Archive for the ‘Child Abuse’ Category
Russian Baby kidnappers : International Actions Protesting About Ukraine’s Stolen Children – June 1 2025, International Children’s Day
June 1 is International Children’s Day. Since 2014 Russia has forcibly kidnapped nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children. Protests against this barbaric crime are occurring all over the world.
Link : International Actions June 1, Ukraine’s Children Stolen by Russian Invaders
These crimes are a reminder of a very dark period in Ireland during most of the 20th century. Child abuse, baby-snatching, illegal adoptions, criminalising of innocent women – Irish “Mother and Baby Homes” and Magdalene Laundries were dungeons of evil where children were tortured.
During that dark period we learned that speaking up and taking public action is essential when crimes like this are drawn to our attention.
Details of Protests to be held in Ireland will be announced here soon.
Supporters of this initiative in Ireland include Ivana Bacik TD, leader of the Labour Party, who has issued the following public statement :
Since 2014, it is known that Russia has abducted nearly 20,000 Ukrainian children. Protests against this barbaric war crime are occurring all over the world, and Russia’s criminal actions have been condemned in the European Parliament and across EU Member States. I commend all activists who are taking part in protests against Russia’s abduction and deportation of Ukrainan children. I have raised this issue in Dáil Éireann (the Irish parliament) and have demanded that the Irish government takes appropriate action to express the strongest possible condemnation of Russian war crimes.
Ivana Bacik TD, Labour Party Leader, Ireland
Crimes of Russia, Kidnapping of Ukrainian Children
The European Network for Solidarity With Ukraine (ENSU) invites all to this Zoom Event on May 30 :
Since 2014 Russia has forcibly transferred almost 20,000 Ukrainian children to areas under its control, assigned them Russian citizenship, forcibly adopted them into Russian families, and created obstacles for their reunification with their parents and homeland. The true scale of the crisis may be far greater.
On the eve of International Children’s Day, which is celebrated on the 1th of June we want to invite you to a meeting where whe can disscuss in more detail about the crimes of Russia towards Ukrainian children.
Our panelists will include:
– Kateryna Rashevska an international law and legal expert at the Regional Centre of Human Rights (https://krymbezpravil.org.ua/), children’s rights activist
– Mykola Komarovskyi, lawyer at NGO “Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group” (https://khpg.org/en/), author of one of the KHRPG submissions to the ICC regarding the forced deportation of Ukrainian children
Meeting in English, French and Ukrainian.
Zoom link (registration required):
https://us02web.zoom.us/…/register/QPZ2-j70RYGoF9bzvcGgMA
Kincora House and Lord Mountbatten (grand uncle of King Charles) – Chris Moore and Suzanne Breen Say “It is long past the time that the full truth was told about what happened in the house of horrors” – they are 100 per cent right
We wish to again congratulate the dogged investigative reporter Chris Moore for putting so much dedicated hard work into a shocking story which will not go away.
This smoking volcano has become more active recently. The criminal scandal will not go away, and further political action is vital. We are duty bound to keep up the pressure and, above all, support the victims of horrendous British state crimes.
For decades the Belfast Kincora child abuse scandal has attracted false and unverified accusations. In my own case I refused to believe many rumours about the involvement of Lord Mountbatten in a child abuse ring because no credible evidence was placed in the public arena.
At the Dublin Irish Film Institute (IFI) launch of the stunning documentary “Lost Boys of Belfast” in 2023 I made this observation to one of the documentary makers, Chris Moore.
I had noticed there was no reference to Mountbatten in the sensational documentary. Chris confirmed that the documentary makers made no mention of the Mountbatten allegations because they possessed no credible proof.
Read the rest of this entry »Belfast Child Abuse Scandal : KINCORA MONSTER DENIED ALL WHEN CONFRONTED BY AUTHOR IN THIS EXTRACT FROM HIS NEW BOOK, KINCORA: BRITAIN’S SHAME
Child Abuse remains a major crime problem in Ireland, on both sides of the border. Veteran reporter Chris Moore has worked tirelessly researching the issue, and fighting state censorship.
Governments running the two bits of Ireland must stop pocketing knowledge of abuse, and then using the information for political intelligence purposes, and protecting powerful wealthy criminals.
The building at the centre of the scandal was demolished three years ago, but the cover up of the crimes committed behind its walls continues.
Suzanne Breen, Journalist, Belfast
It is long past the time that the full truth was told about what happened in the house of horrors.
McGrath denied his sins to the end – one of his last interviews
Chris Moore, Sunday Life, May 18th, 2025
Source : “McGrath Denied His Sins to the End” Kincora Monster Denied All
KINCORA MONSTER DENIED ALL WHEN CONFRONTED BY AUTHOR IN THIS EXTRACT FROM HIS NEW BOOK, KINCORA: BRITAIN’S SHAME
I parked in the forecourt of a neighbourhood shop with the intention of asking if anyone could direct me to McGrath’s home.
