CHURCH DENIES McQUAID WAS GAY CHILD MOLESTER

Book claims Archbishop preyed on college boys.

The Daily Mirror (UK), 1st November 1999 by Nicola Tallant

THE Catholic Church yesterday denied claims that the late Archbishop of Dublin John Charles McQuaid was a homosexual and a paedophile.

Ronan Mullen, of the Archdioscese of Dublin, said the claims that the man who ruled the Catholic Church with an iron fist had a relationship with a priest and a former president of Blackrock College were groundless rumour.

"These are very serious allegations. If this is the basis on which you run a story then nobody is safe, especially after they die. It calls into question the whole journalistic ethic."

The allegations will be made in a new book which claims that Archbishop McQuaid, who died in 1973, made sexual advances towards one schoolboy and had inappropriate behaviour towards others.

The claims are based on an unpublished manuscript by the late government minister, Dr Noel Browne McQuaid's bitter enemy.

This document will be revealed in a tell-all book by respected journalist John Cooney on the life and times of the cleric.

Mr Cooney also believes there is strong evidence that McQuaid was himself abused as a child in a Christian boarding school in Co Cavan.

Former Minister Noel Browne was given the allegation against McQuaid at a funeral in January of 1988.

Browne wrote down what was said in an essay entitled a Virgin Island.

The Archbishop is alleged to have tried to molest  the son of a Dublin publican 

The boy served McQuaid with whiskey and was asked to sit down.

"Slowly it became clear to the child that John the Bishop's roving hands and long fingers had intentions other than getting information about school," said the Browne document.

The boy escaped from the bishop and fled the room.

Dr Noel Browne, a qualified psychiatrist, reckoned that McQuaid may have been "a paranoid schizophrenic".

Other priests at Blackrock College also revealed how McQuaid often spoke to them about masturbation and sex.

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