Travellers and Systemic Racism in Ireland 


Since the founding of the Irish State and even before when the Brits controlled Ireland, Ireland had a Racism problem with the Travelling Community. Racism is Ireland’s “original sin.” plain and simple, the horrendous treatment of the Travelling Community is widespread throughout Ireland. Talk to most Irish people about the Travelling Community and listen to what they say- 
 
​   Racism fuelled Catholic ideology and policies. The Irish Catholic Church viewed the world as being divided up into competing inferior and superior races, each struggling for survival and dominance. Many Catholics believed that the Irish Travelling Community were not a religious denomination, but a dangerous non-European “race.” The Irish Catholic Church racism would produce, brutality, confinement, hatred and even murder on an unprecedented scale.


    From the 1920s to the present day, both the Irish Government and The Irish Catholic Church began a more rigorous campaign against those who followed a lifestyle labelled "Gypsy." Travellers, or Roma, and the dozen other derogatory names, like Tinkers, Tramps, Pikey, Knackers. 

    Irish Travellers or "the walking people", also known as Pavees or Mincéirs are traditionally itinerant or travelling groups in Europe whose families maintain a set of ancient traditions and are one of several groups identified as Travellers. Although they are often referred to as “Gypsies” - Irish Travellers are not genetically related to the Romani. 

    Both the Irish Government and The Irish Catholic Church judged such people to be racially "undesirable" and enacted systematic measures of persecution against the Travellers. Both the Irish Government and The Irish Catholic Church orchestrated a plan to settle forcefully and contain Irish Travellers, especially their children. Most Travellers children were forcefully removed and thrown into the forced labour camps of the Religious run Industrial Schools in Ireland. Where most children of Travellers were systemically beaten, humiliated, raped and murdered on almost a daily basis by the Religious Orders that ran these Gulags in Ireland. 

    The ignorant stereotyping of the Travellers Community, as subhuman, supported by ecclesiastical records, starts with that they are carriers of "degenerate" blood not Irish blood and inherited criminal characteristics which constituted a danger to Irish society at large. 

    From secret documents kept in the Irish Catholic Church’s archives. The Irish Bishops in the 1940s established a Central Office for the Suppression of the Gypsy/ Pavee problem. The Irish Catholic Church made plans and took measures to systematically persecute and lock-up most children of Irish Travellers. Young unmarried girls of the Travellers Community were secretly sterilized, in the Mother and Baby Homes in Ireland. The Catholic Church was shocked that young girls of the Travellers Community, as young as 12 or 13 were having children within their communities. Once the child was born, the child was forcefully removed from its mother by the Nuns, the young mother was then forced-into a network of labour camps of The Magdalene Laundries of Ireland, never to see their child or family again. Sadly, many of these new mothers died from ill-treatment and lack of medicines. Their stolen children, treated as "asocials" or "habitual criminals" and sent to the concentration camps of different brutal Industrial Schools, to a life of racism, humiliation, beatings, and even death. 

    Every concentration camp of Industrial Schools in Ireland had Children of Travellers in the Industrial Schools system. All Children of Traveller were singled out by the Religious Orders that ran these camps, which identified the children as less than human to be humiliated and beaten on a daily basis. The Industrial Schools grievously harmed Children of Travellers significantly more than other vulnerable children of unwed mothers. Purely by the fact that they, the children were of the Traveller Communities. 


    These Children were degrading more at every opportunity and not just in removing them from their families, but depriving them of their culture, their unique way of life, exposing many of the children to physical and sexual rape. I was in St. Joseph’s Industrial School in Tralee, I was treated just as bad, but a child of Travellers was treated worse. The Christian Brothers carried out barbaric acts in the name of Christianity, their hatred of the Children of Travellers bordered on the psychotic in melting out cruel, murderous and barbaric torment.


    The system ultimately proved successful in disrupting the transmission of the Traveller Communities way of life, practices and beliefs across generations. The legacy of this cruel system has been linked to an increased prevalence of post-traumatic stress, alcoholism, drug abuse and finally suicide which persist within the Traveller Communities to this very day. 


    It’s a fact that the mortality rate of Children of Travellers was more than double that of the whole Industrial School system in general in Ireland. Due to their ill-treatment, like beatings, rape and denial of medicines. Residential Industrial School deaths were common and have been linked to the childhood diseases, appalling hygiene which were always poor, and yes the very lack of basic food. 


    The actual number of Children of Travellers deaths remains unknown due to inconsistent reporting by school officials and the deliberate destruction of medical and administrative records. My estimates while low and from studying available known records is as low as 3,500 Children of Travellers to as high as 9,500 since the foundation of the Irish State in 1922.  I accept that many Children of Travellers died, mostly from disease, like tuberculosis within the Industrial Schools of Ireland. The point I’m trying to make is many of the deaths of Children of Travellers were needless, many died simply because they were Children of Travellers, and treated with utter contempt, less than human by the Irish Catholic Church and the Religious Orders that ran the death/labour camps in Ireland. 


