Galway Bishop Eamonn Casey resigned in 1992 and fled the country after it was revealed he had had an affair with an American woman, Annie Murphy, and had a baby with her in 1974. He refused to develop a relationship with his son but covertly sent maintenance payments to America from diocesan funds.

Subsequently, a number of women made allegations against Casey that they were sexually abused by him, two of whom received compensation following a High Court trial. One of whom was his niece who alleged that she was repeatedly raped by Casey when she was five years old

I had previously seen the jokes about Bishop Brennan in Fr Ted but never realised it was referring to a real life event. Priests being sexual predators is nothing new but I'm surprised that Gay Byrne allowed the Late Late Show, which was a national institution back in the 1990s that determined narrative, to be used as an attack vehicle on Annie Murphy who had done nothing wrong. Annie must be highly commended for her bravery in telling her side of the story, which she did with absolute elegance. Not sure why Gay Byrne is held in such high esteem. It was later reveled he was buddies with Bishop Casey, along with the rest of the establishment in Ireland. Pompous prick. Video of the segment

by ExpertSolution7

30 comments

  2. Gay Byrne was a prick. And I’ll always stand by that comment

  3. That program was the last time I remember watching the Late Late. Gay Byrne spent nearly the whole show down with the audience, who were at best disbelieving that a Bishop could possibly do such things, to outright hostilty, leaving Annie Murphy alone on the other side of the studio. It was like a televised lynching. Just couldnt watch him after that.

  4. In the recent RTÉ documentary, there’s a scene from the RTÉ archive of people being interviewed in Galway after the scandal broke.

    One woman goes on about what a good man he is and how “that evil woman tempted him”.

    Bat shit crazy stuff…….

  5. Byrne was an absolute see you next Tuesday…. he absolutely was influenced by the church to doing that hatchet job on her

  6. Gay got it wrong with that interview. But to people who weren’t around back then, it was an unimaginable situation for people who were dedicated to the faith. A different time.

    Either way I think Gay’s overall career comes out positive leaving this mark behind. Some people will disagree, for very different political reasons, but they be them.

  8. Back in the 90s Gay was known for doing this crazy thing called hearing both sides of the situation and having a civil discourse. This sometime involves hearing the odd thing you don’t want to hear. Anyway the Internet generation is too cool for middle ground I guess.

  9. My poor sweet summer child. I don’t think people realise nowadays that Ireland was practically a theocracy until it slowly gave way in the 90s. Byrnes behaviour, not to excuse it, was not out of the ordinary. Remember we still enslaved women in the Magdalen laundries until the mid nineties.

    I recommend Fintan O’Tooles book “we don’t know ourselves” if you want to see how Irish society operated until quite recently.

  10. For a bit of context. when Annie Murphy went public, family in Galway said “sure the dogs in the street knew that”, just as Charlie Haughey’s affairs were common knowledge in Dublin, or people in Tuam were aware of what went on at the mother & baby home. We were most of us good at keeping secrets, and those who spoke out, the likes of Nell McCafferty or Sinead O’Connor were often shamed for it.

    The Irish Catholic Church paedophile scandal involved hundreds of priests, thousands of victims, facilitated by decades of cover ups and lies from the Irish hierarchy, but ordinary people often knew what was going on too and were complicit in their own silence.

    Gay Byrne was at the centre of Irish life for decades at least partly because he accurately reflected who we were, good and bad, a nation of hypocrites for sure.

  11. Church ran the country then and therefore Gay Byrne and RTE.

  12. He always came across as a sanctimonious prick. He had an act of feigning emotions & showing apparent ‘shock’ or poorly veiled disapproval at his respondent’s stories if they threatened the catholic ideal, or his dated view of whatever that was. He should have been taken off the air long before he was.

  14. People years ago in having different attitudes and opinions to people now shocker.

  15. I litreally cant stand priests anymore. I would never trust any of them around my child. They are all disgusting to me. I remember Casey came to my school when i was very young, there was huge excitement and everyone was shell shocked at the sight of him, all the teachers fawning all over him. All that to find out he was a pedo years later. It actually makes nauseous. The pope knew i guarantee it.

  16. The interview with Stephen Fry was enough for me to see the type of person that was Gay Byrne

  17. I only recently watched that interview as well and she really was just gaslighted on that show. All blame for the relationship was put on her. Like he was led astray by her and this seems to have upset his fans because it sullied this image they had of him. What gay said at the end was just such an insult to her but she came back fairly well.

