Gardaí have opted not to reopen the investigation into the late Bishop of Galway Eamonn Casey who had been accused of sexually abusing multiple children.
The Garda confirmed the move in a statement on Sunday, shortly after it emerged that the bishop’s remains had been removed from the crypt at the cathedral in Galway and returned to his family for reinterment.
Garda Commissioner Drew Harris had requested the Garda National Protective Services Bureau conduct a review of the original investigation into the allegations last year.
This followed the broadcast of an RTÉ documentary in 2024, made in association with the Irish Mail on Sunday, examining the Catholic Church’s handling of sexual abuse allegations against the former Bishop of Galway.
It included an interview with one of the former bishop’s accusers, his niece Patricia Donovan, who stated that her uncle first raped her when she was just five years old. She claimed that the sexual abuse continued for years.
In recent years it emerged that five people had complained of being sexually abused by Bishop Casey when they were children.
Bishop Casey died in 2017 at the age of 89.
“At the request of the Garda Commissioner, the Garda National Protective Services Bureau conducted a review of the original investigation file,” the Garda said.
“This review has been completed and no further investigative actions have been identified.”
On Saturday, the Galway diocese said that “with the assent and co-operation of members of the late Bishop Eamonn’s family and following prayers for the dead, his mortal remains have been moved from the Cathedral Crypt and entrusted to their care.
“It is their express wish that the arrangements they have made for Bishop Eamonn’s final resting place remain private.”
It added that “members of Bishop Eamonn’s family involved ask that their earnest desire for privacy be respected at this time”.
In its statement, the diocese of Galway recalled how following the documentary last July it had issued a statement noting that the continued resting of the mortal remains of Bishop Casey in the crypt of the Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas, Galway, was a deeply felt matter that affected many people in different ways.
It had appealed then “for time and space” to allow for “appropriate reflection and consultation”.
In its statement at the weekend the diocese said it “would like to thank everyone for their understanding of the situation, for their patience and for their respect as this process was undertaken and brought to a conclusion.
“Significant consensus emerged around the unique role of a Cathedral as a place of unity rather than division, healing rather than hurt and peace rather than disquiet.”
Bishop Casey served as Bishop of Galway and Kilmacduagh from 1976 until 1992, when he stepped down after it emerged that he had fathered a child with an American woman, Annie Murphy, in 1974.
Former CEO of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Catholic Church in Ireland, Ian Elliot, called the late Bishop Casey a “sexual predator’ in the RTÉ documentary. He said he found the account of what Ms Donovan experienced as “entirely credible”.