    In my class of 46 boys, 12 or 14 were Children of Travellers and most were below even a passable standard of health, with lack of basic food, lack of basic medicines, some of the Children of Travellers were infected with Christian racial hatred, akin to some form of fatal tuberculosis. In my classroom, Children of Travellers lived in fear, and abject poverty, forced to sit through a brutal religious lesson on hatred, or twisted history of privileged people. 


    The Christian Brothers didn’t care when it came to a child known as a Traveller, the child would be sought out for extra beatings, purely because he was a Traveller. Yes, we were all beaten and raped, but the Christian Brothers' hatred knew no bounds when it came to brutal pain inflicted on Children of Travellers. I cried for the few I knew, I didn’t and couldn’t know the difference, to me we were all Travellers, Patsy was a boy of my own age, I played with, I didn’t see a Traveller, I saw a boy, a friend, as vulnerable as me. I liked Patsy, he made me laugh, we played, prayed, shared and stole food, tears, shared clothing to stay warm, smoked bootlace cigarettes, played sports, fought with our common bullies, dreamed of running away together. Patsy and I didn’t know how to discriminate, we didn’t even know how to hate, all this we learned from our tormentors, the Christian Brothers. All we wanted to do was survive. I survived, Patsy hung himself, he learnt on a daily basis that he was subhuman, by his haters, the Christian Brothers. 


    Children of Travellers as Survivors of Industrial Schools, Magdalene Laundries and Mother and Baby Homes and their families have been found to suffer from historic trauma that has had a lasting and adverse effect on the transmission of their unique culture between generations. Historic trauma as the process through which "cumulative stress and grief experienced by the Travellers Community is translated into a collective experience of cultural disruption and a collective memory of powerlessness and loss”. It has been used to explain the persistent negative social and cultural impacts of the Catholic Church and their Forced Labour Camp rules, including the prevalence of sexual rape, alcoholism, drug addiction, lateral violence, mental illness and suicide among the Travellers Community. Children of Travellers who attended the brutal Industrial Schools were more likely than those who did not to have been diagnosed with at least one chronic medical condition. 



    Many Children of Travellers as Survivors of Industrial Schools, 89% went on to have criminal records, simply because they were of the Travelling Community. 96% Children of Travellers as Survivors of Industrial Schools have been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. 87% have been diagnosed with major depression; 78% have been diagnosed with anxiety disorder, 35% have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. In reality Children of Travellers as Survivors of Industrial Schools, felt ashamed for being Children of Travellers as they were made to view their traditional identities as subhuman, ugly and dirty animals. This was the Christian teaching taught in all the Religious run Institutions in Ireland, hatred of being different, in this case simply being human, and Travellers are human, not subhuman as was taught and is still shamefully taught in Irish Society to this day.   Owen Felix O'Neill 

Father Joseph Marmion a Sexual Predator 


Jesuit maxim;- For those who believe, no words are necessary. For those who do not believe, no words are possible. 


    Inappropriateness with vulnerable children was Father Joseph Marmion moto- as is the religious ethics of the Irish Catholic Church at large. The Irish Catholic Church knew the differences from things that are illicit in that inappropriate behaviour does not necessarily have any accompanying legal ramifications. Certainly in Ireland there were and are no legal ramifications, this is why they, the Clerics got away with the rape of tens of thousands of children over the decades. The Irish Catholic Church can and did police themselves without any intrusiveness, they after all were the Rulers of Ireland. In reality, everybody in Ireland and abroad knew that an elected Irish Politician had no cojones. 


    A few days ago, The Jesuit Order named a teacher, a Priest, Father Joseph Marmion who sexually, physically Raped boys in the 1970s. Here we go again, the same modus operandi, will kick-in, one of the most prestigious schools in Ireland, Belvedere College, in Dublin was run by the Jesuit Order of pedophiles. A single-sex boys’ establishment with a reputation for predatory behaviour, by its very own pedophile Clerics. "the manly character of boys will be  induced by sex games and sport"  say the Jesuits- The Jesuits also famously hyjacked Aristotle’s quote  — 'Give me a child until he is 7 and I will show you the man.’ Pope Francis is the first Pope to have belonged to the Society of Jesus, The Jesuits. 


    Belvedere College strives for excellence in all we endeavour including the rape of children. The College’s vision of the future of education in Belvedere is built on the outdated tradition of Jesuit education and a side-order or helpings of the rape of children by its own Clerics. It has done so for over 400 years. 


     Here what Belvedere College says on its website;- The phrase Cura Personalis (Statement of Core Values) is used to describe how each student is nurtured and cared for- ( to include Rape). Each student is helped to explore their unique talents and gifts and made feel they are part of a community that recognises and celebrates achievement in many different fields. 

