As a child, I was relentlessly abused by a Catholic priest. As an adult, it almost killed me twice
Gerard Gorman faced unimaginable horror as an 11-year-old boarder in County Armagh. The pain haunted him for decades – then he took on the church
It was November 1970 and Northern Ireland was sliding into the Troubles, but for Gerard Gorman, a new pupil at St Colman’s College, the horror of that era began when Fr Malachy Finegan summoned him into a room, closed the door and told him to sit on a sofa.
Gorman was 11 years old and small for his age, with big blue eyes. Two months earlier, he had started as a boarder at the Catholic boys’ school in Newry, County Armagh. Staff tended to be aloof or intimidating, except Finegan, the religious education teacher, who was solicitous and avuncular.
More than half a century later, Gorman can still picture the scene on that autumn day. He had been with other boys, running to the dormitory, when Finegan beckoned him from a doorway into his sitting room. It overlooked playing fields and had a TV and a bag of sweets on a table.
The priest sat beside the boy. He was a big man with huge ears that had earned him the nickname Floppy. There was a bit of chitchat, then he leaned in. “His whole face was sort of wrapping around me and just blotting out everything else,” Gorman recalls. “I had shorts on and he put his hands on to my penis.”
Gorman did not move or cry out. He did not understand what was happening, but registered Finegan’s big red face, his breath and a smell of cigarettes. “I just froze, I was just so scared.”
Gorman stared at the floor, at Finegan’s big black shoes. He could hear voices from the corridor, but instead of hoping for rescue, he feared discovery. “I was afraid that someone would open the door and I would be blamed for what he was doing. What would they say? How would I ever live this down? It was: ‘Please don’t come in.’”
And so it began: a harrowing cycle of molestation and rape in which a predatory paedophile hunted a child who blamed himself for assaults he could not comprehend or explain; a depraved game of cat-and-mouse where the mouse had nowhere to run. Sometimes Finegan summoned Gorman to his room, other times he cornered him elsewhere.
“I never felt safe because Finegan just went about the school as if he was untouchable,” says Gorman. “The abuse was relentless. Even the days that nothing happened I would hear voices and think it was him coming round the corner. I just felt in his clutches all the time that I was in that place.”
And yet Gorman survived – at terrible cost to himself and his family – and in time became the mouse that roared. He exposed Finegan and, after a long battle, compelled the Catholic church to acknowledge the abuse, etching a notable victory in the grim history of clerical abuse scandals on the island of Ireland.
Gorman almost died twice during this odyssey, but clung on, damaged, alive and eventually ready to tell his story. Now a 65-year-old grandfather, he lives near his daughter – he also has two sons – in a County Down village, his cottage adorned with family photos and art. His childhood was stolen, but he has found a measure of peace and learned to forgive his younger self, the terrified, lonely, silent boy. “I used to hate him,” says Gorman. “I hated him for not speaking out.”
“I never felt safe because Finegan just went about the school as if he was untouchable,” says Gorman. “The abuse was relentless. Even the days that nothing happened I would hear voices and think it was him coming round the corner. I just felt in his clutches all the time that I was in that place.”
And yet Gorman survived – at terrible cost to himself and his family – and in time became the mouse that roared. He exposed Finegan and, after a long battle, compelled the Catholic church to acknowledge the abuse, etching a notable victory in the grim history of clerical abuse scandals on the island of Ireland.
Gorman almost died twice during this odyssey, but clung on, damaged, alive and eventually ready to tell his story. Now a 65-year-old grandfather, he lives near his daughter – he also has two sons – in a County Down village, his cottage adorned with family photos and art. His childhood was stolen, but he has found a measure of peace and learned to forgive his younger self, the terrified, lonely, silent boy. “I used to hate him,” says Gorman. “I hated him for not speaking out.”
After that first assault, the abuse became routine – groping, masturbation, rape. Gorman would instinctively stare at the floor, and the dull blackness of Finegan’s shoes.
Once, the priest appeared to be in a rush and was exceptionally rough, Gorman recalls. “The skin on my penis actually broke, it was really sore and stingy.” Another time, he was cornered in a gym storeroom. “He pushed my pants down and grabbed me from behind.” After being raped, Gorman felt moisture and thought he was bleeding. The priest used a folded Irish tricolour to wipe them both. “I’ve often thought of him using that to clean himself.”
More than the physical pain, Gorman feared discovery. “You think you’re the only one that this is happening to and you don’t want anybody getting any inkling.”
Afterwards, in the corridors, Finegan would greet his victim with a cheery smile as if nothing had happened. Gorman felt most vulnerable on Saturdays and over Christmas, when the day boys were absent. Dread about the next assault, and fear of exposure, squeezed his chest like a vice.
He found refuge in a dark, musty storeroom concealed behind a classroom blackboard. He would sit for hours, sometimes closing his eyes, listening to muffled sounds from around the school. “I was there in the quiet, wishing I was home with my siblings and mum.”
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