  18. Gay Byrne was always a prick. A typical Free State prick who looked down his nose at our people in the North.

    And I usually hate that term.

  19. Gay Byrne was an awful man. How he is revered is beyond me. He always told on himself.

  21. I remember hearing the story breaking on the radio on the bus coming home from college. And when I got home, my Dad was pissed. Called him a hypocritical bastard. Rightly so.

  22. not just Gay Byrne. I was on the flight to NewYork on the monday after that interview and the passengers on the plane were no different. Making rude comments to her and being generally obnoxious to her. It was horrible to see.

  24. At least he had her on, and people got to hear her side of the story. The RTE of 2024 would call the whole thing a conspiracy theory and wouldn’t give Annie Murphy “a platform”

  25. Gay’s problem was he was too long in the job.

    People on here forget he seriously pissed off RTE management and religious hierarchy in his younger years for his views and then controversial style.

    Tubbers auld IRA uncle Todd Andrews and RTE chairman once fumed to the Director General to “sack that fucker Byrne” because he thought Gaybo was a subversive.

  27. You seemed to be outraged by the reality that was Ireland?

    Now just to note that I have zero time for the church and all it’s bullshit. 

    But I remember watching that interview on TV and I remember being in Cork and the Newsagents refused to sell the Sunday Independent because they had her on the front page, 2 days later. I remember the priest at the pulpit condemning her and  pretty much all women as evil temptresses.  

    The outrage was absolutely enormous. This was September 11th for the 90% of Irish people who were devote practicing  Catholics. She was the lid on the can of evil worms that was the Catholic Church. Gay Byrne knew exactly what he was doing and everything he did, was calculated and planned.

    The real show here was not Annie Murphy, it was the audience, an audience of people who had been brainwashed and controlled to the point where they simply could not believe that a member of the Catholic church could act in an ungodly manner. He aimed to shock and wake people up and it truly was an awakening and it was on live TV. The awakening was painful and almost traumatic. Your whole society and belief system, how you lived what you taught your children and the pillars of Irish society were crumbling before this audience’s eyes. That was the real story. 

    But honestly, The reality was Annie Murphy knew she was having sex with a catholic Bishop. She had been married and divorced. She wasn’t some naive 18 year old. She knew as a priest he couldn’t marry or have kids and there was no future.  He syphoned off 100k, which is like 300k in today’s money and gave it to her for the upkeep of the child. She then went on to write a book, got a publicist, had been on loads of TV, done a ton of interviews in newspapers and became famous because she fucked a bishop. 
    He was a pedophile and she spent years with him. Are you telling me she was totally innocent and blind to the sort of man he was? If nothing else, she literally profited from the misery and suffering of that man inflicted. She was no innocent and she came off with a sizable book deal and payout and well as the 100k she got in payments while raising her son. She was well paid for a few for a few hours of awkward interviews and she could have stood up and left at any time. 

    You talk about her getting more sympathy  today? ????? I think you are very naive
    If a young woman was fucking a priest in Ireland today, knowing he was a priest, what would you think of her today? I’d say everyone would be equally judgemental and insulting towards her. I doubt there would be a whole lot of sympathy and while it wouldn’t make headlines, I doubt it would be handled nicely in the media..she would be ridiculed and insulted and whats worse, with social media.it would never go away
    .

  28. Knew a bit about it before and knew Byrne was a cunt before. Watch his Gerry Adams interview, it was so bad his own audience began to turn on him.

  30. Shame on Ireland but that was the way we were,got rid of the Brits and handed place to catholic church.but they were infallible,it took the pedo scandals before people began to question and Joe public saw behind the veil of evil.hate to agree with Ian Paisley but Dublin rule did mean Rome rule.
    The belief I have now would probably have seen me ostracized in 1980s Ireland,and burnt at stake in 1600s Ireland.
    I remember my parents who probably are same age as I am now often sending us to bed early or turning off gabo completely because of the content and thinking gay was wrong to be putting on such filth,he used to have David Norris on and being guy was illegal,i also remember Miami vice getting switched off and wasn’t there backlash over violence in the A team.the Sunday would which let’s face it was only place for a young lad to see a pair of tits also had felt the need to have a priest writing a column,that was a challenging wank.

    But people change in my mothers later years she grew to hate the catholic church, Ireland changed too.

    So you can say it was a shame on Gay but 10 years prior she would have never got on TV and it.would been buried.

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