    I bet the wealthy parents who entrusted their young boys to the Jesuits were never consulted when their children were raped by their very own holy Jesuits. The website goes on to say- “The mission of the Belvedere Community – Jesuits, Board, Staff, Parents, present students and past pupils – is to ensure that graduates of the College by their relationship with Jesus Christ and through living Gospel values, shall be persons for others in leadership and example in the pursuit of a just world”. 


    Let’s be clear, the senile Irish Catholic Church of course knows nothing will happen, it never does, no matter the outrage, just a few bad headlines for a day or two. The Cults way of thinking is;-  it was so long ago that the rapes happened, who cares. The Jesuits involved are long dead the rest are in their dotage, and conventiently can’t remember raping multiple young boys-and of course the old refrain “Let bygone be bygone” will be sung out by their favourite media outlets and their willing stooges. 


    The Characteristics of Jesuit Education;- School Pastoral Care implies caring for the quality of relationships between the Jesuits and the vulnerable boys. It involves the engagement of all the school policies, processes and programmes in the development of the appropriate systemic structures, roles and resources to support the development of the emerging adult. The term ‘pastoral’ is rooted in biblical imagery where the metaphor of Christ as the Good Shepherd, but wait, I never remember reading that Jesus raped anybody. The Belvedere College Boys encounter the person of a Jesuit or Jesuits as a friend, a guide but really heinous pedophiles, lurking around for their next victim, playing and praying on the young boy’s vulnerabilities. The boy or boys come to know the saintly kind and holy Jusuit through his personal and communal sex-games and work. The proverbial Fox looking after the helpless chickens, the pedophile puts on a dog collar and black dress of his religion and he is instantaneously holy, molts into a holy priest, what a miracle of transformation.  A kind of metamorphosis of a benevolent Priest into a hidious, sex starved pedophile. 


    The Belvedere College website goes on to say;- Each member of the school community has a significant role to play in creating and protecting the pastoral ethos of the school and as an individual has access to the pastoral structures and procedures in place. My god it was all rubbish, the ethos of Belvedere College was plain and simple, pedophiles hiding in plain sight, the Jesuits themselves.  

     Again the newspapers and TV Media  can’t even use the word RAPE- ;- The Provincial, Fr Leonard Moloney, said he met the former pupil, who expressed concern for others and asked that his abuser (rapist) be named. In a statement, the Jesuit Order said it has been in contact with other boys over many years who were raped by Father Joseph Marmion while they were young students. Why on earth were the Irish Police not informed as a matter of course. In fact The Provincial, Fr Leonard Moloney, should be arrested immediately for obstruction and covering up multiple crimes against children. The school itself, Belvedere College should be closed down because it is a crime scene and its entire staff, past and present, investigated. There should be no immunity especially for sanctimonious Clerics, from the crimes of child rape and the holy Joes that enabled them and did nothing. 


    This in of itself is outrageous- Belvedere College and its Order of degenerates that ran the school knew about children being raped for years and did nothing, why on earth are we still having this conversation today. The College and its Order of degenerates should be shut down immediately, its property seized and the degenerates thrown into prison. 
    Now the Irish Catholic Church’s modus operandi, is on full display- and here it is;- A decision was taken by the Jesuit Order in Ireland and the Archbishop of Dublin at the time that Father Joseph Marmion be removed from the staff in Belvedere with effect from the end of the academic year 1977/1978. 


But wait for it;- 


    The pedophile Father Joseph Marmion who Belvedere College knew was a serial pedophile and child rapist never informed the Irish Police- never stripped the pedophile Father Joseph Marmion of his priestly duties. Instead the Irish Catholic Church rewarded this pedophile Priest, Father Joseph Marmion with a long paid holiday, a year long sabbatical to Paris where he raped French children, as he holidayed with the Jesuit Community in Paris. Than the Jesuit Community of Paris sent him back for a re-assignment to the Gardiner Street Jesuit Community, where the pedophile Jesuit Priest continued unabated with the rape of even more helpless children. Belvedere College and Gardiner Street Jesuit Community are just a few minutes walk from each other. In 1990, the pedophile Priest, Father Joseph Marmion was appointed Chaplain to St Vincent's Private Hospital, Dublin, owned by The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul. The pedophile Priest, Father Joseph Marmion was appointed by the Archbishop of Dublin at the time Cardinal Desmond Connell in 1990. Cardinal Desmond Connell a noted closet queen, refused to inform the Irish Police about any of his pedophile Clerics accused of the rape of children. Please don’t take my word for it just read the Murphy Commission Report 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy_Report

