Speaking on camera for the first time, she said she “spent years and years and years trying to get heard”.
At least her voice was loud and clear during 90 minutes of excellent public service broadcasting which exposed other allegations of child sexual abuse against the bishop and, worse, the Church’s repeated failures to deliver justice.
Some of the reasons for that were partly evident in Bishop Casey’s Buried Secrets itself as reporter Anne Sheridan listened to the bishop’s friends, co-workers, and other analysts refuse to accept that such a “champion for justice” could be guilty of the charges against him.
During his lifetime, when his only proven transgression was to father a child with an American woman Annie Murphy, there was a widespread tendency to overlook what was seen as his human flaws.
It is disquieting to rewatch the Late Late Show interview of 1993 and witness a clearly dismissive host Gay Byrne finish an uncomfortable encounter with the remark: “If your son is half as good a man as his father, he won’t be doing too badly.”
While Annie Murphy managed a quick retort — “Well, Mr Byrne, I’m not half bad myself” — many still agreed with Byrne.
Nevertheless, the revelation that a bishop had fathered a child and later dipped into diocesan funds to pay for his maintenance began the slow unravelling of the Catholic Church’s steely hold in Ireland.
In the same way, while some continue to hold Bishop Casey in high esteem, the latest revelations represent another pivotal moment in Irish life.
Monday’s broadcast was a welcome, if overdue, marker that the enduring culture of secrecy within the Catholic Church will be highlighted and rigorously challenged.
How encouraging to hear Ian Elliott, former chief executive of the National Board for Safeguarding Children in the Irish Catholic Church, say on the record that the claims against Bishop Casey were “entirely credible”.
His accusers were believed.
He also referenced others who came forward to speak of numerous sexual activities, some consensual, and four charges of child sexual abuse and one “child safeguarding concern”.
Indeed, the Catholic Church was so concerned about Bishop Casey that it removed him from his ministry in 2007. And yet when he died in 2017, he was granted the honour of burial in the crypt of Galway Cathedral.
Let us recall that some 30km away, the bodies of 796 innocent children were tossed into a mass grave/septic tank over several decades until 1961. It is important to juxtapose those two facts because it serves as a reminder of the damage imposed by a powerful and secretive Church.
Some of the remains of those deeply dishonoured souls may be identified in an excavation of the former mother and baby homes site, but that work has yet to begin.
The past is not yet past, just as the secrecy and culture of cover-up so evident in the Catholic Church remains ever present. There were settlements in two cases against Bishop Casey, but they came with gagging orders.
Even in the general course of events, the Church often hides from seekers of the truth, any truth. Queries from anybody — from ordinary parishioners to reporters — are regularly met with suspicion and/or silence. That happens just as often at local level as it does within the Vatican citadel.
Little wonder that Patricia Donovan felt like a “little person” pitted against a powerful institution. But she will now help to bring about much-needed change. Her decision to speak in public is an immensely brave act that will do much to buoy up other survivors.
Thanks to her, the “little person” will now stand a bit taller and the power that has allowed so much abuse to go undetected and unpunished will be further diluted.
Perhaps the tide is turning at last. The new revelations about Bishop Casey — he remained a bishop in spite of it all — come as another prominent Catholic clergyman and so-called “defender of the excluded” is being investigated for sexual abuse in France.
Since his death in 2007, Abbé Pierre has been lionised as a humanitarian who fought for the underdog.
The leaders of the charities he once founded have taken steps to investigate allegations that he sexually assaulted several women and a girl.
At least the charities themselves instigated the inquiry, yet the Catholic Church was aware of the allegations in 2021. Why did it not act?
Here’s hoping, in time, that all-too-familiar question will be consigned to the secretive past. We are not there yet, but we are getting closer thanks to the immense courage — and selflessness — of those who publicly call out hidden abuse.