Brendan Comiskey: Bishop admitted his best efforts to deal with abuse allegations were ‘not good enough'

Irish Times

28-04-2025

On his resignation as
Catholic
Bishop of Ferns in 2002, Brendan Comiskey insisted he had 'done his best' to deal with
child sex abuse
allegations against the notorious Fr Seán Fortune, but 'clearly that was not good enough'.
For the previous fortnight, Comiskey,
who died on Monday aged 89
, had refused to comment on a BBC documentary entitled Suing the Pope. It examined his handling of Fr Fortune and raised further questions about child abuse in the diocese in the 1980s and 1990s.
The programme followed Colm O'Gorman – who went on to found the One in Four charity – around the diocese, largely comprising
Co Wexford
, as he identified locations where he said he was abused by Fortune.
Comiskey began his resignation press conference by apologising to the four men whose cases the documentary explored.
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'I apologise also to the families of victims and to all others who have been offended or hurt in different ways by Fr Seán Fortune,' he said, adding that 'the sexual abuse of children is deeply abhorrent to me'.
Fr Seán Fortune leaving the Circuit Court in Wexford in 1999. Photograph: Eric Luke
He went on to say he had found Fortune 'almost impossible to deal with'. Fortune had in 1999 died by suicide shortly before he was to face child sex abuse charges in the courts. He was accused of the rape and molestation of 29 boys.
Comiskey's resignation came a decade on from another major blow for the church's authority in Ireland, the resignation of Bishop of Galway Eamonn Casey after The Irish Times disclosed that he had a 17-year-old son.
His departure was followed by the first of what became a series of statutory inquiries into child sexual abuse.
Taoiseach
Micheál Martin
, who at that time was minister for education, set up the Ferns inquiry, which reported in October 2005 and exposed a devastating pattern of cover-up of priest abusers in the diocese.
It found this was particularly the case under the previous bishop, Donal Herlihy, but had continued in Comiskey's time.
The annexed report set out the difficulties experienced by Comiskey in securing the removal of diocesan clergy under his aegis from particular posts held by them.
However, it found his handling of allegations and complaints had been 'inappropriate and inadequate' and he had 'failed to recognise the paramount need to protect children, as a matter of urgency, from potential abusers'.
The Ferns Report established a template for what would later be exposed by the Murphy commission in Dublin (2009) and Cloyne dioceses (2011) and the Ryan commission (2009).
After his resignation, Comiskey lived quietly for more than two decades at a house belonging to his congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in Dublin. He was from Clontibret, Co Monaghan.
He had been receiving treatment for cancer before his death. His illness was said to have been exacerbated by overseeing the removal of the remains of five members of his family in Co Monaghan last November.
This was done in the belief that one of `the disappeared', Joseph Lynskey, had been buried there by an IRA squad. However, the remains discovered were not those of Mr Lynskey and have yet to be identified.
As a younger priest, Comiskey spent some time ministering in the United States before he was appointed auxiliary bishop of Dublin in 1979. He was appointed bishop of Ferns in 1984.
Brendan Comiskey with Archbishop Dermot Ryan during his time as Auxiliary Bishop of Dublin. Photograph: Eddie Kelly
He was regarded as an excellent communicator and, as a result, was a frequent and high-profile contributor to radio and television programmes.
One of his last public appearances was at the funeral of Peter Kavanagh, a brother of poet Patrick Kavanagh, at which he presided in 2006.
Speaking to South East Radio on Monday, Mr O'Gorman said his first thought on hearing of Comiskey's death was that it was 'sad'. He offered his 'genuine and heartfelt condolences to his family, his friends and those who loved him'.
He said he was concerned that Comiskey might be 'uniquely scapegoated' for what happened not just in Ferns but beyond.
'Brendan Comiskey was Bishop of Ferns during the period that he was Bishop of Ferns, but Ferns wasn't unique, and his management of political child sex abuse and Ferns was not unique,' he said.
'He managed it in the way that he was directed to manage it by canon law and by the Vatican.'