Clerical abuse!

[ziggysego]

Tony, I felt physically ill reading those comments. They are sick and beyond the pale.

You consider yourself a God fearing man and aren't shy in pointing out the failings of others. However there is nothing Christian or moral in what you're saying here. In no way is the victim to blame for the crimes against him. In no way is it right to defend the Church for covering it up.

It is morally and criminally wrong and goes against everything God says.

[Farrandeelin]

Tony, I felt physically ill reading those comments. They are sick and beyond the pale.

You consider yourself a God fearing man and aren't shy in pointing out the failings of others. However there is nothing Christian or moral in what you're saying here. In no way is the victim to blame for the crimes against him. In no way is it right to defend the Church for covering it up.

It is morally and criminally wrong and goes against everything God says.

This. I could not believe what I had read last night.

[smelmoth]

Tony, I felt physically ill reading those comments. They are sick and beyond the pale.

You consider yourself a God fearing man and aren't shy in pointing out the failings of others. However there is nothing Christian or moral in what you're saying here. In no way is the victim to blame for the crimes against him. In no way is it right to defend the Church for covering it up.

It is morally and criminally wrong and goes against everything God says.

This. I could not believe what I had read last night.

Tony's posts should not be deleted. He has broken no law and he has the right to post it.

There is the risk that a vulnerable individual will read Tony's posts and feel personally attacked. This is hugely regrettable.

The appropriate reaction is not to ban Tony or delete his posts but to tear his posts apart and highlight how unrepresentative of humanity Tony is.

Tony is a horrific individual, undeserving of any sympathy. There are basic standards. If you meet those standards you get to eat with the humans. Tony dines alone.

I wouldn't ban him from here but if he came into my workplace I would ask him to leave. He would not be served

[laoislad]

Looks like he has deleted all his recent posts on this thread and  not just that disgusting one from last night.

[smelmoth]

Looks like he has deleted all his recent posts on this thread and  not just that disgusting one from last night.

Maybe he "believes" we will all just forget his contributions

[Targetman]

He could follow McAreavey's lead, issue an apology and expect normality to resume!

[Owen Brannigan]

Looks like he has deleted all his recent posts on this thread and  not just that disgusting one from last night.

Hi post from last night was not the first time he used the exact same argument to shift the blame to the victim in fact he was much more explicit on previous occasions without the same level of outcry.

[Lar Naparka]

Some time ago, in a thread about Sean Brady, some poster put up a picture of Jewish children in a concentration camp. I can't remember the point the poster was attempting to make but I will never forget Fearon's response.
According to him, these children could not possibly be in a death camp because they were all smiling. He claimed that the photo was most likely taken at a football game in the 50s or thereabouts.
Now, I'm not quite sure of where Fearon grew up but I doubt very much that children there were kept behind barbed wire fences when they went to see a football match!

In my innocence, I used to think that he was just trolling, looking for attention but there and then I realised I was dealing with a very sick, twisted individual indeed.
He is more to be pitied than mocked and maybe all of those; my good self included, who rose to the bait time and time again, should feel ashamed of ourselves.

[Owen Brannigan]

Some time ago, in a thread about Sean Brady, some poster put up a picture of Jewish children in a concentration camp. I can't remember the point the poster was attempting to make but I will never forget Fearon's response.
According to him, these children could not possibly be in a death camp because they were all smiling. He claimed that the photo was most likely taken at a football game in the 50s or thereabouts.
Now, I'm not quite sure of where Fearon grew up but I doubt very much that children there were kept behind barbed wire fences when they went to see a football match!

In my innocence, I used to think that he was just trolling, looking for attention but there and then I realised I was dealing with a very sick, twisted individual indeed.
He is more to be pitied than mocked and maybe all of those; my good self included, who rose to the bait time and time again, should feel ashamed of ourselves.

My attitude towards his pontificating has been to provide him a logical argument and evidence as well as turning his use of Catholic teaching against him. Better to take him on than ban him.

[smelmoth]

Tony's posts should not be deleted. He has broken no law and he has the right to post it.

There is the risk that a vulnerable individual will read Tony's posts and feel personally attacked. This is hugely regrettable.

The appropriate reaction is not to ban Tony or delete his posts but to tear his posts apart and highlight how unrepresentative of humanity Tony is.

Tony is a horrific individual, undeserving of any sympathy. There are basic standards. If you meet those standards you get to eat with the humans. Tony dines alone.

I wouldn't ban him from here but if he came into my workplace I would ask him to leave. He would not be served

This board works very much in the mould of dealing with having someone's unwelcome presence at a workplace or any private club. It is not a totally open place that is legally protected for anyone to express themselves. It's the right of those who are responsible for this website to decide who can post on it and what they can post. There is no "freedom of speech" here. If the admin/mods feel that a poster's presence is not conductive to the good of the community, or could cause them legal trouble, they can kick them to the curb with almost no comeback legally available to the poster.

It is also incorrect to affirm that no law has been broken in the same way that it is incorrect to affirm that the comments have broken the law. That is for a court of law to decide. A measured and reasoned opinion based on case law on both sides of the border would suggest that the comments in question could be libellous. Given how plaintiff-friendly libel and slander laws are on both sides of the border, it would also perhaps be a concern to this website's owners as they would be deemed publishers, and also nominally the website hosts (though as the servers and company are based in the USA, the US SPEECH Act would almost certainly protect them).

