LEERING into the camera lens with menace, the iconic photograph of paedophile priest Brendan Smyth symbolises the contempt some clerical abusers express when brought to justice for their crimes.

In a fleeting moment captured forever, the rest of the world began to comprehend the horrors that men of cloth were capable of inflicting on children.

Smyth would later die in prison, having been convicted of sexual abuse of children north and south of the Irish border. He was one of hundreds of Irish priests exported to the US for pastoral duties. Some, like Smyth, were re-located to America by the church authorities when accusations of abuse began to emerge. They were treated as problems that could be placed out of sight and out of mind.

Similar crimes

Others, like defrocked cleric Oliver O'Grady, were sent to the US fresh from the seminary. Their superiors had no idea about the criminal behaviours of child abuse these men would embark upon. O'Grady was deported to Ireland in 2000 after spending seven years in prison in the US for sexually abusing two boys. He had admitted to abusing as many as 25 children in the California area and obtained notoriety when featured in a documentary discussing his desire to have sex with children.

There are many other Irish priests who carried out similar crimes in America. Most of these men are unknown on this side of the Atlantic. But now, for the first time, a list of Irish clerics who have sexually abused children in the US has been compiled.

A Boston-based group that has been chronicling the American clerical sexual abuse scandal has assembled a list of 70 Irish priests that the church has accepted assaulted children. Many more Irish priests' names are due to be added to the list.

The group, bishopaccountability.org, says that, by revealing the names, it hopes to highlight the culture of "outsourcing" known Irish paedophile priests to the US. It took months of work to compile the list. The Ferns, Murphy and Ryan reports were studied as well as information published by Joe Rigert in his book An Irish Tragedy.

"In many ways, the Irish built the US church. Many of the bishops leading the church in the US at the moment were born in Ireland," Terence McKiernan, co-founder of bishopaccountability.org, told the Sunday Tribune.

"In the late 19th and early 20th century, there was an influx of an Irish immigrant population into the US. Irish priests were required to serve their needs, so Irish priests began to be sent over. This is how the strong link between Irish and US Catholic hierarchy began. The church is a powerful international organisation, so when a priest is accused of something, it's very easy to move him around. Part of the solution to this was to export the problem of Irish paedophile priests to the US. In a way, the US was used as a dumping ground for some problem priests."

One-third of priests in the US are Irish or of Irish descent. Disturbing accounts of abuse perpetrated on trainee priests at Irish seminaries is slowly beginning to emerge.

Lot of influence

So, has there been a disproportionate number of Irish clerical abusers?

"I don't know. The Catholic church was dominant in Ireland and had a lot of influence. I do wonder if, given what we've seen, there was a problem with the way Irish priests were trained and managed and whether the sexual assault problem within the clergy wasn't especially grave in Ireland," says McKiernan.

"We are not trying to say that Irish priests and bishops have spoiled the US church. It's a case of it being a global organisation and abusers were moved around within it."

The group is now working on trying to identify some of those given pseudonyms in the Murphy report where it is legally possible.

The late clerical abuser Brendan Smyth is also the focus of another of its investigations. At present, the organisation is trying to trace the late cleric's "assignment history" around the world so that it can finally clear up where the abuser lived throughout his career.

Problem priests

The Catholic church has consistently refused to make this information public.

The group has also begun to scratch the surface about how church authorities posted "problem priests" abroad to the missions.

"Irish missionary work has always been very important to the Catholic church and they have done wonderful work. But we are learning that the missions were also seen as a way of moving problem priests from all over the world out of scrutiny," says McKiernan.

"In these very Catholic countries, people can be reluctant to come forward about clerical abuse. Mexico and Venezuela are like the Ireland of old where people were fearful of criticising the church. In time, we hope that will change."