rescue." Little more than a week later the Minister for Education, Michael Martin, announced the establishment of a Commission to Enquire into Childhood Abuse, chaired by high court judge, Justice Mary Laffoy.
THIS WAS THE ATHMOSPHERE IN WHICH NORA WALL AND PABLO MCCABE WERE CONVICTED IN JUNE 1999.
3.3 The Truth about "States of Fear"
The above heading may appear presumptuous. How do I know the truth about allegations of child abuse that date back decades? Why should my word (or that of priests or religious) be preferred to that of Mary Raftery? To put things at their most basic it is impossible to "prove" a negative. Even if an individual is acquitted of child abuse charges this does not "prove" that he is innocent - only that the evidence against him is insufficient for a criminal conviction. Moreover many of those accused by Mary Raftery are dead, witnesses are either dead or untraceable and forensic evidence disappeared decades ago. So perhaps the religious orders can only be expected to produce a competing "narrative" and allow the public to make up its own mind?
Actually things are not quite as bad as that. Many of the allegations in "States of Fear" (and the follow-up book "Suffer the Little Children") are demonstrably false and some are logically impossible. Since the false/impossible accusations are closely linked to allegations of the systematic abuse of children, it is reasonable to conclude that the latter are false as well.
In summary
3.3.1 The Death of Patsy Flanagan
Mary Raftery accused the Christian Brothers of being responsible for the death of the boy Patsy Flanagan who died following a fall from a staircase in Artane in February 1951. After the publication of Suffer the Little Children, the Christian Brothers (and journalist Breda O'Brien) pointed out that Raftery's "witness" Barney O'Connell, had given three contradictory accounts of the incident to the media (one of which got the date wrong by 5 years), Ms. Raftery tried to square the circle by claiming that a few boys had died in this manner! She produced not a scrap of evidence to support this allegation.
There was an inquest which found the death of Patsy Flanagan to be an accident. Mary Raftery does not mention this in States of Fear or Suffer the Little Children. Did she not know about it or did she deliberately conceal this evidence?
In a letter to the Irish Times on 13 January 2000, Mary Raftery claimed that the death of the boy in Artane was the subject of an ongoing Garda investigation.
Later that same day on Eamon Dunphy's The Last Word radio programme, it was put to her that the Garda Press Office had confirmed that this incident had been investigated previously but was no longer the subject of investigation, and that unless new evidence were to emerge there would be no further investigation. Mary Raftery's unbelievable response to this information was: "This is complete rubbish. This is rubbish. This is rubbish."
Mary Raftery wants the Christian Brothers to have murdered a boy in order to justify her own hatred of the Catholic Church. What other explanation is there?
3.3.2 Sister Stanislaus and Sister Conception
In States of Fear and Suffer the Little Children, Mary Raftery accused Sister Stanislaus Kennedy of failing to act when she was informed of child abuse in the 1970s in St. Joseph's orphanage, Kilkenny. The social worker who is supposed to have informed her, wrote to the Irish Times to say that he himself was unaware in 1977 that sex abuse was involved and that he only became aware of this in 1995 i.e. nearly 20 years after he is supposed to have informed Sister Stan (Letters page 22 December 1999). This precisely matches what Sister Stan said after States of Fear Yet Ms. Raftery went on to repeat the accusation in her Irish Times column on 3 March 2005.
In this column she made a similar accusation against Sister Conception and the late Bishop Birch, in spite of the fact that two days previously the President of the High Court Mr. Justice Finnegan, specifically exonerated them in his judgment in the case of R. Noctor-v.-Ireland, The Attorney General and Others. (Mary Raftery did not dispute his judgment concerning this issue; she ignored it).
In States of Fear Mary Raftery also claimed that Sister Stanislaus had denounced a civil servant on the Kennedy Committee for failing to give credit to the Church for its social work. After the publication of Suffer the Little Children in November 1999, the three civil servants at the relevant meeting told journalist Breda O'Brien that no such episode had occurred. (One had written to the Irish Times immediately after States of Fear to confirm this). This is by no means the most serious allegation made by Mary Raftery. It is important because it can be easily shown to be false. And the falsehood is obviously linked to other tales told by Ms Raftery about Sister Stan and about the Catholic Church.
