An oblique view of Irish Catholic child rape

I've seen a tangential view of the sexual abuse of children in the Irish Catholic Church — the dark side of Ireland.

When I lived in Kilkenny I was harrassed for more than two years with hateful sexual language from an amorphous group of teenage boys.

I lived near CBS (the all-boys' school run by the Christian Brothers.) The area near my apartment was also a popular hangout for teens during all daylight hours, a somewhat-secluded laneway in the middle of town — "smoker's lane."

One day when I was already pissed off about vandalism and littering, some scummy-looking kids broke into the vacant building across Chapel Lane from my kitchen window, I started threatening people with my camera. I acted like I was going to report them, which was a bunch of bullshit — and a stupid bluff, as it turns out.

Once, later, as I walked past the small early-20th-century nun's mausoleum that is attached to the medieval city wall — where kids hang out — one ugly girl stage-whispered "there's the guy who takes pictures." A young lad took it from there

They began a whisper campaign. I'm easy to describe — the Irish know the American accent. Kilkenny's not a big place.... Everybody knew whom to harrass, if they wanted to get involved.

And I don't even know maybe some of them believed it. Maybe some kids took the bait of the gossip — people do that — and even believed that it was the right thing to do, to shout at me.

I was mortified. It was incredibly cruel behavior — and it was a potential experience at any time, in any part of town, during the hours that young lads were allowed outdoors.

Oddly, I could almost always tell when some kid from within a particular group was going to harrass me. I could round a corner, see a group, not recognize any of them, get a sickening feeling — and right after I passed somebody would shout from anonymity and the the safety of a group....

Once, I knew it by the look of 6-8 lads from the shins down, before they rounded the corner of a long-haul delivery truck. Sure enough .. behind my back... and only because I was busy and didn't remember to stare them down as individuals.

Ah. Bastards. I still feel hatred — but I know that these kids are only displaying a deep, sick mass obsession with deviance that is a natural result of the historic Irish repression of sexuality.

It's notable that in 2007-2009, when all of this happened, I was in my early forties — probably about the same age as these lads' fathers.