Bless me, Father: Other Irish priests who have strayed

* In 1992, the media exposed the fact that Bishop Eamon Casey of Galway had fathered a son some 18 years earlier and abandoned both mother and child for years. To make matters worse, it became clear that he had used church funds to buy their silence.

She was Annie Murphy, an Irish-American who had a love affair with Casey, and she wrote a book revealing that her teenage son, Peter, was his.

* It later emerged that Fr Michael Cleary, “the singing priest” who had preached chastity on his radio programme, had fathered two children with his housekeeper.

The 17-year-old, Phyllis Hamilton, had spent many years in Irish orphanages and previously lived in a psychiatric hospital. She turned to Fr Cleary for help but was forced by him to give their first child, Douglas Boyd Barrett, up for adoption.

Ross was just 16 when his father died. His mother died four years ago but the brothers have since met and become friends.