Former Bishop of Galway Eamonn Casey, who died in 2017, is now at the center of multiple child sexual abuse allegations.
Casey, who served as bishop from 1976 to 1992, first made headlines in 1992 when it was revealed he had fathered a child with an American woman in 1974.
A joint investigation by RTÉ and The Mail on Sunday has brought to light several accusations, including one from Casey’s niece, Patricia Donovan, who has waived her right to anonymity. In a shocking on-camera interview, Donovan alleges that Casey began abusing her when she was just five years old.
“Some of the things he did to me, and where he did them… the horror of being raped by him when I was five, the violence. And it just carried on in that vein,” Donovan recounts. “He thought he could do what he liked, when he liked, how he liked… he was almost, like, incensed that I would dare fight against him.”
Ian Elliott, former CEO of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Irish Catholic Church, described Casey as “a sexual predator” and found Donovan’s account “entirely credible.”
The investigation reveals that the Galway Diocese had records of “five people who had complained of childhood sexual abuse against Bishop Casey” as of 2019, contradicting earlier statements. These accusations span every Irish diocese where Casey worked.
RTÉ reports that “the first allegation of child abuse against Bishop Casey was made in 2001,” predating Donovan’s complaint. This allegation, made to the Diocese of Limerick, was forwarded to the UK Diocese of Arundel and Brighton where Casey was working at the time, and to the Vatican. However, it was not reported to British police and was “inexplicably lost” by the UK diocese.
The Vatican formally removed Casey from public ministry in 2007 following these allegations, a restriction that remained in place for the last decade of his life but was never made public.
Despite this, Casey denied all allegations and claimed his removal from ministry was unjust. The Director of Public Prosecutions decided not to prosecute him.
The investigation also uncovered that the Limerick Diocese paid over €100,000 in settlement to one of Casey’s accusers after his death.
