2009: Michael O’Brien Transcript [Content Warning]
I debated whether to include this transcript here, I consider this blog an archive for work related loosely to working class history and this doesn't quite fit under that umbrella. Still, I think it deserves to be preserved.
Content Warning Discussion of physical and sexual abuse of children, including graphic details.
I'm including a transcript of segment from the RTE program Questions and Answers (similar in format to the UK's Question Time) from May 2009. The transcript concerns the response from audience member Michael O'Brien to the panel concerning their response or lack of response to the systematic abuse of vulnerable Irish women and children by the Catholic Church. This has been an open wound in Ireland for some time, and I'm sorry to say that it reached and affected members of my family. Even now there are ad campaigns encouraging victims to come forward, the scale of the abuse and the cover-ups are hard to imagine.
I came across O'Brien's account in video format on YouTube, it horrified me, and I could not look away. Since YouTube is cracking down heavily on anything that can scare off an advertiser I'm amazed the video has stayed up for so long. I decided to make a transcript for it in case it ever goes down. I also thought I could be useful writing down his words for English-speaking audiences not familiar with Irish accents. Before I started I saw that the uploader had already made one. Unfortunately the link is dead, but I was able to find a snapshot via the Wayback Machine. A tool that was made by the Internet Archive, which is also under threat of going under due to corporate pressure.
So, while I know the owners of blogger (Google) are just as anti-controversy as the next tech company, their censorship tools for this platform aren't as omnipresent (yet). Though I fully expect to get a warning email for posting this. Nevertheless, here it is in full.
FINAL CONTENT WARNING
READ/WATCH AT YOUR OWN RISK
Michael O’Brien, former councillor and Mayor of Wexford(correction May 27) Clonmel attended the RTÉ programme Questions and Answers on 25 May 2009 and, after Minister Noel Dempsey, the sponsoring minister of the Ryan Commission report in to Child Abuse allegations spoke, Mr O’Brien spoke to the minister and to the panel.
I’ve done the transcript of the video clip below mainly because audio indexing does not work that well for video clips. And video clips have a habit of disappearing off the web.
The other reason is that this clip seems to be the turning point for a lot of discussions. And possibly some action.
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—Start of transcript
Mr. Chairman, I’m surprised at the minister there now.
First of all Mr Minister (directed at Minister Noel Dempsey) you made a bags of it in the beginning by changing the judges. You made a complete bags of it at that time, because I went to the La Foy commission and ye had seven barristers there, questioning me and telling that I was telling lies, when I told them that I got raped of a Saturday, got a merciful beating after it, and then stuffed…
… he came along the following morning and put holy communion in my mouth.
You don’t know what happened there. You haven’t the foggiest, you’re talking through your hat there. And you’re talking to a Fianna Fáil man, a former councilor and former mayor you’re talking to, that worked tooth and nail or you, for the party that you’re talking about now. Ye didn’t do it right, ye got it wrong.
Admit it.
And apologize for doing that. Because you don’t know what I feel inside me. You don’t know the hurt I am.
You said it was non-adversarial.
My God.
Seven barristers.
Throwing questions at us.
Non-stop.
I tri.. attempted to commit suicide, there’s the woman who saved me from committing suicide, on me way down from Dublin, after spending five days at the commission. Five days I spent at the commission. They brought a man over from Rome, ninety odd years of age, to tell me I was telling lies.
That I wasn’t beaten for an hour, non-stop by two of them.
By two of them.
Non-stop from head to toe without a shred of cloth on my body.
My God minister.
And could I speak to you (comment directed to Leo Varadkar, Fianna Gael), and ask your leader, would you stop making a political football of this.
You hurt this when you do that.
You tear the shreds from inside our body.
For God’s sake, try and give us some peace.
Try to give us some peace and not to continue hurting us.
That woman will tell you how many times I jump out of the bed at night with the sweat pumping out of me. Because I see these fellas at the end of the bed with their fingers doing that (gestures) to me. And pulling me in to the room, to rape me, to bugger me and bate the shite out of me. That’s the way it is.
And you know what?
You know what, sometimes I listen to the leader of Fianna Fáil. I even listened to the apology. T’was mealy-mouthed, but at least t’was an apology.
At least t’was an apology.
The Rosminians said in the report, they said they were easy on us. The first day I went to them. The first day to Rosminians in my home which is Ferryhouse in Clonmel, ’cause its the only home I know. He said “you’re in it for the money”.
We didn’t want money.
We didn’t want money. We wanted the pr… someone to stand up and say “yes, these fellas were buggered, these people were ra…”
Little girls. My daughter, oh sorry, my sister. A month old when she was put in to an institution. Eight of us from the one family, dragged by the ISPCC cruelty man. Put in to two cars, brought to the court in Clonmel. Left standing there without food or anything, and the fella in the long black frock and the white collar came along and he put us in to a van.
Not a van, a scut truck, I don’t know what you call it now. And landed us below with two hundred other boys. Two night later I was raped.
How can anyone…
You’re talking about constitution. These people would gladly say “yes” to a constitution to freeze the funds of the religious orders.
This state, this country of ours, would say “yes” to that constitution if you have to change it.
Don’t say you can’t change it.
You’re the governement of this state. You run this state. So for God’s sake stop mealy mouthing. ‘Cause I’m sick of it.
I’m sick of it.
You’re turning me away from voting Fianna Fáil which I have done from the first day that I could vote. Because. And you know me. You know me Mister Minister. You’ve met me on a number of ocassions. So you know what I’m like.
— End of transcript
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