IRELAND
Irish Times
Patsy McGarry
A former missionary priest Peter Kennedy (74), who also worked on a locum basis in parishes around Ireland, was responsible for one of the largest ever settlements in a clerical child sex abuse case in the State.
In July 2003 one of his victims was awarded €325,000 in a High Court settlement with the St Patrick’s Missionary Society. He was a member of that congregation, based at Kiltegan, Co Wicklow, until he was laicised in 2003.
He was removed from active ministry in the 1980s following persistent complaints of sexual abuse against him dating back to the 1960s, when he was a missionary priest in Africa. In the late 1980s he moved to London, where he continued to be under the supervision of the St Patrick’s Society. He worked as a taxi driver.
Following publicity over the 2003 High Court settlement in Dublin he left London on a British passport and flew to São Paulo in Brazil where he taught English to adults.
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