The first of two programmes featuring Bishop Éamon Casey will be broadcast on Radio Kerry after the 10 o'clock news tomorrow night. Both deal with the years up to his appointment as Bishop of Kerry in 1969.
In the only reference to his life at present, he said he was "settling in" at Shanaglish parish in Co Galway.
The programmes place particular emphasis on his work with the emigrant Irish in England during the 1960s and with the housing agency Shelter, which he helped set up in 1966. The interviews for both programmes were conducted by Maurice O'Keeffe and will be broadcast on the Kerry Lore programme.
Tomorrow night's programme centres on two other Irish priests, Fr Joe Nolan and Fr John Kenelly, who did great work with Irish emigrants in the UK in the 1960s and afterwards. They give their opinions on Bishop Casey as a man and on his work, with interspersed comments from him.
The programme on July 16th involves just Bishop Casey himself as he recollects growing up in Adare, Co Limerick, his arrival at Maynooth, his years as a curate in Limerick, his work in England, and his appointment as Bishop of Kerry.
He recalls how after the BBC broadcast the Cathy Come Home documentary on the homeless in 1966, directed by Ken Loach, who also directed The Wind that Shakes the Barley film, Shelter, which was established a short time afterwards, "took off".
He recalled the "bombshell" in 1969 when he was called to the papal nunciature in Dublin to be told he had been appointed Bishop of Kerry.
His father, who had driven him to the nunciature, on hearing the news of his appointment blessed himself three times and said: "I'll have to pray harder than ever now."
It was his father who gave him the £1,000 which helped him set up a scheme to help young Irish families buy their own homes when he was in Slough, he said.
He praises the Christian Brothers for his early education and remembers when he first arrived at Maynooth being "appalled at the place . . . all those huge buildings, black stone buildings".
