Eileen Roche nee Eileen Flynn RIP

On Saturday last Eileen Roche was buried. Her funeral Mass was in Rosbercon Church, New Ross, Co Wexford.

Eileen Roche was 53 when she died and the mother of five children and wife of Richie Roche.

But Eileen Roche back in 1983 was Eileen Flynn and because she was an unmarried mother and living with the baby's father she was dismissed from her job as an English and history teacher at the Holy Faith Convent in New Ross, Co Wexford.

My shame to that event is that I did not raise my single unnoticed voice back then. At the time I was a teacher at Newbridge College Co Kildare. I said nothing.

It's easy to criticise the shocking behaviour of the Church at the time and indeed the decision taken by the courts but I did nothing to support a young woman teacher.

I wonder did any of those who cried out for her head at the time turn up at her funeral and pray with her family? Has anyone from the Irish ecclesiastical hierarchy been with her in her years of illness? Maybe they have. I hope they have.

And what gain was made by the Church authorities in the stand they took?

A public apology printed in the daily national newspapers could be a glimmer of hope, recognition of of a wrong done to a young woman teacher. But it is highly unlikely it will happen. A pity.

It is worth noting that Donal Herlihy was bishop in Ferns between 1964 and 1983 when he was succeeded by Brendan Comiskey.

Did the bishop at the time offer any support to the young teacher? Both these men were highly criticised in the Ferns Report.

The Ferns report published in 2005 found that children throughout County Wexford were abused over a 40-year period while the Catholic church, the police and the Irish state failed in their duty to protect them.

At least 21 priests were accused of more than 100 cases of rape and sexual assault against children in the diocese of Ferns from 1962 to 2002. The rural area of south-east Ireland is believed to have the highest proportion of accused clergy in a Catholic diocese anywhere in the world.

The report, headed by the retired supreme court judge Frank Murphy, is Ireland's first state investigation into the Catholic church's handling of abuse allegations against priests. It found that the church's negligence in dealing with allegations went as far as the Vatican.

And Eileen Roche nee Flynn was sacked from her teaching job because she was an unmarried mother living with the father of her child.

Those responsible for that action and those who coalesced through their silence should bow their heads in shame.