From top: Daily Telegraph obituary reprinted in last week’s Sunday Independent; ‘Creep and imposter’ Randall McDonnell (left); Billy O’Hanluain.
Billy O’Hanluain writes:
I was sickened reading a fawning obituary to this absolute creep and impostor Randal McDonald.
They fail to mention that he was a predator and pederast with an insatiable lust for young boys.
He made a misery of my late teenage years and I carried for way too long the shame and guilt for what he did to me as though it had been my responsibility.
Twice he seriously abused me, even once video recording the abuse so he could press pause and marvel at the highlights of his wickedness.
I didn’t have the luxury of pressing pause on what was happening to me, nor was I later able to scrub the the tape of my life clean.
In my own delusional way, I put it all down to a wild adventure but I know now that was just a hopeless coping mechanism.
They say not speak ill of the dead but I’d gladly strike the first match at his cremation and spit paraffin on his embers Go rot in hell! [continued at links below]
Update:
Billy writes:
I have sent the piece to The Irish Independent and I hope they publish it as a form of redress to the scandalously inappropriate obituary this man received. I am not defined by what happened to me but it is a part, a very painful part, of what made me the man I am today
. I’ve got more fire in me than ever before and all the words I’ve read here today have blown such a warm gust into my sometimes tattered, sometimes uncertain sails but I am more sure of my course than ever.
Meanwhile…
This afternoon.
Senator David Norris pays tribute to Randal McDonnell on the floor of Seanad Éireann
Thanks Amy
I know Billy, have done my whole life and I can say without question he is one of the most brutally honest and brilliant people I have had the pleasure of knowing. I hope he is now ok with whatever the sick fantasist did to him.
I hope so too. His bravery and honesty are fantastic.
absolutely
i know billy in passing – through friends etc. i didn’t know this about him, but certainly amn’t at all surprised by his courage and honesty. thoroughly decent, sweet and genuine guy.
The Sunday Independent and the Daily Telegraph are the same., so hardly surprising…. but wrong.
Yet, don’t worry, Bud None-The-Weiser will be along shortly with another outpouring of fizzy yellow stuff to put the right whiff on it.
Today’s Sunday Times has a small piece about MacDonnell having done the ‘state some service’ by John Burns.
Didn’t know he was a pederast. Jesus. Met him once at a book launch, he was introduced to me by someone from the Gate Theatre.
I just saw this, it’s from several hours ago. It’s a tribute David Norris made to Randal MacDonnell in the Seanad today:
https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/seanad/2019-12-10/9/ (just word search for Randal).
Well spotted, Amy.
ps. Tomorrow’s Phoenix Magazine has a piece on Randal MacDonnell. It doesn’t mention that he was a pederast. It just mentions that MacDonnell stole from the late Garech Browne.
and p.p.s.: Check out Frank McDonald’s memoir ‘Truly Frank’, Randal McDonnell is mentioned in it several times. He was a friend of MacDonnell’s.
Yes, he wrote a glowing review of MacDonnell’s book for the Irish Times when it came out.
The other person that knew Randal McDonnell well was Robert O’Bryne (former Irish Times).
And, last bit from me, you might want to talk to Alan Stanford. He hung around with Randal MacDonnell quite a bit (not sure if he liked him).
That should be Robert O’Byrne.
Check out today’s Irish Catholic, Mary Kenny on Randal MacDonnell: https://www.irishcatholic.com/leave-law-making-with-those-elected/, scroll down.
Indeed. Good sleuthing.
More barf.
my early-1970s memory, of Randal striding across the front square in Trinity wearing the kilt to an early morning lecture (or was it the Buttery?)
https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/letters/lost-houses-of-ireland-1.1093866
Was it known to the police, or anyone else aside from those he abused, that this guy was an abuser? Like, did Sen Norris know?
He was “well got”.
https://books.google.ie/books?id=8xxSDwAAQBAJ&pg=PT239&lpg=PT239&dq=Randal+MacDonnell+Frank+McDonald&source=bl&ots=5sYebcIBIZ&sig=ACfU3U2CTL5Y-QODzt1gGQ7SCp1OWvFG5w&hl=en&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi6o5Gpv67mAhUHY8AKHSYxBcAQ6AEwBXoECAoQAg#v=onepage&q=Randal%20MacDonnell%20Frank%20McDonald&f=false
The original Gavin Lamb Murphy? (Not a pederast)
Interesting stuff on this Randal fellow https://outforthecount.wordpress.com/
LOL! That was funny. Who on earth wrote it, and why did he or she go to Gareth de Brun’s 70th if they held him in such contempt?
interesting website, one post only, a lot of those in the early days of blogging, put up just to defend someone/attack someone else!
someone called Peter Pan commented lol.
There isn’t an obituary of him in today’s Irish Times.
They had one planned but saw this thread and pulled it.
Are you serious?
No, I was joking. I doubt he’d merit an obit in The Irish Times.
There was talk that Peter Anthony Thompson might write an obituary (a damning one) for the Irish Times.
Oh okay. He might yet. It’s early days; sometimes they run them months later.