The Administrator of the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin was subject to a strong attack at his home on Tuesday night as robbers tried to gain access to a parish safe.
Mgr Brendan Byrne returned to his home at Tullow, Co Carlow at 10:00pm on Tuesday night (January 10).
Waiting inside his house were three men, one of them wearing a mask.
They had gained entry to his house though the kitchen window.
They had already ransacked the house, but were waiting for the priest to get keys to a safe.
“They pulled me down and held me,” Mgr Byrne told ciNews.
The men shouted at Mgr Byrne demanding the keys of the safe. However Mgr Byrne did not have the keys, and in the end, the gang made off with his watch, mobile phone and wallet.
“I was in shock. I couldn’t believe what was happening. They ransacked the house, but they didn’t take anything much,” he said.
He alerted the Gardaí by pushing the panic button in his home.
The seventy-six-year-old priest, who is acting as diocesan Administrator, said the effect of the attack on him had not been “too bad.”
“I put my trust in the Lord and got up and said Mass the next morning. Looking back, I would worry more as time goes on.”
Mgr Byrne has an alarm system, but had forgotten to set it that particular day.
This is the first time that he has been targeted by criminals.
While the diocese of Kildare and Leighlin is without a bishop, Mgr Byrne administers it, a job involving a lot of paperwork.
In the aftermath of the attack, papers were everywhere.
Two other attacks on churches took place the same night – at St Fiacc’s Church of Ireland church, and St Brigid’s Catholic Church in Clonegal, Enniscorthy, Co. Wexford.
Parish priest at Clonegal Fr Joseph Fleming went to open the church on Wednesday morning to discover the safe in the sacristy had been wrenched open by an axe grinder, and thieves had made off with the takings from the collections from two churches, including the envelope collection.
“It was a terrible shock,” Fr Fleming told ciNews. “People were disappointed. It was the first time we experienced something like that.”
However, the burglary has not destroyed his faith in humanity.
“I’d have lost my faith a long time ago if that was the case,” he said.