I presented a few items for payment, casually asking the shopkeeper if she could point me in the direction of his house.
Politely, but firmly, she declined, saying that as far as she and others in the village were concerned, ‘Billy’ McGrath was a friendly man who said he had been badly wronged in the courts and pestered by reporters.
“I suppose you are one of them,” she said bluntly. I owned up and then respectfully suggested that the evidence that convicted him indicated that, far from being wronged, McGrath had actually got off very lightly.
Collecting my change, I headed out to the car to consider my next move. I could do the door-to-door routine, but the attitude of the shopkeeper suggested I would receive little cooperation. Then, an elderly man approached, wearing a cardigan, dark trousers and slippers, so obviously he had not travelled too far.
I got out of the car and watched as he moved towards the shop. There is a God, I thought. Gingerly I edged around the car, proffering my hand as he reached me.
He accepted, we shook and I announced myself as “Chris Moore from the BBC”. McGrath smiled wryly and told me he had nothing to say.
Read the rest of this entry »‘I was raped by Mountbatten in Kincora at 11; he wasn’t a lord… to me he was king of the paedophiles’ – Journalist Chris Moore makes sensational new allegations in a new book
Chris Moore from Belfast is no ordinary journalist.
He has worked for decades on the Kincora child abuse scandal. After extensive new research he makes credible allegations about the British royal family’s Lord Mountbatten (killed by an August 1979 IRA bomb in the western Irish county of Sligo) and a wide-ranging British state cover-up.
A new book brings the story up-to-date.
Link :
Readers are recommended to go and see the film “Lost Boys” whenever they get the chance – despite the British State’s efforts to kill the story, aided and abetted by the Irish police force, An Gárda Síochána (Guardians of the Peace).
All of this is grim reading.
Awkward Child Abuse Questions for New Conservative Pope Leo XIV (Robert Prevost) Savaged by Donald Trump’s MAGA Attack Dogs
A Cardinal born in the USA city of Chicago 69 years ago – Robert Prevost – will in future be called Pope Leo XIV.
No surprise – child abuse allegations lurk – let’s see
The child abuse connection with Pope Leo XIV is probably the same as all top leaders of the Catholic Church. He wasn’t interested when the news started to break, he moved the rapists to a new parish or new job, while remaining indifferent to the victims.
Pope Francis’ small reforms like allowing communion to LGBT or divorced and remarried people seem likely to be accepted as a modernisation.
Let’s wait and see.
Here is an extract from an Irish Times report “The cardinal, who is a member of the Order of St Augustine, resembles Francis in his commitment to the poor and migrants. Often described as reserved and discreet, Prevost will depart stylistically from Francis. His supporters say he will most likely continue the consultative process started by Francis to invite laypeople to meet with bishops.
It is unclear whether he will be as open to LGBTQ+ Catholics as Francis was. Although he has not said much recently, in a 2012 address to bishops, he lamented that Western news media and popular culture fostered “sympathy for beliefs and practices that are at odds with the Gospel”. He cited the “homosexual lifestyle” and “alternative families comprised of same-sex partners and their adopted children.”
Rev Michele Falcone (46), a priest in the Order of St. Augustine previously led by Prevost, described his mentor and friend as the “dignified middle of the road” to the New York Times earlier this week.
“He does not have excesses,” Fr Falcone said of Prevost. “Blessing babies, yes. Taking them in his arms, no.”
“I know that Bob believes that everybody has a right and a duty to express themselves in the church,” said Rev Mark R Francis, a former classmate of Prevost who runs the American arm of the Clerics of St Viator, a religious order.
While praised in Peru for supporting Venezuelan immigrants and visiting far-flung communities, the cardinal has drawn criticism over his dealings with priests accused of sexual abuse.
One woman in Chiclayo, who said she and two other women were sexually abused by two priests as girls long before Prevost was bishop, accused him of mishandling an investigation and of not stopping one of the priests from celebrating Mass.
Jeffrey Donaldson Abuse Case : Journalist Sam McBride highlights a key fact
Political journalist Sam McBride points out :
“It has been widely reported that Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said in a letter to the DUP that he will strenuously contest the serious charges against him. However, he has said nothing yet in public. Now we know when he will have to enter a plea: September 10.”
A Stormont law said it’s a criminal offence to say “Jimmy Savile was a paedophile” – Judge ruled this is perverse, Minister Naomi Long launches appeal
On the face of it this is political loony-land – and so much for the liberal reputation of Alliance Party leader Naomi Long, currently trying to take the East Belfast Westminster seat of DUP leader Gavin Robinson – the result will be known in the early hours of Friday July 5.
Political Journalist Sam McBride explains the background in two articles below.
