Child abuse monster Father Brendan Smyth ruined my life

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Father Brendan Smyth

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Helen McGonigle, 48, was just six years old when Father Brendan Smyth, a notorious sex offender from Co. Cavan, first abused her.

McGonigle, now a successful attorney in Connecticut, says Smyth destroyed her family. She blames Smyth for the death of her sister and brother and the demise of her beautiful mother.

After years of suppressing the memories of the horrendous abuse, McGonigle is now dealing with her past and hoping other victims will do the same.  

McGonigle, whose maternal grandparents were from Co. Kerry, was living with her family in East Greenwich, Rhode Island when her childhood was ripped apart at the seams.

Like any good Catholic family of their time, the church and clergy were to be highly respected. Helen was taught to obey church teachings and respect church leaders . . . including the new parish priest, Smyth.

The McGonigles were members of Our Lady of Mercy Catholic Church and she went to school where Smyth worked.

Helen wasn’t the only sister to encounter Smyth’s evil ways.  The Cavan priest also sexually abused her older sister Kathleen.

In the past few years, both Kathleen, 48, and her brother Gerard, 53, died of drug overdoses. McGonigle claims it was the abuse Kathleen suffered at the hands of Smyth that made her dependent on antidepressants.

Gerard, she told the Irish Voice, suffered from depression because he felt guilty he was unable to help his family during these terrible years.  

It was finally her sister’s tragic death in 2005 that lead McGonigle to face her worst nightmares, nightmares from the past she thought she would never need to resurrect.

 “It was because I observed my sister rapidly deteriorating and fearful for her life that I began my investigation into the past about our childhood in Rhode Island,” said McGonigle during a lengthy interview with the Irish Voice.

While her sister was ailing, McGonigle’s father said accusingly, "It was that priest from Rhode Island that gave your sister alcohol that started her problems.”

Not only did this statement shock and frighten McGonigle, it got her thinking back into her past. Was Smyth really responsible for his sister’s problems?

“People who do not walk in these shoes cannot comprehend how it (abuse) impacts adults and can be life threatening as in the case of my family,” said McGonigle.

Smyth, who died in jail in 1997 from a heart attack at the age of 70, was first introduced to the McGonigles in 1967 by Helen’s grandmother, who was residing with the family in Rhode Island and had struck up a friendship with the new parish priest. They shared a common love for the Irish language.

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