February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The Rev. Mossie Dillane, a 73-year-old cleric based in County Galway, last week admitted that he was the father of a son born to 32-year-old parishioner Madonna Byrnes and that they had been involved in an ongoing secret affair.
The couple met in the mid-1990s, when Dillane returned to Ireland after spending several years as a missionary in San Antonio, Texas.
He was assigned as a curate in Killoran Church near Byrnes’s home, where locals described him as a lively and well-liked.
Dillane first met Byrnes when she was around 22 through his friendship with her parents, who were devout Catholics and regular churchgoers.
A friendship developed between the two and it is thought that the affair may have been going on for up to 10 years.
Since news of the relationship broke, Dillane has resigned as parish priest of the nearby towns of Woodford and Looscaun, a post he held for 18 months.
A report in the tabloid Sunday World claimed that Byrnes is in hiding with Dillane and their son at an undisclosed location in his native Limerick.