One correspondent asked McBride a relevant question, straining to give Long the benefit of the doubt :
Read the rest of this entry »Birds of a Feather Flock Together – Vladimir Putin, Donald Trump, Nigel Farage and Sammy Wilson MP (DUP, East Antrim)
There is more to this story than initially meets the eye. Much capitalist development is based on Ethnic Cleansing of original populations and the plantation of new non-indigenous populations – it happened in the United States of America (USA) and Australia – naming just two. It did not happen so brutally in Ireland – but British imperialism made a significant effort.
Links :
Plantation of Ulster
Ethnic Cleansing of Ireland – Wikipedia
The Northern province of Ulster was “planted” in the 1600’s, but the native Irish were not completely exterminated. Waves of native Irish emigrated – especially in the 19th century after a misnamed Famine (in reality a “Great Hunger” caused by British Imperialist Policy) drove millions of the native Irish to the four corners of the globe. These emigrants kept alive the idea of Irish freedom, and played a significant role in every attempt to rid Ireland of British rule.
The stubborn Irish “national question” remains on today’s agenda because of the 1922 Anglo-Irish Treaty which divided Ireland into 2 sectarian states. A key feature of extreme Irish Unionism is identification with plantation/ethnic cleansing forms of capitalism – and that goes a long way towards explaining Irish far-right Unionist sympathy for the present day attempted ethnic cleansing of Palestine and Ukraine. We should situate recent pro-Putin and anti-Ukraine statements by the British far-right politician Nigel Farage and Sammy Wilson within this framework :
Link :
The Russian imperialist occupation of Crimea, Luhansk and Donetsk is ethnic cleansing capitalism in action – accompanied by child stealing and abuse similar to the behaviour of the Catholic Church in the 26 county bit of Ireland from the 1930’s to the 1990’s.
An excellent Ukrainian blog, Ukr-Taz, covers the story of Putin’s ethnic cleansing dreams in Ukraine, and Donald Trump’s enthusiastic support :
Trump on Putin’s “dream”
29 06 2024
For all that can be said about Thursday’s debate between Joe Biden and Donald Trump — including about the former’s dismal performance and about the boundless creativity of Trump’s fabrications on almost every topic under the sun — Trump’s curious note about Putin’s “dream” stood out to me:
Read the rest of this entry »Robert Ballagh’s “The Thirtieth of January”: A Bloody Sunday Painting and the Troubles in the Two Bits of Ireland
In this interview the artist Robert Ballagh discusses the painting “The Thirtieth of January”, depicting Bloody Sunday in Derry in 1972. The conversation provides valuable insights into Ballagh’s personal experiences and artistic process, shedding light on the political and social context of the time.
The interview provides a unique insight into the historical and cultural significance of the painting.
Critical issues related to the Irish government’s response to the conflict, the impact of the Bloody Sunday event, and the broader social and political implications are highlighted. Ballagh’s commentary on the role of the Irish government, the impact on nationalist communities, and the establishment of the Special Criminal Court adds depth to the discussion.
Bloody Sunday Painting – the Thirtieth of January – Robert Ballagh
Thursday, January 20 2022. John Meehan interviews the artist Robert Ballagh in Number Five Arbour Hill.
We are talking about Robert’s painting : The Thirtieth of January, a representation of Bloody Sunday in Derry, January 30 1972.
John Meehan :
Why did you zone in on Derry’s Bloody Sunday , and put so much effort into making this painting? What makes it different from so many other big events during “The Troubles” in the north of Ireland, which lasted for 30 years, from 1968 to 1998?
Robert Ballagh
Well, it’s a long time ago now 50 years, but I have to say that it had an enormous effect on me, and I don’t think I’m alone with that historical experience. I suppose one thing I should say, I was only thinking about this, and I haven’t said anything about this experience to others. I’m a Dubliner. I’ve lived all my life in Dublin. But unlike most Dubliners – it wasn’t by design – I had an extraordinary rich knowledge of the North of Ireland, before the conflict began. Because I was a professional musician in a showband. We used to play at least once or twice a week in the north. So I was in every town village or city in the north that had a ballroom or ballrooms. And so I experienced the reality of life in that society, and became very aware of the sectarian differences, shall we say – the nature of the society, which people didn’t appreciate at all. I tell one very short story to illustrate that. We played fairly regularly in one of the very popular ballrooms in Belfast : Romano’s in Queen Street. We developed quite a following! In the show business vernacular the word groupie was used. These girls used follow us, they came down to Dublin once or twice to hear us. And we were playing one night in Romano’s.
After the dance, they came up and we’re talking to us. They asked “When are you playing again in Belfast?”.
I remember saying “Oh, I think we’re here next week.”
“Oh, really?”
“Yeah – we’re playing in a ballroom called the Astor” which I knew was in Smithfield.
And they said, “Oh, we can’t go there.” And I said, “Why?” – because it was a public ballroom. It wasn’t attached to any organization or anything. It was a public ballroom.
They said, “Oh, no, that’s a taig hall”
And it was the first time I realized, and we realized, that our fan base in Belfast was Protestant.
Tomás Ó Flatharta 