Far From the Madding Crowd ****

A Californian diocese has agreed to pay $3.75m (€2.8m) to a man abused as a child by the Tipperary priest who last week fled the US to return to Ireland.

A priest has fled back to his native Ireland just a day before he was due to give evidence relating to abuse he was accused of inflicting upon an altar boy in the 1980s.

THE family of a Tipperary-born priest who was facing an allegation of sexual abuse in California have expressed their relief after an investigation cleared his name.