We can only condemn Cleary’s one ‘integrity’ — he lived his lie to the end

IN THIS newspaper last Thursday, Diarmaid Ferriter’s column excoriated the late Fr Michael Cleary. On Saturday, in the same slot, Ryle Dwyer also discussed Fr Cleary, rejecting what he described as the week-long pillorying of the dead priest.

“Cleary was a victim of the times,” Ryle Dwyer wrote. “Of course, he made mistakes. Who hasn’t? He may have been hypocritical at times and he told some lies but if only those who had never done either were allowed to criticise him, you can bet there would be no criticism.”

In fact, far from being a victim of the times, Michael Cleary was a beneficiary of the times. He gained enormously from the period in which he lived. The ’60s and ’70s were times of excitement and growing freedom. A priest who could tell a few jokes, sing a few songs and satisfy the demand of an expanding media for “a down-to-earth, ordinary kind of a cleric” could — and did — become a household name.