In a brave account of the abuse he suffered at school, John Boyne writes that it became the genesis of his series, ‘The Elements’
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John Boyne spoke to gardaí about incident
On a Thursday morning in February 2021, I rode my Vespa into Dublin city centre. Covid was still at its peak, and the rules were that you couldn’t travel more than a few kilometres from home, so I was stopped several times along the way by gardaí, but when I told them where I was going, they let me pass.
I was making my way towards the Central Criminal Court to attend the sentencing of John McClean, a teacher from Terenure College who’d been convicted of abusing 23 boys under his care. (I was present as a support person to a close friend who was one of his victims.) McClean was my form master when I was 13 and my English teacher for my Leaving Certificate.