Bishop Willie Walsh provided leadership and a humane response in the church's darkest hour
Bishop Willie Walsh at his residence in Ennis, Co Clare, in 2020. He passed away at the age of 90 on February 19. Picture: Kieran Clancy.
Braving strong winds, rain, and hailstones on a December morning over 25 years ago, the late Bishop of Killaloe, Willie Walsh, began the ninth day of his three-week-long pilgrimage of reconciliation across the diocese.
The weather on December 8, 1999 was in keeping with the maelstrom engulfing the Irish Catholic Church at the time over continuing clerical child sex abuse revelations.
