Latest news with #O'Flaherty
Irish Examiner
22-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Examiner
Kevin O'Flaherty hopeful Nenagh can handle step up
The dust has just about settled on Nenagh Ormond's celebrations following their historic first promotion to the Energia All Ireland League's top flight but captain Kevin O'Flaherty is determined his club holds their own with the big boys in Division 1A next season. Much will depend on Nenagh's home form as they mix it with the established heavyweights led by newly-minted champions Clontarf and if the 2024-25 campaign was any guide, New Ormond Park will not be a venue away teams will relish visiting. Back-rower O'Flaherty, the Energia AIL Division 1B player of the year, has now led Nenagh to successive promotions and this season's Munster Senior Cup. Their elevation to 1A behind title winners Old Belvedere was secured with a dramatic play-off final win at home over Munster rivals UCC in front of more than 1000 spectators, and he believes the backing of the wider community in a traditional stronghold of Tipperary hurling will be just as crucial for the step up in class as the club becomes their county's first top-flight representatives. 'That's the thing, our crest is a castle and we speak about ourselves that we need to protect our castle,' O'Flaherty told the Irish Examiner. 'So that's what we think about when we play at home, you never want to lose there and we're starting to do that. We only lost one game at home this year and that was against Old Belvedere who were deserving champions. We took scalps off the likes of Cork Con, Highfield, Shannon, renowned teams. 'The community itself, we're in the heart of hurling country but if you look at the play-off final, all the hurling teams were out to support us, and they had games that evening at 6:30pm but there was three or four parishes of hurling teams out to watch the first half and I think a good few of them got the end in too. 'In a small community it's all about everyone helping out each other, from businesses supporting us to families in general coming out to support. Getting people through the gate is a big thing.' The sense of community behind Nenagh Ormond was underlined by O'Flaherty's visit this season to Youghalarra National School. 'An ex-player of ours is principal and he asked me to come in with the Senior Cup, and it was amazing to just go in and see the amount of people that are playing rugby in a school which would be mainly a hurling school. Our head coach (Derek Corcoran) did the same, went to his local school where he's a teacher (Nenagh CBS primary school) and the reception he got was exceptional and it's probably half the reason why he's still playing. He's 41 and he has coached us in every single promotion that we've achieved and I think he's played in every one of them as well. He's a credit to the club.' O'Flaherty credits back-to-back promotions for Nenagh to both the loyalty of local players and the work of the coaching team led by player/head coach Corcoran with assistants James Hickey, Dan Fogarty and S&C coach Colm Skehan. 'It was kind of down to a core group that stopped there for a lot of years. They've always been the ones to drive the standards but once the coaches came in they put more emphasis on the rest of the team to match that core. Everyone had to be working as hard as everyone else, it's the same as anything, like in defence, you're only as good as your weakest man. 'So we tried to make sure that our weakest man was one of our strongest and if you can guess a squad all playing off of that you're onto a winner, because you look other years, we probably had that main 15 and it probably let us down, like if you look at three years ago when we played in the Senior Cup against Young Munster. We were there or thereabouts with them for probably 60, 70 per cent of the game but once people got tired and once the bench came on it probably wasn't as effective as it has been this year. 'So we really put emphasis on getting as fit and as strong as we could. We knew if we could stay fit and keep going for the 80 minutes, you bring on subs and if they can do the same thing you're always in a good place.' That paid off in spades with their last-gasp play-off final victory over UCC, coming from 33-24 down with three minutes left on the clock to win 36-33. It capped a dream season for the club while O'Flaherty finished the week collecting the 1B player of the year award at the Energia AIL awards in Dublin. 'It's a nice accolade to get,' he said. 'It's a really nice way to top off the last few years and for me personally, I've been playing for 14 years so to get acknowledged is always nice. 'But if you look at the standard in 1B this year, it's been excellent. Like Calum Dowling (Old Belvedere), he was nominated and was very much deserving of it. Alex Molloy (Old Wesley), Conor O'Shaughnessey (Blackrock College), they'd be the same, but even going back to our team itself, you could pick any one of our players to be nominated for that, and they would have been deserving of it as well. So as much as it's a personal accolade, you're only as good as your team. 'As long as everyone can play to a high standard, anyone is capable of doing that and last year Willie (Coffey) who was in it for 2A, he was exceptional again this year, and there was no reason why he couldn't have got it. 'In terms of promotion, then, it's a pinch yourself moment, really. You're looking at going up to… and I was talking to (former Ireland international and Nenagh native) Trevor Hogan, he congratulated me after the win and he just said he never thought he'd see the day when Nenagh went up against Clontarf. 'I think for a lot of us, we celebrated the win but we're still in dreamland. Once those fixtures come out and we see ourselves playing against those big teams, all the Dublin teams coming down to Nenagh, that's when the fun really begins.'
