As a child, I was relentlessly abused by a Catholic priest. As an adult, it almost killed me twice
Gerard Gorman faced unimaginable horror as an 11-year-old boarder in County Armagh. The pain haunted him for decades β then he took on the church
It was November 1970 and Northern Ireland was sliding into the Troubles, but for Gerard Gorman, a new pupil at St Colmanβs College, the horror of that era began when Fr Malachy Finegan summoned him into a room, closedΒ the door and told him to sitΒ on a sofa.
Gorman was 11 years old and small for his age, with big blue eyes. Two months earlier, he had started as a boarder at the Catholic boysβ school in Newry, County Armagh. Staff tended to be aloof or intimidating, except Finegan, the religious education teacher, who was solicitous and avuncular.
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