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The late Gay Byrne has come under fire after a resurfaced clip of his interview with an Irish bishop's former lover went viral.
Bishop Eamonn Casey - who died in 2017 - resigned in 1992 after it was revealed he fathered a son with an American woman, Annie Murphy, in the early 1970s.
Murphy appeared on the Late Late Show following the birth of her child to speak about a book she wrote about her experience titled 'Forbidden Fruit: The True Story of My Secret Love for the Bishop of Galway'.
Murphy's treatment during the interview, both by Byrne and audience members, received some criticism at the time.
However, the resurfaced clip has sparked renewed outrage following the broadcast of an RTÉ documentary highlighting a number of allegations made against the former bishop, and the Catholic Church's handling of them.
Bishop Casey's Buried Secrets, which aired last night (July 22), included an interview with one of the bishop's accusers, his niece Patricia Donovan, who claims he raped her at the age of five and that the sexual abuse continued for years.
According to the documentary, she was not the only person to come forward with such allegations.
Galway Diocese informed reporter Anne Sheridan in 2019 that it had received just one allegation of child sexual abuse against Bishop Eamonn Casey.
However, it had records at that time of "five people who had complained of childhood sexual abuse against Bishop Casey".
These independent accusations related to alleged events in every Irish diocese where Bishop Casey worked.
The documentary also revealed how the Limerick Diocese paid over €100,000 in settlement to one of Bishop Casey’s accusers after Casey’s death.
Hundreds of X (formerly Twitter) users expressed their disgust online following the broadcast of the documentary, with many condemning the Catholic Church, and friends and colleagues of Casey who were interviewed.
One person wrote, "There we all were, saying how unfairly Eamon Casey was treated when all he did was have an adult relationship like any normal man. Now it turns out he was a child-rapist like all the rest and the Catholic bishops were hiding the secrets of his crimes. There’s no end to it."
Another commented, "Very shocking that [journalist] Patsy McGarry is happy to openly say that he simply does not find the testimony of women going back five decades naming Eamonn Casey as a sexual abuser, credible. If you simply say you don’t believe them it all seems to go away."
Others reposted the Annie Murphy interview as an example of the misogyny that was rife in Ireland at the time.
One person commented, "I sincerely hope that this version of Ireland - completely stifled by the church - is long behind us. Gay Byrne was always a patronising, arrogant and self serving man. His treatment of Annie Murphy was abominable."
"I remember that episode and felt really angry for Annie. It was almost a public lynching. The interview was totally one sided but Annie fought back, later on Gay Byrne said he regretted the way he treated her on the show," another commented.
Another person wrote, "Gay Byrne’s worst interview. Which I’d say he would have conceded himself. A terrible reflection of Official Ireland at the time."
In response to Byrne's scepticism as to Murphy's son's true parentage - he asked her "Is he Eamonn's child?" near the end of the interview - one X user commented, "What a cruel and insensitive remark for Gay Byrne to make and yet it was acceptable then. I hope if this happened today more empathy and compassion would be shown Annie Murphy, a very wronged woman."
Some social media users also took aim at RTÉ, with one person stating, "RTÉ have certainly changed their tune about Eamonn Casey. Far from the days when Gay Byrne kissed his arse every time he appeared on the Late Late, then treating Annie Murphy in a disgusting misogynistic manner cos he was defending his pal Eamonn. No money in it then."
Many people have highlighted Byrne's sign off - "If your son is half as good a man as his father, he won’t be doing too badly" - as a particularly distasteful opinion following the revelations in the documentary.
Murphy responded, "I'm not so bad myself as you'd like to think."
A social media user commented, "Gay Byrne
said on Irish TV to the mother of Casey’s child, if he (the child) is
half the man his father is he will be all right. The woman was vilified.
Casey was protected."