Casey will be laid to rest in Cathedral
FUNERAL details for controversial bishop Eamonn Casey have been announced.
Bishop Casey died in a nursing home in County Clare on Monday following a long illness.
The Catholic Communications office confirmed that his removal will take place today ( Wednesday) at 7pm at the Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and Saint Nicholas, Galway.
Funeral Mass will take place on Thursday March 16 at 2pm at the same cathedral followed by interment in the cathedral crypt.
Mass celebrant will be the Bishop of Clonfert, John Kirby.
The Church’s decision to allow Casey be interred in the crypt at Galway Cathedral has prompted some criticism of some senior Catholic clergy who were quick to distance themselves – and the church – from the former Bishop of Kerry and Galway in the wake of the scandal that embroiled him in 1992.
Though he remained a controversial figure until his death, Bishop Casey was an enormously popular figure in his heyday and his funeral service is expected to attract a large crowd.
Bishop Casey, who would have been 90 on April 27, died at the Carrigoran Nursing Home in Newmarket-on-Fergus, Co Clare on Monday afternoon. He had been cared for there since 2011 – five years after he returned to Ireland having spent several years in Ecuador and in the UK and was suffering from Alzheimer’s disease.