NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
23 MARCH 2015
A priest accused of defying his vow of celibacy to have an affair with a woman who became pregnant was forced to cancel a talk to parishioners about marriage just days before the scandal became public.
The 49-year-old businesswoman at the centre of the storm, known only as ‘Linda’, claimed she got pregnant by Fr Ciaran Dallat (51) before she miscarried at five weeks.
The north Belfast woman claimed that Fr Dallat, an assistant priest at St Peter’s Cathedral just off Belfast’s Falls Road, slept with her three or four times a week during the relationship, which began in September 2012 and lasted until April 2014.
During that time, the woman said she showered the priest with gifts worth £20,000. They included a two-week Nordic cruise that cost £3,700; meals at some of Belfast’s most exclusive restaurants; designer clothes and top-of-the-range furnishings for his apartment near St Peter’s Cathedral, in the heart of one of west Belfast’s most deprived communities.
Linda claimed the affair only ended in April last year – two weeks after her mother died.
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