Susan Mc Kay National Womens Council Ireland

Susan McKay, National Women's Council of Ireland nwci.ie, Fixated on Vincent McKenna


Susan McKay appears fixated on Vincent McKenna, yet she was not even bothered to attend the trial of Vincent Mc Kenna in November 2000. What is behind this fixation is not clear but it makes people feel very uncomfortable. Often middle-aged women in mid-life crisis fixate on Tom Jones or Daniel O'Donnell but not Susan McKay.

Susan McKay delivered a very mediocre speech at the Trauma Recovery Network Conference that was hosted by the National Women’s Council of Ireland nwci.ie on the 13th of October 2010; the usual self promotion of her book punctuated her concerns for women who are subject to abuse. It would appear that Susan McKay has left her job as a 'journalist' to join the much more lucrative ‘victims’ industry which is funded by the tax payer to the tune of tens of millions of Euro per year at a time when children in this country are denied basic services.


It was hoped that Susan McKay would have something new to offer the audience, perhaps some fresh thinking, however, that was not to be, and instead Susan Mc Kay had the following to say:


“Think of Sorcha McKenna, who also bravely gave up her anonymity. Her father, Vincent, was a republican who changed sides to become the darling of unionism. He too claimed he was persecuted by the authorities and on the run from the IRA - in reality he was a fantasist and a child abuser. Unionist politicians who had lionised him were silent when his daughter exposed him”.


Susan McKay for over a decade now has spoken about and written about Vincent Mc Kenna and appears fixated with Vincent McKenna, a fixation that raises many serious questions and concerns. Susan Mc Kay has continuously spoken and written about the trial of Vincent Mc Kenna, a trial she never attended. Surely the basic rule for any 'journalist' when writing as an ‘authority’ about a criminal trial is to attend the said trial.


Susan McKay says that Vincent Mc Kenna was a “fantasist”; the letter above sent from Sinn Fein President Gerry Adams to Vincent Mc Kenna would appear to be at odds with Susan Mc Kay’s own fantasies about Vincent Mc Kenna.


Susan McKay, National Women's Council of Ireland, further fails to mention the fact that Vincent Mc Kenna was attacked on the Ormeau Road in Belfast by six members of the provisional IRA on the 18th July 1998 and that one of those ‘republicans’ pleaded guilty before a court of law to that unprovoked attack.


Unlike Susan McKay who has lazily made money by publishing the transcript of a sexual abuse case, Vincent McKenna spent several years writing one of the most important and authoritive thesis on sexual crime in Ireland, that thesis has been used by Government Ministers and the Gardai to introduce new and improved legislation and policy in relation to sexual crime in Ireland and Vincent McKenna never accepted one-cent for his years of dedicated work.


Susan Mc Kay failed to mention that Sorcha Mc Kenna told the Court that she had told her mother Fiona Mc Cleary on at least two occasions that she was being abused and her mother had without excuse failed to protect Sorcha. Fiona Mc Cleary admitted under cross-examination that she had without excuse concealed that abuse. Fiona Mc Cleary further admitted that she (Fiona) had been importing pornography from America from as far back as 1986. Susan Mc Kay seems to be able to over look the role played in child abuse by people like Fiona Mc Cleary, Gerry Adams and Cardinal Sean Brady.

Where is Susan McKay's concern for Sorcha McKenna who one assumes a decade later is trying to move forward with her life and surely does not want people like Susan McKay living off her back.


There is no Mandatory Reporting of Child Rape in Ireland, in 1997 Fianna Fail made an election promise to introduce legislation making it a crime to conceal the Rape of Children, we know that there are many in this country who talk about child protection but they are more interested in self-promotion and career opportunity than they are about real victims. If Mandatory Reporting of Child Rape were to be introduced in Ireland the scaffold would be crowded with politicians, church leaders, ‘victim’ campaigners and the rest.


It is worth noting that at the time that Fiona Mc Cleary, Gerry Adams and Cardinal Sean Brady concealed the abuse of children there was in law ‘Misprision of Felony’ a crime that carried a sentence of imprisonment for those who concealed the Rape/abuse of Children and other crimes. However, when Fianna Fail came to power in 1997 they quickly removed this law from the Statute books as they knew what was coming in relation to the Catholic Church and its protected child rapists. John O' Donoghue TD and other Ministers for 'Justice' not only failed to introduce Mandatory Reporting of Child Rape but gave a 1 Billion Euro bailout to religious child rapists.

Sound-bites may be great for selling books or delivering a speech to rent-a-crowd but they have no impact on the protection of the weak and the vulnerable. Susan McKay and The National Women's Council of Ireland might be better protesting outside the HSE and demanding that all files on child rapists be handed over to the Gardai or that the HSE hand over all files relating to all the Child Rapes that were concealed by CURA.