Irish Examiner
20-05-2025
- Politics
- Irish Examiner
Leading Irish human rights activist calls on politicians to 'push back' against hatred of LGBT+ people
Politicians must not 'turn a blind eye' to anti-LGBT+ hate because doing so comes at the 'expense of real people's lives', a leading human rights activist has said. Speaking 10 years on from Ireland's landmark marriage equality referendum, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights Michael O'Flaherty said the rule of law was in a 'very poor state or in decline in far too many places here in Europe and beyond' and it was 'time to push back'. In his speech in Malta at a key European forum, the Irish man stressed laws and rhetoric were stripping basic human rights from LGBT+ people by banning protest, recognition, and even discussion of their existence. 'I think also of the perverse backlash against gender identity, in a manner that is both in violation of international law, and in defiance of human realities,' Mr O'Flaherty said. As you well know, these are just some of the manifestations of the current LGBTI-related assaults on the rule of law. He linked repressive measures in countries with bids to attain or retain political power, and said countries were using 'populist tools that draw on disinformation and misinformation' that 'scapegoat marginalised groups'. 'We hear lies about not only our contemporary world, but also about our histories and our cultures,' he said. "And all of this is sometimes exacerbated when otherwise law-abiding leaders stay silent, or compromise in the interests of deal-making or coalition-building." Mr O'Flaherty said that these attacks were not isolated but signal deeper democratic backsliding and political opportunism. He called on political leaders to repeal discriminatory laws, call out hate and prioritise LGBT+ rights in foreign policy matters. 'States also need to be very consequent in ensuring that reforms to migration law and practice do not expose LGBTI people to danger, including the risk of refoulement,' he added. Mr O'Flaherty's speech came as Ireland marks 10 years since a referendum backed marriage equality for same-sex couples. Writing in the Sunday Times at the weekend, former taoiseach Leo Varadkar said he believed there would be a 'much harsher debate' if the referendum was to have run in 2025. On Monday, the Labour Party changed the venue for its event to mark the 10th anniversary over what it referred to as the 'serious threat of protest from the far right'. Its TD for Limerick City said he would not feel comfortable holding the hand of a loved one in public, due to an increased level of toxicity towards LGBT+ people in Ireland. Conor Sheehan described the amount of homophobic abuse he receives as being 'absolutely unbelievable'. 'I suppose, as an openly LGBT member of the Oireachtas, I think it's important to reflect that things for LGBT people in the last couple of years have become more uncertain and more unsafe. That's something that we need to reflect upon as a society as we move forward,' Mr Sheehan said. I certainly wouldn't feel comfortable walking around Dublin City, or any city, in Ireland holding, for example, the hand of a loved one or of a partner or whatever. 'I don't think we were at this juncture 10 years ago.' He said there had been a 'conscious effort' across Europe and the US by some actors to unpick 'hard-won rights' for LGBT+ people. 'That's something I believe we need to stand firm about because we live in an open, tolerant, compassionate society. 'The vast, vast majority of Irish people are open, tolerant and compassionate and I don't want to live in a society where any sort of hate, regardless of who it's directed towards, becomes sort of tolerated.'
