Born January 16th, 1935
Died February 19th, 2025
The former bishop of Killaloe, Dr Willie Walsh was the first senior Catholic Church leader here to publicly state that the church had placed the protection of the institution ahead of the protection of children.
Dr Walsh’s time as bishop of Killaloe from 1994 to 2011 coincided with the clerical sex-abuse scandals in the Irish Catholic Church and it was his compassion and empathy in dealing with survivors of clerical sex abuse that came to define his role.
His long-time friend Fr Harry Bohan, preached at Dr Walsh’s ordination as a bishop in Ennis in October 1994. He recalls that as Dr Walsh went to the altar to preach at the end of the Mass, his red bishop’s cap fell off his head and he bent down and picked it up. Fr Bohan said: “Bishop Walsh got to the podium and said ‘I think this is a sign of things to come’.”
Dr Walsh’s words were prescient as he stood apart from his colleagues in the church hierarchy on many issues. He publicly disagreed with the church’s ban on artificial contraception, felt the celibacy rule for priests should not be mandatory and was in favour of allowing female priests.
His three-week long pilgrimage of reconciliation across the diocese in December 1999 also set him apart, and he told a 350-strong group of pilgrims in Newmarket-on-Fergus on December 8th that “the pilgrimage is in some way an effort to express sorrow for the wrongs done or hurts caused” by the clerical sex abuse scandal.
Walsh was a native of Roscrea in Tipperary. His connection to Ennis dates from 1947, when he arrived into the town with his older brother, John to attend an austere St Flannan’s College where postwar rations remained in force.
Walsh sat his Leaving Cert in 1952 and was leaning towards studying engineering, as he had a flair for maths and physics. However, of the 54 or 55 boys in his class, he was one of more than 20 who went to seminary the following September.
He spent three years at Maynooth before he moved to the Irish College in Rome to complete his studies. He was ordained here in 1959 but returned to Rome to complete his postgraduate studies.
Dr Walsh completed a higher diploma in Galway and began teaching at St Flannan’s College in 1963.
He spent 25 “very happy” years teaching at the college, and during that time coached five Harty Cup hurling winning teams (1976, 1979, 1982, 1983 and 1987). His teams won the All-Ireland Croke Cup in each of those years as well.
Dr Walsh was also part of the management team that helped lead his beloved Ennis club, Éire Óg, to a senior Clare county hurling championship in 1990.
At Christmas 1998, when he was bishop, he allowed seven young children and their parents to set up home on the front lawn of his Westbourne Palace grounds in Ennis and would repeat the act of generosity to other Traveller families.
Fr Bohan recalls that Bishop Walsh “got a lot of stick for it ... Bishop Walsh was above all a man of the people, for all people, rich and poor, believers and nonbelievers, especially the poor, the marginalised.”
Bishop Walsh’s door at the imposing Bishop’s palace was always open to those on society’s margins seeking financial assistance. Ger Nash, now Bishop of Ferns, served as diocesan secretary to Walsh for the last three years of his time as bishop. “Even if Bishop Walsh knew the story wasn’t entirely true at the door, he would never say no,” he said.
After stepping down as bishop in 2011, bishop emeritus Walsh remained very active in the local community and was a regular attendee at GAA games and an active member of a local Forever Young choir in Ennis.
Fr Brendan Quinlivan said that Dr Walsh’s “Christian witness in his time since he retired was just as real and just as valid as everything he did when he was in the public eye”.
He continued to say Mass every morning with retired nuns in Ennis but curtailed some of his other Mass duties over the past year due to a back problem.
He was also an Anamcara na Gaelscoile (soulmate to the school) at Gaelscoil Mhíchíl Cíosóg in Ennis and visited the school several times a week.
Dr Walsh was with the two Communion classes before lunch on the day he died. School principal Dónal Ó hAiniféin said: “He was like a grandad to them. Even though he was 90, he was walking around the classroom that morning while telling a Bible story and all the stories were about kindness and caring for each other.”
Dr Walsh retained a strong faith and told Fr Quinlivan in an interview on Clare FM four years ago that “for me life would be meaningless without faith”.
“I don’t have any great fear about [death]. Maybe a fear of how I will die, the circumstances around my death, but the idea of death and passing to hopefully a new life is not as difficult to take at my age.”
Walsh was the last surviving member of his immediate family, having been predeceased by his parents, Ellen and William; brothers Joe, Eddie and John; and his sisters, Maura and Catherine.
