A DARK TIME
Irish swimming was rocked by multiple scandals in the 1990s. Along with George Gibney, three other men came to define this dark time in the sport. DERRY O’ROURKE
If George Gibney was carefully covert, his successor as national coach and abuser-in-chief was almost sloppily brazen; the former national and Olympic swimming coach had sexual intercourse with pre-teenage girls and for many years sexually abused young female swimmers in a room which became known as the “chamber of horrors”. Gibney’s lawyer Patrick Gageby again headed up the defence but the result was not as fortuitous for the coach: O’Rourke was sentenced to 12 years, and was released in 2007 after serving nine years.
FRANK McCANN
Frank McCann had known both George Gibney and Derry O’Rourke quite well and, when the allegations against Gibney were about to blow up, Chalkie White in fact rang McCann for advice. Little did he know that McCann’s tale was even darker. It is 25 years since the erstwhile Dublin publican and high-profile swimming official set fire to his Rathfarnham home, which killed his wife Esther and 18-month-old foster child Jessica, whom he was stalling on adopting, contrary to his wife’s wishes. McCann had secretly fathered a child by a 17-year-old girl with special needs and was attempting to cover his tracks. He is currently serving two concurrent life sentences.
GER DOYLE
The final villain was Ger Doyle, who coached several national champions at the pool in New Ross, Co Wexford. Victims would later say that he had a “sinister” friendship with Derry O’Rourke. In 2012, Doyle was jailed for six-and-a-half years — with some sentences running concurrently — for abusing boys. Last year four men, who were abused by him as boys, settled civil actions against both Doyle and New Ross Town Council.