Euronews
07-05-2025
- Politics
- Euronews
Europe's human rights watchdog urges Greece to end 'pushbacks' of migrants
ADVERTISEMENT Greece has been urged to implement stronger legal safeguards at its borders and adopt a "zero-tolerance approach to summary returns" as reports of illegal deportations of migrants continue in the face of mounting international criticism, the Council of Europe (CoE) has said. Michael O'Flaherty, the CoE's commissioner for human rights, issued the recommendations following a visit to Greece in February. "The commissioner is concerned about the allegations received during his visit regarding persistent practices of summary returns — also referred to as 'pushbacks' or 'informal forced returns' — at both land and maritime borders," a memorandum said. "Returning people without carrying out an individual identification procedure prevents member states from establishing whether they may be sending them back to human rights abuses." Migrants accompanied by a Frontex vessel at the village of Skala Sikaminias on the Greek island of Lesbos, 28 February, 2020 AP Photo But the statement added that O'Flaherty had noted that the number of allegations had dropped in recent months. Athens has consistently denied the pushback allegations, maintaining that its border control measures comply with international law. In a written response to the commissioner, Greek Police said its officers are involved only in the "lawful prevention of illegal border crossings while migrants are still in Turkish territory and have not yet reached Greece." Related Local residents mobilise to help survivors of deadly migrant shipwreck off Greek coast Greek coast guard defends actions as up to 500 migrants feared dead in shipwreck 'After the explosion': Migrant arrivals plummet in Greece The pushback allegations gained legal significance after the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Greece in January, finding that Athens had violated European human rights conventions by systematically expelling migrants without due process. Meanwhile, the Greek government is tightening its migration policies. Migration Minister Makis Voridis has announced plans to extend the maximum detention period for rejected asylum seekers from 18 to 24 months. "The illegal migrant whose asylum application is rejected and who nevertheless does not leave for his country will face a much more unfavourable institutional environment than exists today — essentially to encourage voluntary departure," Voridis told the Action 24 TV news channel. Members of Frontex rescue 56 people who were lost in open seas as they tried to approach the Greek island of Lesbos, 8 December, 2015 AP Photo On Tuesday, the coast guard reported rescuing 158 migrants from three dinghies south of the island of Crete, with assistance from nearby commercial vessels and Frontex, the EU's border protection agency. Last month, Frontex also said it was investigating multiple alleged human rights violations by Greece in the way it deals with illegal immigration. Frontex said it is looking into 12 alleged serious incidents that mostly occurred in 2024 but gave no further details. A spokesperson for the agency, Chris Borowski, said it had recently boosted its complaint mechanism. ADVERTISEMENT "There are currently 12 active serious incident reports related to Greece under review by the Fundamental Rights Office. Each is being examined thoroughly," he said.
06-05-2025
- Politics
Europe's human rights watchdog urges Greece to end summary deportation of migrants
ATHENS, Greece -- ATHENS, Greece (AP) — Greece was urged Tuesday to implement stronger legal safeguards at its borders and adopt a 'zero-tolerance approach to summary returns" as reports of illegal deportations of migrants continue despite mounting international criticism. Michael O'Flaherty, the Council of Europe's commissioner for human rights, issued the recommendations following a visit to Greece in February. 'The commissioner is concerned about the allegations received during his visit regarding persistent practices of summary returns — also referred to as 'pushbacks' or 'informal forced returns' — at both land and maritime borders,' the Council of Europe memorandum said. 'Returning people without carrying out an individual identification procedure prevents member states from establishing whether they may be sending them back to human rights abuses,' it added. It said O'Flaherty noted that the number of allegations had dropped in recent months. Athens has consistently denied the pushback allegations, maintaining that its border control measures comply with international law. In a written response to the commissioner, the Greek Police said its officers are involved only in the 'lawful prevention of illegal border crossings while migrants are still in Turkish territory and have not yet reached Greece.' The pushback allegations gained legal significance after the European Court of Human Rights ruled against Greece in January, finding that Athens had violated European human rights conventions by systematically expelling migrants without due process. The Greek government is tightening its migration policies. Migration Minister Makis Voridis has announced plans to extend the maximum detention period for rejected asylum seekers from 18 month to 24 months. 'The illegal migrant whose asylum application is rejected and who nevertheless does not leave for his country will face a much more unfavorable institutional environment than exists today — essentially to encourage voluntary departure,' Voridis told the Action 24 TV news channel. On Tuesday, the coast guard reported rescuing 158 migrants from three dinghies south of the island of Crete, with assistance from nearby commercial vessels and Frontex, the European Union's border protection agency. Founded in 1949 and headquartered in Strasbourg, France, the Council of Europe is an international organization dedicated to promoting human rights, democracy, and the rule of law. It has 46 member states.
