IRELAND
Irish Independent
By Greg Harkin
Saturday August 25 2012
A brisk wind batters Fr Eugene Boland’s face as he walks along the shoreline on Co Donegal’s remote Inishowen peninsula. But the breeze doesn’t bother him.
He is just glad to be breathing the sea air and enjoying the stunning views offered by Ballyliffin beach after enduring his own very personal storm over the past two years.
For most of that time, the Catholic priest has been forced to live under a cloud after being accused of sexually assaulting a teenager.
It was a devastating period for him — one that ended only when a jury found him innocent following an eight-day trial in June.
He was forced to step aside from his parish work while police investigated claims made by a now 37-year-old woman that he had indecently assaulted her over two decades earlier when she was just 14.
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