Colourful cleric goes on leave

IT was a departure wholly in keeping with the colourful, charismatic, and controversial cleric who has never been far removed from the headlines.

Fr Michael Kennedy, a distant cousin of assassinated US President John F Kennedy, has taken administrative leave from his post as parish priest of Dunhill/Fenor in Co Waterford, pending the completion of a Church investigation into allegations of misconduct made against him in 2003.

Hundreds of parishioners packed the church in Dunhill this week for a “farewell’ Mass celebrated by Fr Kennedy, and attended by up to 13 other priests.