Woman to take DNA test to determine if she is Fr Michael Cleary’s daughter
Felicia Irwin, who lives in Florida, was given up for adoption when she was a baby by her birth mother, Phyllis Hamilton.
The high-profile cleric, known as the Singing Priest, who died at the age of 60 in 1993, fathered two sons by Ms Hamilton.
Ms Irwin, a 30-year-old with three children of her own, now intends to undertake a DNA test to determine she is Fr Cleary’s third child.
However, in her autobiography, published in 1995, Ms Hamilton said her daughter had been conceived after she was raped by a deacon who was subsequently thrown out of the priesthood by Church authorities.
It emerged in Sunday Independent reports yesterday that Ms Irwin hopes the tests will prove she is Fr Cleary’s daughter, although she admitted: “I’m scared of what the outcome may be.”
She was born in January 1985 in Fort Lauderdale in Florida when her mother was staying with some close friends, who later adopted her.
Ms Hamilton became Fr Cleary’s lover in 1967 and the 17-year relationship resulted in two sons, the eldest of whom, Douglas Boyd Barrett, was placed for adoption. The second, Ross, was raised by his mother while she was working as Fr Cleary’s housekeeper.
In an interview, Ms Irwin said: “I’ve heard nothing but good things about Fr Cleary, but I never met him as my father.
“I know who he was. He inspired a lot of people and I look up to that.”
