The former Bishop of Derry Dr Edward Daly has claimed that he does not know why the RUC did not arrest Fr James Chesney if they had reasonable suspicions that he was involved in the Claudy bombings. Speaking this week to the Derry Journal newspaper Bishop Daly said that he spoke to Fr Chesney in 1974, shortly after his own appointment as Bishop of Derry and asked him, “to keep his political beliefs to himself.”
He said, “I interviewed Fr Chesney, along with my Vicar General at the time Monsignor Bernard Kielt, in June 1974. He certainly made no bones about his sympathy for republicanism but denied absolutely any activity in the movement and was very vehement in his denial.”
“After he was photographed on the front of a Loyalist magazine in 1977 he came to me and asked to be moved to another parish as he was too accessible in his Malin Head parish.”
He was subsequently moved to Sligo for eight months and later to Fahan where Bishop Daly says “he did good work.”
Bishop Daly claimed that the Claudy bombings in 1972 were a serious and vile crime but he had serious doubts about the involvement of Fr Chesney.
However, he added, “The failure of the RUC to arrest and question Fr Chesney in 1972 or after is beyond understanding. If they had done so we wouldn't be where we are today.”
”I think that was a grave injustice to the families.” He said that with Fr Chesney having died 30 years ago he was prepared to “leave him to the Lord.”
SIC: CIN