Now pictured for the very first time, Ellen Murphy said: ‘Money is not in my mind. It is just to bring it out, let the public see with their own two eyes how people were badly treated.’
Mrs Murphy, who has since died, was one of the five women to accuse Bishop Casey of child sexual abuse and she reported her claim against him in 2001.
But she was gagged from ever speaking about her alleged abuse after accepting an award from the Residential Institutions Redress Board under its terms. Mrs Murphy, who claims she was abused by Casey when she was 15 and in a reformatory school in Limerick, initially took a case to the High Court against him for damages, but had to drop that case when it was dealt with by the Redress Board.
The High Court documents outlined two alleged instances of abuse in Limerick in 1956.
They stated: ‘On the first occasion she had been directed by a Sister [X] to bring tea and cakes into the parlour where the said priest Eamonn Casey was sitting. The said Sister left the parlour, at which point the plaintiff was directed to remove her underclothing and the said priest Eamonn Casey proceeded to touch the plaintiff’s genital area with his toe.
‘On a further occasion, when the plaintiff was returning from Limerick Cathedral with other girls from school, the said priest Eamonn Casey grabbed the plaintiff from behind and lifted her on to his shoulders at which time he fondled [her] genitalia causing her severe pain.
‘The plaintiff was and remains deeply traumatised as a result of the sexual assaults and abuse. She has suffered throughout her life as a result of the foregoing.’
Mrs Murphy died in 2014, but speaking for the first time, her son Niall Murphy, who lives in England, told RTÉ of his mother’s quest for justice and compensation. He said: ‘She did speak about it for many years, that she would have liked to have justice, if only she could.
‘When it came up and she knew that she had the opportunity to take the Church to court, she was not reluctant in any way. I think there was a lot of unprocessed emotional trauma in my mum that manifested itself physically in the form of illness a lot of the time. It amazed me that she actually lived to be 74.’
Her story was revealed on Monday night in RTÉ’s Bishop Casey’s Buried Secrets, in association with the Irish Mail on Sunday, which examined at least five cases of alleged child sexual abuse against Casey and how the Church handled the allegations. She revealed her harrowing life story and years of alleged sexual and physical abuse to the Justice for Magdalenes Research project, in 2013. She was entitled to anonymity in that interview, or to use a pseudonym, but went under her own name.
The Irish Mail on Sunday first revealed allegations against Bishop Casey in 2019 – including the first extensive interview with his niece Patricia Donovan.
The Mail did not name Ellen Murphy at that time, but included details of her story.
Addressing other survivors of abuse, she urged: ‘You have to bring it out and don’t be one bit ashamed. There is nothing to be ashamed of. The truth is good.’ Nor was she allowed to discuss details of the alleged abuse.
She could only go so far as saying: ‘We knew the priests and respected them, but I am sorry to say, they didn’t respect us.’
She did not mention Casey, or any sexual abuse against her in that interview, nor could she under the stringent terms of the redress settlement which gagged survivors from speaking out against their perpetrators.
Ellen Murphy was 15 at the time of the alleged abuse and it would take almost 50 years before she tried to hold Casey and the Catholic Church to account. Her name was later discovered by the Mail after files were obtained by Patricia Donovan, who also accused him of abuse, through a solicitor then working on a potential legal case for Ms Donovan.
The documents, which were obtained from the Diocese of Arundel and Brighton in England, stated, on a file marked E.C. [Eamonn Casey]: ‘E.C. has informed Fr [X] that there was another historical case dealt with by his solicitors in Dublin. Name of alleged victim was Ellen Murphy. She made a claim through the Residential Institutions Redress Board and was awarded compensation.’
Ms Donovan obtained these files in 2017 – 16 years after Mrs Murphy had come forward to the authorities to report Bishop Casey and lodge a civil case.
By this time, Ms Donovan finally knew she was not the first, or only, person to accuse him of abuse. There were now at least three women who had reported him to the Limerick Diocese – Mrs Murphy’s complaint in 2001, Ms Donovan’s was filed in 2005 and another woman, who cannot be identified, came forward in 2014 and lodged High Court proceedings in 2016.
The latter’s legal case was settled via the High Court after his death in 2017 for over €100,000. The Gardaí were informed by Limerick Diocese of Ellen Murphy’s allegations of child sexual abuse against Casey, but her solicitor declined their request to make a formal statement, saying she preferred to pursue matters through the civil courts. She did, however, agree to contribute to Justice Ryan’s Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse.
Ellen Murphy [née Ward] was born in 1940 and was placed in St Francis Xavier’s Industrial School in Ballaghaderreen, Co. Roscommon, in April 1944, where she remained for two years.
She had been placed in State care due to a non-attendance at school, while her parents were charged under the School Attendance Act, 1926. She was then moved to the Benada Abbey Industrial in Co. Sligo, until 1955. That August, Ellen says she was picked up by five nuns and placed in the back of a van, to be transported to Limerick by the Good Shepherd Sisters: ‘That was a life for me I should never have had. I never did wrong to anybody. I was an innocent little girl.’
Aged 15, she was brought to the sprawling Good Shepherd grounds at the junction of Clare Street and the Pennywell Road in Limerick city. It was situated a stone’s throw from St John’s Cathedral, where Casey was installed as curate that same year. It was around this time, in 1955/56, she would allegedly encounter him for the first time.
She remained in Limerick from August 1955 to May 1956, when she was then moved to Cork, and lastly to Dublin. When she eventually left the Sisters of Charity in Donnybrook in August 1964, after 18 years in institutions, she could neither read nor write.
In Dublin, before she left for London, she worked as a factory hand, a servant and a seamstress. In London, she worked as a cleaner for British Telecom and the Met Police, but was no longer able to work from 1992.
She married in 1967, and her son Niall was born in 1971. But her past haunted her all her life.
‘I used to look behind me to see if there were nuns following me. My husband used to say to me, “That’s the past, forget about the past”. I still have nightmares,’ she said, when she was in her 70s. ‘One night I woke up and I was screaming, and I used to cry in my sleep thinking they were coming for me. They still torment you.’