Byrne Reveals Childhood Abuse

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Byrne Reveals Childhood Abuse

June 26, 2008

Edited by Debbie McGoldrick

GABRIEL Byrne was in Ireland last week and made the headlines big time for his advocacy of dying with dignity . . . and revealing for the first time that as a child, he experienced abuse at the hands of a priest.

Byrne gave a gripping in-depth interview on Saturday to RTE Radio where he opened up about what happened to him when he was only 11 years old. The horribleness Byrne experienced, he said, didn’t inflict long term damage, but it stayed with him to the point where he actually contacted the criminal cleric some years ago in a retirement home.

“I was taken advantage of in a very vulnerable situation where I was being told the facts of life,” Byrne said. “Physical boundaries were crossed, let’s say.”

The inappropriate contact involved “touching and closeness rather than anything more overt than that,” added Byrne, who was far too frightened to reveal the treachery to his parents.

“I would never have thought to tell my parents because, in the world of a child, I assumed that anything that happened to you was inevitable,” he said. “What makes this inappropriate behavior so despicable is that the child does not have a choice.”

Once the Internet became a way of life, Byrne conducted some research and located the priest in a home in Europe. They had a telephone conversation, as Byrne recalled.

“I asked if he remembered me and he said no. Then I said to him, ‘Do you remember a kid from Dublin who was really good at Latin?’

“He said, ‘Did you have black hair?’ I said yes and gave him my name again. He said, ‘The only person I know of that name is a film star,’ and I said, ‘Well, that’s me.’ Then there was silence on the other end of the phone.”

The profoundly sad revelation clearly didn’t prevent Byrne from achieving his goals and then some, thankfully. That he’s able to speak about it in such a public way will undoubtedly help other silent victims who suffered at the hands of those so-called pillars of society.

Byrne never chose to pursue any kind of action against the abuser. “I thought, should I do anything about this? I decided no. What is the point?”

Not that the 58-year-old actor sits still when something concerns him. Take his advocacy last week on behalf of those left to die in Irish hospitals, many of which are in shoddy shape to say the least.

“Six out of 10 people will die in an Irish hospital,” he told the Sunday Independent. “We don’t have a choice when we go but we have a choice how we go. I don’t want to die with a cheap rubber band around (my wrist), and a cheap curtain, with strangers three feet away from me trying to deal with their own grief.”

Byrne has lent his name to the Irish Hospice Foundation, which with his help launched new guidelines last week for hospitals housing the terminally ill, including the creation of single rooms for all patients, and creating an aesthetically pleasing environment for them.

“When you think of the amount of money that we have paid out over the years in taxes, what is so wrong with demanding a system that takes care of people who are ill, not just as a privilege but as an absolute, fundamental right?” he asked.

Good question. Having seen first hand the state of some Irish hospitals, particularly those supposedly catering to the elderly, hopefully an answer will some day be at hand.

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