Felicia Irwin has been speaking exclusively with the Irish Independent about her birth mother – who was Fr Cleary's housekeeper and secret lover.
The man known as “the singing priest” fathered two sons with his housekeeper Phyllis Hamilton, throughout their 26 year relationship.
The first born boy Douglas Boyd Barrett was given up for adoption, while the second, Ross Hamilton was reared by Phyllis and Fr Cleary, they lived as a family in secret.
Phyills had kinetically claimed her third pregnancy resulted from a rape by a priest who'd been staying at the parochial house with her and Fr Cleary.
– but in an interview given in 1995 she later admitted that she didn't know if “Fr Cleary or 'the other man' was responsible”.
She travelled to America where she gave birth to a girl on January 18th 1985; the baby was given up for adoption to her close friend in Florida.
Growing up, Felicia Irwin was told that Phyills and Fr Cleary were her Irish cousins.
She spent holidays in Ireland with both of them at the parochial house in Harold's Cross in Dublin.
Felicia Irwin is now a mother of three children of her own.
She's seeking a paternity DNA test to find out for certain if Father Michael Cleary is her birth father.
