Former bishop Brendan Comiskey, who resigned over Ferns Report, dies aged 89

DISGRACED FORMER BISHOP Brendan Comiskey has died, aged 89.

Comiskey previously served as the Bishop of Ferns before resigning following the publication of the Ferns Report, which outlined a catalogue of child sex abuse in the diocese over a period of four decades.

There were claims that he did not report allegations that Fr Sean Fortune had abused a number of children while Comiskey was bishop, and that as a result he failed to protect children in the diocese.

The Monaghan native died this morning in Louth County Hospital in Dundalk.

Comiskey was ordained a priest of the Congregation of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary in 1961.

He became Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of Dublin in 1979 and was appointed the Bishop of Ferns in April 1984.

In his resignation letter in 2003, Comiskey said he was never asked or forced to resign by the Catholic Church after the Ferns report came out.

Colm O’Gorman, a survivor of clerical abuse in the diocese and a long-time campaigner for justice, said Comiskey’s governance was “appalling”.

“Brendan Comiskey was not a good bishop, and he did not behave in a way that could be considered to be moral or appropriate or decent,” he said.

“But it would be wrong and it would be false to suggest that this was about some unique individual failing or level of incompetence. There was no incompetence involved. He did what he was mandated to do [by the Church].”