    I knew this pediphile rapist, Father Joseph Marmion because he was a regular visitor to the Boys Club in Eccles Street, Dublin, just a stone’s throw away from both Belvedere College and Gardiner Street Jesuit Community, in the late 60s and early 1970s. I was in the Boys Club from the age of 15 for over 3 years 1969 to 1973. At the time hundreds if not thousands of sex starved Clerics that roamed Dublin City, like wolf packs at the time, hunting and raping children with impunity. Other regular noted visitors to Eccles Street Boys Club was Archbishop McQuaid, who founded the Boys Club, in the early 1960s and Archbishop Diarmuid Martin, who was a student priest at the time, who came to the Boys Club for six or seven years, and Cardinal Desmond Connell who loved meeting the boys, smelling and reeking of sandalwood perfume. Many Priests who were regular visitors to the Boys Club in Eccles Street, Dublin later on, most of them were convicted of child rape. A few are still in Prison in Ireland. Just a few of the thousands of Clerics that visited Eccles Street Boys Club at the time. In fact Archbishop Diarmuid Martin celebrated his first mass at the Boys Club at the time in 1969. Something else, a who's who of the Catholic Church at the time passed into The Boys Club in Eccles Street Dublin. 

    Father Joseph Marmion also taught at some of the most prestigious schools in Ireland, like the Crescent College Limerick and Clongowes Wood College, Co Kildare. The Jesuit Order said it recognises that "these subsequent appointments should not have been made”. The  Jesuit Order now said;- "We have in the past apologised for raping children and invited children and survivors of abuse (Rape) by members of the Society of Jesus to come forward and to seek our help. Give me a break, help from our pedophile Priests, help in covering up the rapes of more children, the Cult, the Clerics, they will never learn. 

    Be certain of one thing about a deviant pedophile, a Priest, he would over a long career have raped over 100 children in a year. Father Joseph Marmion was Ordained on 31st. July 1957 and died 15th. November 2000, at St Vincent’s Hospital, Dublin. Which bring me to the question - How many children did he rape? 

    This one Priest, Father Joseph Marmion had been raping children for about 50 years. So let’s take a lower figure of 50 children a year he raped over a period as a Priest of his 50 years career. Now that equals to about 2,500 children over his Priestly Ministry lifetime. This is one Pedophile Priest. We know now that there were thousands of pedophile Priests in Ireland. Please just do the numbers, it was an avalanche of rape of vulnerable children by The Cult, The Catholic Church in Ireland and its Clerics. 

    Hundreds of former students have confirmed the veracity of the allegations made against this one Priest, Father Joseph Marmion, during his time at the prestigious Belvedere College, including all the other prestigious colleges he taught at during his lifetime. Many ex-students say he is just the tip of the iceberg, one of many other Catholic Priests who taught at the Catholic Colleges many of these same Priests, also raped boys. Every religious run college, public or private schools, industrial schools, children were raped, that is a proven fact. Raped by Clerics that both the child and their parents trusted, absolutely. For many years many of these raped children never even told their own parents or families what happened to them at their Christian Schools, at the hands of Clerics, the fear and power of the Clerics was for to great. The Cult  created a terror-state. This was achieved through intimidation and brutality. 

    Irish Politicians, Policemen, Teachers and Judges had to swear an oath of loyalty to the Cult. This gave the Cult greater power over the Irish people. This also created tension and fear throughout the country. Members of the Cult had powers to arrest and detain those people who were considered enemies of the Cult. These preventative arrests were carried out separately from judicial control. This is why Ireland had hundreds of Detention Sites and Labour Camps, called Magdalene Laundries/Asylums, Industrial Schools, Orphanages, Mother and Baby Homes. The women and children who were detained in these Religious run Institutions under cruel and brutal conditions, and were often violently treated, raped and murdered.The Cults tactics included murder and torture of these, the women and children. Tens of thousands that died are still in hidden Septic Tanks, Cesspools and Mass Graves on these same Religious Institutions in Ireland. We here in Ireland need to explain how the Cult could take such effective hold of Ireland, that is another day for historians who still struggle to explain. The age range of the boys, at Belvedere College, was 9 years of age to 16 years of age.  Owen Felix O’Neill 
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Some Famous ex-Students of Belvedere College, Dublin


Tony O’Reilly, James Joyce,  Harry Clarke, Austin Clarke, Tim Pat Coogan,  Joseph Mary Plunkett, Jimmy O’Dea, Cathal Brugha, Liam O'Flaherty, Brian Lenihan and his brother Conor, Kevin Barry, Dr Garret FitzGerald, Noel Purcell, Terry Wogan,  John Bowman,  Mr Justice Adrian Hardiman, Cardinal Desmond Connell, Archbishop Dermot Ryan, Pat Taaffe, Donagh, MacDonagh, and hundreds more of known names, in Sport, The Arts,  Olympians, Irish History, Politics and Law, Business and Broadcasting, Peers, Religion.