Local man Brendan Boland will be launching his book ‘Sworn to Silence’ this Thursday evening at 6.30pm at Easons in the Marshes Shopping Centre.
The abuse victim wrote the book to focus on his life, the abuse by Fr Brendan Smyth and the cover up by the hierarchy of the Catholic Church in Ireland.
Brendan, from Dundalk, was an 11-year-old altar boy when he was first sexually abused by Fr Smyth in the Friary Church in the mid-Seventies.
The abuse lasted for two years before he reported the matter to Fr Sean Brady – now a Cardinal – in 1975.
However, after giving evidence about the abuse of him and others, he was sworn to secrecy.
Cardinal Brady signed two reports about the abuse of Boland and another boy and passed them on to his bishop, but the police were never informed.
It was not until 1994 that Smyth was convicted of dozens of offences against children over a 40-year period.
In 2012 Boland accepted a public apology from Cardinal Brady but said that his healing, and that of many other abuse victims, would not begin while the Cardinal remained as Primate of the Catholic Church in Ireland.
The book has been published by O’Brien Press and was with by Brendan in conjunction with Darragh MacIntyre.
For further information call Easons at 042-9356527.
