Context key for story of bishop and scandal showing Church hypocrisy

The revelations of May 1992 robbed the country of a bishop with energy and vision, writes TP O’Mahony.

Ireland awoke in May 1992 to shocking news — Eamonn Casey, the popular Bishop of Galway, had fathered a child with an American woman, Annie Murphy, and had fled the country hours before the story of their affair broke.

The affair, which began when the 25-year-old New Yorker came to Ireland in 1974 to stay with Casey, who was her father’s distant cousin, was kept secret for 18 years.