3.3.3 Brother Joseph O'Connor
A far uglier lie is Mary Raftery's attack on the late Brother Joseph O'Connor who was the Christian Brother responsible for the Artane Boys Band. She claims he was a vicious child abuser. She alleges that a man abused by him was so distraught that he hung around the Mater Hospital for days when Brother O'Connor was dying. He then went into the hospital and lifted the sheet from his body to confirm that Brother O'Connor was dead. BROTHER JOSEPH O'CONNOR DID NOT DIE IN THE MATER HOSPITAL. (The same question arises as with the inquest on Patsy Flanagan - did Mary Raftery not bother to check this extraordinary story or did she conceal evidence?)
3.4 Mary Raftery's Role and "Suffer the Little Children"
The nature of Mary Raftery's responsibility for what happened to Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe may be judged by what she said about them after the collapse of the prosecution's case. She said as little as possible but in Suffer the Little Children, it was difficult to avoid the topic.
The book Suffer the little Children was published in November 1999. This was more than 3 months after the quashing by the Court of Criminal Appeal of the guilty verdict against Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe. This was plenty of time for Ms. Raftery to digest the implications of the case. The scandal merits ONE paragraph on page 268 of the book. The ONLY reason given for the reversal of the verdict is set out in the following sentence:
"Counsel for the Director of Public Prosecution did not oppose this [reversal], explaining that a witness had given evidence whom the DPP had previously decided should not be called."
In other words Mary Raftery claims that the verdicts were reversed due to a technicality.
Among the points she neglects to mention are:
? Nora Wall was the FIRST woman in the history of the State to be convicted of rape (on 10 June 1999)
? On 23 July 1999 Nora Wall became the FIRST person in the history of the State to be sentenced to life imprisonment for rape
? On 17 June 1999 the accuser sold her story to The Star newspaper and said that she had previously been raped by a "black man in Leicester Square". This was the first that Nora Wall's defense team had heard of this allegation.
? The Star newspaper published the names of the accuser and her "witness. A Kilkenny businessman read the newspaper and recognised the "witness" as someone who had previously made a false allegation of rape against himself. He made contact with Nora Wall's family and the case against her and Paul McCabe started to dis-integrate.
? The "witness" had also made a series of allegations against members of her own family (her father, uncle and brother).
? The accuser originally claimed that she had been raped by Nora Wall and Paul McCabe on her 12th birthday. Paul McCabe was in Mountjoy Jail at that time!
? On 11 July 1999 the Sunday World published a story by crime correspondent Paul Williams entitled "Rape Nun's Abuse Pact with Smyth". The article claimed that Nora Wall had procured children for paedophile priest Father Brendan Smyth. NO SUCH ALLEGATION WAS MADE AT THE TRIAL. The Sunday World thought that because Nora Wall had been convicted, they could say what they liked.
All of the above information was available at the time Raftery and her co-author Dr. Eoin O'Sullivan published their book. Why did none of it appear in the book? Could it be
(A) that Raftery is consumed with hatred for Catholic religious and accordingly
(B) has no intention of publishing anything that shows them in a good light or their accusers in a bad one?
That would explain the ludicrous allegations about Brother Joseph O'Connor and about the death of Patsy Flanagan. In fact it would explain everything that Raftery has ever said on the subject of the Catholic Church.
3.5 CONCLUSION: THE REASON WHY
The years 1994 to 1999 saw a gradual escalation of hysteria in relation to the child abuse issue in Ireland:
? In the former year a Government fell because of bogus allegations of a conspiracy between Church and State to prevent the extradition of Father Brendan Smyth. On the plus side (!!) it was soon recognized that the accusations were false - not that this was any help to Albert Reynolds or Harry Whelehan.
? In 1996 vile allegations - up to and including the killing of a baby- were made against Sister Xaviera Lally. Again there was a compensating factor; the media noted that there were problems with the allegations and that Xaviera had her defenders. Thus vicious and lying accusations could be made in the public arena (only against Catholics of course) but they could also be rebutted. I have described this as a stalemate.
? In 1999 the broadcast by RTE of the States of Fear series ended any pretence of objectivity on the part of the media and hysteria reigned supreme. It was quickly established (for example by journalist Breda O'Brien), that many of Raftery's accusations were gross distortions of the truth and that some were logically impossible. It was as useless as trying to rebut accusations of witchcraft in the middle of a Witch-Hunt. This was the atmosphere in which Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe were convicted.
? The situation is largely unchanged to this day. Nora Wall and Pablo McCabe had their convictions reversed due to sheer luck and the extreme idiocy of their two accusers. The media recorded the court decision and dropped the issue like a shot. Mary Raftery and her acolytes are still riding high.
Rory Connor
28 December 2005