RTÉ News
01-05-2025
- RTÉ News
Profile of an abuser: Christian Brother Martin O'Flaherty
As a senior Christian Brother, Martin O'Flaherty could access all areas in Irish education. His mark is evident across the sector, not just in his primary and secondary teaching and principal posts, but in teacher training, governorships and Boards of Management, on schools' syllabus, in the creation of the Christian Brothers' schools trust, ERST, and in the sell-off of educational land. He was part of the Christian Brothers' core leadership for a dozen years from 2002 to 2014, and he had an influential reach on either side of those years. O'Flaherty was a keeper of the keys to the congregation's assets and secrets. He was one of them himself; he is currently in Mountjoy jail, his status in the Christian Brothers' leadership exclusively revealed by RTÉ Investigates. A native of Doora, Ennis, Co Clare, O'Flaherty was reared in St Michael's Villas in the town. He returned in June 2015 for the launch of a local history book about St Michael's and preached the homily at a special mass in Ennis cathedral. O'Flaherty was a typical Christian Brother recruit: by his own account, the son of parents of modest means, who were delighted to be among the first to benefit from social housing schemes of the 1950s. "Imagine how lucky they must have felt in the knowledge that there was a green area 'out front', as we used to say, where children could play and be supervised", the Clare Champion reported him preaching at the mass. His parents were probably delighted too when their son entered the Christian Brothers' training school at Carriglea Park, Dún Laoghaire, in 1965, at the age of 13, to study there. The former journalist and senator John Whelan was another Christian Brother recruit, from Co Kildare. He joined Carriglea eight years later, in 1973, aged 12. John Whelan brought his toy soldiers with him and hid them under the bed. Four years later, in fifth year, his parents drove up to collect him and he left, completing his Leaving Cert elsewhere. He is critical of wholesale denunciation of the Brothers that ignores the good, inspiring educators among them, and he was aware corporal punishment wasn't just legal back then; it was encouraged. But Carriglea was different. He described a training school for Brothers that was a breeding ground for violence. What he experienced and witnessed, he said, was a school of "cruel behaviour", in which "a handful of men seemed to take pleasure in a sort of vicious application of being able to beat you." He recalled one incident that exemplified the culture; for him, it was the last straw. It happened at a football match. "We would have been fifth and 6th years, versus the teachers, the Brothers, and one chap was running rings around them, then scored a goal", said John Whelan, "and on his way back out, celebrating, he got bursted, like, levelled". The Brother who beat the boy had to be restrained; he was the Brother Superior of the school, its principal. "When the Brother Superior was dishing it out, you know, it was very much embedded in the system", said Mr Whelan. "Corporal punishment was taken out of place and amplified to a place of cruelty and brutality. Boys were hurt, and terrified — but you know, it wasn't just one bad egg, it wasn't just a rogue trader; it was more systemic." In the face of that culture hung the fate of sexual abuser, Br Martin O'Flaherty. He was a brutal physical abuser too, described as "a monster" by one of his victims. Yet for 50 years he remained undetected and untroubled within the Christian Brothers' congregation. Instead, he rose to the top. The Scoping Inquiry that reported last year was focused solely on historical child sexual abuse in schools, not physical abuse. Yet on sexual abuse too, the Christian Brothers came out on top, with the highest number of alleged abusers, albeit having had the largest number of schools. Using the Christian Brothers' own figures, the Scoping report cited 820 allegations of historical child sexual abuse across 132 schools against 255 Christian Brothers, mainly from the 1960s up to the early 1990s. Total allegations are likely to exceed the figures given to it by the religious orders, it reported. From O'Flaherty's tenure in one Kilkenny primary school there is an indication is just how high the figures are likely to go. O'Flaherty started teaching in CBS Primary School, 'Scoil Iognaid de Ris' in Stephen Street, Kilkenny from August 1976 until August 1981. There he sexually abused several boys. He shared some of that time with another child-abusing teacher, then-serving Brother Liam Coughlan. In May 2023, former Br Coughlan (88) was convicted of indecent assault on five boys at the school in the 1970s; in October 2023 he pleaded guilty in relation to the abuse of 19 more boys. Br Martin O'Flaherty, arrested in October 2020, pleaded not guilty each time. He put his victims through six separate trials, from 2022 up to last