The former Bishop of Galway Dr Eamonn Casey (78) is due back in Ireland today for what it is hoped will be "a quiet homecoming".
His arrival will bring an end to an exile which began in May 1992 and during which intervening period he has lived in the United States, Mexico, Ecuador and England.
He served with the St James Society in the isolated village of San Miguel de Los Bancos in the Andes mountains of Ecuador, from 1993 to 1998. Since 1998 he has worked in the parish of Staplefield, Sussex, in southern England, where he has also been a hospital chaplain.
Dr Casey has been a frequent, if low-key, visitor to Ireland over recent years, where he has stayed with family and friends without attracting attention.
On his most recent visit, he recalled arriving at Shannon airport five days before Christmas expecting to meet a phalanx of media following news reports about him over previous weeks. He was gratified when this was not so.
He also recalled with satisfaction that while attending Mass on a number of occasions over the following weeks in Galway cathedral, no one bothered him. He returned to England two weeks ago.
Since then the current Bishop of Galway, Dr Martin Drennan, has announced that when Dr Casey returned to Ireland for good, he would live out his retirement in the parish of Beagh near Gort in south Galway, where a house has been prepared for him.
Dr Drennan has also said that when Dr Casey arrived there it was his intention to celebrate Mass at Shanaglish church in Beagh to mark the occasion.
However, Dr Casey will be staying with relatives in Ireland until an investigation into allegations of abuse made against him last November is completed and he is exonerated. He hopes then to return to Staplefield to thank the people there for their support since 1998.
