Nuala O’loan, writing in this week’s Irish Catholic about the Ryan Report quotes the Ombudsman, Emily O’Reilly.
If things were hidden, they were hidden in clear sight.
The crocodile lines of boys and girls that streamed out of the institutions; the certain knowledge that corporal punishment at the very least was practiced therein; the incarcerated Magdalene women in their Madonna blues and whites who walked the open streets of towns and villages in church processions.
judges knew, lawyers knew, teachers knew, civil servants knew childcare workers knew, Gardai knew. Not to know was not an option.
It was an option for Sr. Stanislaus Kennedy