month, his legal defence paid by the Christian Brothers. The Scoping Inquiry reported four alleged abusers and 17 abuse allegations in CBS Primary, Kilkenny, over the years. But from O'Flaherty and Coughlan's convictions alone, a sense of the true scale: they alone have 167 convictions and at least 53 victims. On the state side, there is a cost in prosecuting such trials, involving multiple counts and several victims. The Garda investigation that preceded the cases came at significant cost to Garda time and resources too. Gardai identified 900 people who had been in the school in the relevant years, and pursued inquiries on that basis. They took 88 statements regarding five alleged abusers. Forty-three complainants came forward against O'Flaherty alone. Of those who have secured convictions, many do not wish to be publicly identified. Some have told their wives of the abuse; others, not. Many did not tell their mother or father, and fear telling them now is too much to ask of elderly parents. Some told their family, but do not want to tell work colleagues. Others do not want anyone to know. They face the same predicaments many others will soon face — how open they are prepared to be about widespread sexual abuse of young boys in Irish schools over decades and its impact on them as grown men. One survivor who wishes to remain anonymous queried how other Christian Brothers did not know about Br O'Flaherty. "They had to know", he said. "If the kids knew it, the other teachers knew it —I just can't see how they could not know". Another survivor recalled that it was talked about in the schoolyard at playtime. "Stay away from him" older boys told younger classes. The survivor said that O'Flaherty used to squeeze in beside him at his desk or call him up to the teacher's desk on the pretence of reading something out loud. He would also beat him with his fist as he walked by his desk. He recalled O'Flaherty trying to catch him in the dressing room of the Kilkenny CBS hurling grounds. "He went to close the door, and I just knew, I knew. He closed it and I couldn't get out. I hit him with a hurl on the side of his face and that shocked him sufficient for me to get away", the man said, "But he hit me a blow on the face as I went out". The boy's father spotted that the boy had been hit on the face and went to the school the next day. O'Flaherty was gone for three days, the man said. "He never touched me again; he never laid his hands on me again." One survivor, the smallest boy in his class, suffered an attempted rape by O'Flaherty. In his case, beatings led to sexual abuse. "I didn't know it was happening to anyone else", he said. O'Flaherty held him back after school on the pretence of improving his long division in maths. He then wrote a school report claiming the boy was not pulling his weight in class. In later life, the man said he could never fully commit in relationships and his marriage broke down. Br Martin O'Flaherty's career took him through several other schools in Ireland and in England in various roles, ensuring he had continued access to children until recent years. He first taught in Tipperary CBS primary school from 1971 to 1973, and then in CBS Greystones primary school until 1975. After Kilkenny, he studied in Dublin until 1985, when he moved to CBS secondary school, Portlaoise, later becoming principal there. When he left Portlaoise in 1991, he took a sabbatical in England. He was principal of 'North Mon', Cork's CBS North Monastery, from 1993 to 1994. O'Flaherty was based in the Family Studies Department at Marino Institute for Education from August 1996 to March 2002, where he ran an MIE course for parents in leadership skills for personal, spiritual and faith development, and authored a book on spirituality in adolescence. A booklet O'Flaherty wrote titled 'Faith Development' was on the recommended reading list for a module of the 'Leaving Cert Applied' Religious Education syllabus. By 2002, he was part of the Christian Brothers' leadership, involved in its decisions on the first state redress scheme for victims of institutional child abuse. O'Flaherty saw himself as an educator. He was also associated with St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, where he facilitated religious gatherings. By 2006 he was on the Governing Body of MIE. Christian Brother abuse survivor, Damian O'Farrell said he was shocked when he heard about O'Flaherty's history as an abuser. He had met him through connections to Marino. "I was in his company a few times. He came across as a very charismatic person", said Mr O'Farrell. In 2007, when the Christian Brothers in Ireland restructured, creating a new Province for Ireland, England and Rome called the European Province, Martin O'Flaherty continued to be at the core of the leadership, involved in key decisions on its property, its cash assets, its treatment of victims of institutional child abuse during and after the Commission into Child Abuse