Ireland Calling
by John SpainRSS 
Recent Posts
- Abortion reform Irish style - Women still have no rights over their own bodies, continue to travel to the UK for procedure
- We’re total abortion hypocrites - proposals for new legislation were laughable
- Catch 22 for Irish abortion law - navigating Ireland’s rigid, Catholic influence legal framework and Savita Halappanavar’s case
- The late Baroness Margaret Thatcher had her good points
- Letters from the tax man - the mounting cost of Ireland's property tax and running the country
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This week we're going to give you a break from the mind-numbing economics and politics of the euro crisis and the referendum here on the Fiscal Compact Treaty. It will be unavoidable next week in the run up to the vote in Ireland on May 31, so make the most of your time off!
So this week we will ignore all that euro stuff. There also happens to be a good reason for switching the focus this week because it gives us the chance to take a look at an important new book which was published in Dublin on Tuesday, May 22.
He was rampant -- there is no other word for it -- over four decades from the 1950s to the 1990s as he was shifted around from parish to parish and even from country to country. Dozens, possibly hundreds, of children were abused by him.
Eventually he was jailed in the north, and subsequently in the south. His case was so controversial that it led to the fall of the Fianna Fail/Labor government here in the 1990s over the attorney general's handling of Smyth's extradition.
Having brought down a taoiseach (prime minister) back then, it seems certain that Smyth, who died in prison here in 1997, will now be responsible for bringing down a cardinal as well.
