You may recall how Brendan Boland, from Dundalk, was one of two boys sworn to secrecy in 1975 by Cardinal Seán Brady, after he was sexually abused as a child by the late Fr Brendan Smyth.
Fr Smyth raped and abused more than 100 children between the 1940s and 1990s.
In yesterday’s Sunday Times, Justine McCarthy reported on how Mr Boland has written a book, Sworn To Silence, which was published last Thursday.
In her article Ms McCarthy told how Cardinal Brady offered Mr Boland €10,000 to settle his High Court case for damages and to include legal costs for 14 years’ litigation but that Boland settled the case for €100,000 plus costs in 2012.
Ms McCarthy also wrote:
“In his book, Boland, a technical support engineer who works in the UK, said he asked a garda who worked on the investigation which led to Smyth’s imprisonment in 1997 if Brady was interviewed as part of their inquiries. He received an inconclusive answer.
Two other priests who attended the secret interview with Boland in March 1975 were interviewed by gardai in 1995.
A spokeswoman for the Catholic hierarchy has confirmed that Brady was not interviewed by gardai.
“Cardinal Brady had no knowledge of a garda investigation in the early 1990s regarding Smyth,” the spokeswoman said. “If he had been approached by the gardai he would have made a statement.”
A political controversy over the State’s failure to extradite Smyth to Northern Ireland brought down the Fianna Fail-Labour government in November 1994. Brady was installed as a cardinal and the primate of Ireland the following month.
Sworn To Silence (Brendan Boland)
Previously: Lose The ‘Wounded Healer’
Cardinal Brady: More Than Just A Note Taker
Related: Revelations spark calls for cardinal to step down (Irish Independent)
Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland
