Disturbing memoir of Christian Brothers deserves our attention

Founded On Fear, by Peter Tyrrell, edited and introduced by Diarmuid Whelan, Irish Academic Press, €18.50.

The cover of Peter Tyrrell’s profoundly disturbing and important memoir, finally published in 2006, deliberately displays both his signature and photograph. Both seem miraculous, because only one picture of Peter Tyrrell still exists and, until recently, any examples of his handwriting were locked away in church vaults in the form of ignored letters.

Like thousands who passed ...