Social Affairs

‘Time and space’ needed to consider interment of Eamonn Casey in Galway Cathedral, diocese says

Bishop Michael Duignan has said interment of Casey, who has been accused of child sexual abuse, in cathedral is a ‘sensitive issue’

Former Bishop of Galway Eamonn Casey has been accused of multiple acts of child abuse during his lifetime.
Former Bishop of Galway Eamonn Casey has been accused of multiple acts of child abuse during his lifetime.
Olivia Kelleher
Sat Jul 27 2024 - 13:29

The Diocese of Galway, Kilmacduagh and Kilfenora has said that “time and space” is needed “to consider and consult” on the interment of Eamonn Casey in the crypt of Galway Cathedral following the emergence of allegations of sexual abuse against the former Bishop.

Earlier this week Bishop Michael Duignan of Galway and Kilmacduagh said he “shares” the feelings of “anger and profound distress” around the allegations of child sexual abuse made against Eamonn Casey.

Bishop Duignan, in his statement last Tuesday, expressed his commitment to “working with anybody affected, to help bring truth, healing and peace to such terribly painful situations”.

The Diocese said the interment of the remains of Bishop Casey in the crypt beneath Galway Cathedral is a very “sensitive issue” that deeply affects people in different ways, and which has different facets.

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“The interment of Bishop Casey in the Cathedral crypt now requires a period of careful consideration and consultation, which has already begun.

“Time and space are required to adequately and appropriately bring this undertaking to completion. We will not be making any further public comment until we are in a position to provide an update.”

Mr Casey was the Bishop of Galway and Kilmacduagh from 1976 until 1992, when he stepped down after it emerged that he had fathered a son with an American woman, Annie Murphy, in 1974.

Ms Murphy subsequently made the relationship public, releasing a memoir, Forbidden Fruit: The True Story of My Secret Love Affair with Ireland’s Most Powerful Bishop. She was interviewed on the Late Late Show by Gay Byrne following the publication of her book.

Shortly after the broadcast the Vatican announced that Casey had resigned as Bishop of Galway. He died in a nursing home in his native Co Clare on March 13th, 2017 at the age of 89 following a long illness.

A total of 11 bishops and 61 priests took part in the concelebrated funeral mass for Casey in Galway’s Cathedral on March 16th, 2017.

A recent RTÉ documentary, made in association with the Irish Mail on Sunday, examined the Catholic Church’s handling of sexual abuse allegations against the former Bishop of Galway. It included an interview with one of the former Bishop’s accusers, his niece Patricia Donovan, who stated that her uncle first raped her when she was just five years old. She claimed that the sexual abuse continued for years.

Ms O’Donovan said that Bishop Casey had “no fear of being caught”.

“Some of the things he did to me, and where he did them ... the horror of being raped by him when I was five, the violence. And it just carried on in that vein ... He had no fear of being caught,” she said.

Six years ago the Diocese of Galway told the Irish Mail on Sunday that it had received one allegation of abuse against Bishop Casey. However, it has since stated it had a record of five people who had complained of being sexually abused by Bishop Casey when they were children.

The former CEO of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland, Ian Elliot, called the late Eamonn Casey a “sexual predator’ in the documentary. He said he found the account of what Ms O’Donovan experienced as “entirely credible”.