If I was the owner of this forum/website I'm not going to put my balls on the line to allow a stranger make potentially defamatory comments that could see me sued to bankruptcy.

The mods very much have the right to delete. That's not the same as saying it's the right thing to do.

If tony is allowed to post his poison and plenty of others expose it for the poison it is then I couldn't see any legal problems for the site

[Lar Naparka]

Some time ago, in a thread about Sean Brady, some poster put up a picture of Jewish children in a concentration camp. I can't remember the point the poster was attempting to make but I will never forget Fearon's response.
According to him, these children could not possibly be in a death camp because they were all smiling. He claimed that the photo was most likely taken at a football game in the 50s or thereabouts.
Now, I'm not quite sure of where Fearon grew up but I doubt very much that children there were kept behind barbed wire fences when they went to see a football match!

In my innocence, I used to think that he was just trolling, looking for attention but there and then I realised I was dealing with a very sick, twisted individual indeed.
He is more to be pitied than mocked and maybe all of those; my good self included, who rose to the bait time and time again, should feel ashamed of ourselves.

My attitude towards his pontificating has been to provide him a logical argument and evidence as well as turning his use of Catholic teaching against him. Better to take him on than ban him.

I understand what you are saying but this man is not prepared to listen to anything you might say or post or whatever. There is no logical engagement in his approach. I mean you can postulate what you like but the replies are never meant to answer any points you may have made. It's almost as if he had a random quote generator to hand when he goes to post a reply. He's getting the attention he craves and that's about the height of it. You'll have noticed that if you sift through his posts, the same phrases and non sequiturs keep turning up with no deviation and no attempt to logicality rebut any point you may have made. I also won't ban him and make a martyr  for him to look at inn his mirror. I'd ignore him and I do, most of the time anyway.

[give her dixie]

As far as I was concerned Tony has been going way over the line on this and any given number of posts relating to child abuse.
He is heartless and shows not one shred of compassion, as clearly could been seen when talking about the children abused by Smith and covered up by Brady and the church. His victim blaming knew no bounds in that case.

Over the past couple of weeks everybody has been talking about this story regarding Flannagan, and all sickened once again
by more stories of abuse and cover ups. Following Mc Areavys retirement yesterday, in my view, Tony took a cheap shot of diverting the conversation away from the news and stooped to another low. As can be seen from all the replies, everyone was disgusted with what he said. And he said it in his own name..........

It was at this point I reported it, and I see I wasn't the only one. Thankfully his posts have been removed, and I still stand by my call for him to be banned. He destroys too many good threads, and every time it's all about him. He seeks and craves attention non stop.

There are many good people here on this board who contribute in a positive way and keeps the board healthy and interesting. We don't need to spend any time with someone devoid of humanity and common decency on particular topics.

[bamboo]

I've asked him before and he never responded but seeing as he's using his own name here and is likely to be known by some, would he make the same remarks on Facebook? Twitter? Round the dinner table?

[smelmoth]

If tony is allowed to post his poison and plenty of others expose it for the poison it is then I couldn't see any legal problems for the site

I'd suggest doing a search of the interwebs concerning Irish and Northern Ireland libel, slander and/or defamation laws. Many websites in Ireland and abroad have been shutting down comments sections on their websites over concerns that they are leaving themselves open to litigation.

The most notable recent case is the Irish Independent closing its comments section on news stories back in October.
https://www.imediaethics.org/irish-independent-ends-online-comments-draconian-libel-awards/
https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/74wf1j/irish_independent_suspends_online_comments_citing/

A good number of GAA message boards & discussion boards over the years have shut because users on them wouldn't stop posting some very dodgy posts. An Fear Rua is one, OrchardCounty.com is certainly another. This board has done quite well to last as long as it has done IMO.

This article from the Examiner is worth reading, explaining how website owners, along with website hosts (depending on the country the server the website is hosted on is based), have in recent times been deemed accountable in courts, all the way up to the ECHR, for the content posted by their site users.

https://www.irishexaminer.com/viewpoints/analysis/internet-defamation-who-is-legally-responsible-for-online-comments-266171.html

Given general jurisdiction of the quote in question being from a poster assumed resident in NI, the decision two years ago of the Phil Flanagan - Tom Elliot libel case is perhaps the most publicly relevant, though in this case only the originator of the libellous message was sought after, the website (Twitter) wasn't.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-northern-ireland-35266927
https://www.irishtimes.com/news/crime-and-law/sinn-f%C3%A9in-mla-to-pay-damages-over-defamatory-tweet-1.2490187
https://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2016/february/twitter-libel-case-shows-northern-ireland-is-more-claimant-friendly-than-the-rest-of-the-uk-say-experts/

I'm not buying any of that.

We have a thread where are posts announcing the guilt of named individuals of rape. That's not libel then? They are doing so during a criminal trial  - is that not contempt of court?

Tony's posts are deleted but the content of those posts and who posted them remains on this site where others have quited them. Does that somehow give the site a protection against the libel laws they fear?

[skeog]

John Mc Areavey facing some stinging criticism for his staunch defence of Uncle Bishop John Mc Areavey.I would say some people would be having a rethink about his charitable foundation.He is deluded if he thinks his Uncle was being treated unfairly by the media victims of the abuse are the people who need justice.