and the Ryan Report, and its approach to the second redress deal in 2009. In 2007, he was a founding member and director of New Street Properties Ltd., a trustee company that acts as the property management company for the Christian Brothers and is now called Christian Brothers CLG. He remained in that role until May 2014, and was still recorded as a trustee of several individual properties after that. O'Flaherty was part of the Christian Brother leadership that developed an approach to its property interests of increasingly entering contracts for sale with developers across Dublin to maximise profits, a policy that has resulted in it squeezing availability of schools' land. In 2007 also, he was part of the leadership that decided that the congregation would keep assets arising out of the sale of the schools' playing fields it owned, and in 2008, that created a new, lay trust, the Edmund Rice Schools Trust, to which it said it was transferring all its schools. O'Flaherty and other past and present leadership figures are themselves trustees of many Christian Brother properties. Of the twenty surviving trustees in the Congregation's current and past leadership, a handful have been trustees over several years. O'Flaherty is one of those. He remained a member of the Province leadership team until May 2014. He was transferred to England in spring 2016, but before that, he was Chair of the Board of Management of a non-Christian Brother school, Our Lady's of Mourne Road in Drimnagh, having been appointed by another religious schools' trust, CEIST. Chairs of Boards of Management of schools are responsible for overseeing child safety issues in schools, under the statutory framework, 'Children First'. RTÉ Investigates also examined O'Flaherty's movements in England, where he was appointed a director and trustee of the charity and company holding Christian Brother property assets there. As a Congregation trustee for England, he was a Governor in five preparatory schools owned by the Christian Brothers in England, two of which since closed. He was also appointed as a trustee of St Anselms College Edmund Rice Academy Trust in March 2017, only stepping down on his transfer back to Ireland in May 2018, as the Garda investigation into him intensified. The Christian Brothers said that "all allegations of sexual abuse against a Brother or former Christian Brother are notified to the appropriate safeguarding authorities and to the gardai (and to police and church authorities in the UK where appropriate)". It also said that "pending investigation of such allegations, any Brother against whom allegations were made (whether in Ireland or the UK) were removed from active Ministry or any frontline role involving the education or welfare of children". However, RTÉ Investigates has established that Martin O'Flaherty had contact with pupils from a number of Christian-Brother connected schools during his time in England, after the Garda investigation had begun, including in March 2018, when he attended an event with pupils from St. Anselm's College, Liverpool, St. Joseph's College, Stoke-on-Trent, and St Ambrose College in Hale Barns, Altrincham, Greater Manchester. When he was brought back from England in May 2018, while he resigned from roles involving ministries with children, he remained a trustee of the congregation's property assets in England. He resigned from that position in December 2019, almost three years after Gardai first made contact with the Christian Brothers about him in January 2017, and 21 months after the first formal statement to Gardai by one of his victims, in February 2018. In October 2020, he was arrested and charged in connection with child sexual abuse in Kilkenny CBS Primary School in the late 1970s. He first went on trial in March 2022, and, following six separate trials involving multiple victims, his final conviction was in March this year. In Ireland, he remained a trustee listed on the deeds of several Christian Brother properties, including some synonymous with the Brothers, such as Synge Street in Dublin 8, and Monkstown CBC, where he was among trustees executing a rectification on the deeds in 2022, over a year after he had already been charged with abuse. The Christian Brothers trustee company subsequently transferred land it had retained at Monkstown to ERST in July 2022. In response to RTÉ Investigates, the Christian Brothers, under current Province leader David Gibson, said it "reiterates our apology for the physical and sexual abuse that occurred in many former CBS schools and institutions over several generations." It said it recognises "the terrible damage that was done to innocent children who should have been protected." However, in the face of its approach to victims and its record on educational land, the Christian Brothers words ring hollow for many survivors. With the public, it now risks its legacy in education, where its actions, not its words, have been sounding an alarm.
