The former secretary of Archbishop John Charles McQuaid does not believe the allegations against him in the forthcoming book by John Cooney. In a letter in today's Irish Times, Father John Fitpatrick, who is now a parish priest in Whitehall, Co Dublin, says he has checked his recollections with other colleagues who worked for Dr McQuaid.
"I never knew the archbishop to have visited a pub, much less frequented one," he writes. "I never knew him to drink whiskey. As a matter of fact the only drink I ever saw the archbishop take was a fraction of a glass of wine poured for him at dinner, or a thimbleful of brandy when he was ill . . .
"Is it not gravely wrong to state that anybody is a paedophile without having verifiable evidence to back up such a character-destroying assertion? Surely it is inexcusable to do this when the person is dead and left unprotected by any laws of libel?"