De Valera's Fault - Again

Reading extracts from the recent report on clerical sex abuse confirmed what we'd discovered earlier in the report on the physical abuse carried out at industrial schools by nuns and brothers. The religious orders treated their schools and churches like seraglios - if they weren't beating those in their charge, they were buggering them. And in either case these acts were carried out knowing that the law would not intervene. For in the Ireland designed by that spoiled priest De Valera (a regular visitor to his old friends the Redemptorists (Ok, Ok, the Holy Ghost fathers - same shit different name) in Blackrock), the state deferred to the church. The Gardai knew their place in the pecking order. Who can forget that image from the past of Bertie in the Dail on Ash Wednesday with an ostentatious display of ashes on his forehead. "Remember man thou art but dust" could apply now to his reputation. And of course we must remember John McGahern's sacking on moral grounds from his teaching job, not to mention the Mother and Child debacle. Rome ruled. Casey and Cleary fornicated. The priested peasants doffed their caps.