THE son of Fr Michael Cleary has said he forgives the Catholic cleric who was his father, and understands why he never left the priesthood to marry his lover and housekeeper.

In the past year Ross Hamilton has met his older brother Douglas Boyd-Barrett, also Cleary’s son, and hopes to build a relationship with him. Boyd-Barrett was given up for adoption by Cleary and Phyllis Hamilton, while Ross was brought up by them at the house they shared in Harold’s Cross.

“All during the scandal I never thought to blame him [Cleary]; then as I hit my early twenties I thought ‘what a bastard’,” Hamilton has said in an interview with RTE to be screened tomorrow.

“But as I got older and thought about it more I can put things in perspective.

“I can forgive him now and understand how afraid he was of his own family finding out.”

Hamilton was 16 when, a week after his father’s death in 1993, it was reported that one of Ireland’s best-known priests had fathered two children with his housekeeper. At first the Hamiltons went into hiding and refused to comment, but later sold their story to the media.

Hamilton said his mother slowly drank herself to death as the scandal unfolded. “We became D-list celebrities and everyone wanted a slice. There was a huge amount of sympathy while others called us liars and money grabbers,” he said.

“Eventually a doctor found a swab of my father’s DNA and they were able to do the test which gave us some vindication. But my mother had turned into a hermit, and didn’t go outdoors at all. She did a lot of drinking and I think she pined away.”

Hamilton says he had a normal childhood despite his father’s double life. “It was like a strange dysfunctional family and we were quite happy for a lot of the time,” he said.

There was always uncertainty over who his father was, however. “I had always accepted my mum’s [story] that she had gotten divorced from a man in America,” he said.

“When I went to school, I was telling this story. I invented this super dad, until one kid cottoned on that I was making it up. I came home that night and demanded to know what the craic was. My mother sat me on her knee and she asked me who I thought my father was. I gave a list of Hollywood types, and eventually said ‘Father’ [his name for Cleary]. She started crying, and that is when I discovered it. That was at the age of 10.”

Hamilton said he didn’t confide his secret in any friends until Cleary was dying of cancer. Boyd-Barrett did not discover his father’s identity until after his death in 1993.

“He was a kind of a dad/uncle type,” Hamilton said. “People accepted that I was the housekeeper’s son and like a surrogate son to him. In a way we were hidden in plain sight.”

When the scandal over Bishop Eamon Casey’s love child broke in 1992, Hamilton says his mother panicked, fearing the media would turn its attention to her next. Casey knew about Cleary’s children but had never confided in “the singing priest” about his own situation.

When Cleary returned from a golfing trip to Spain, he and Hamilton had their first proper father/son chat. “It was very uncomfortable,” Hamilton said. “After that, the stress and worry of being found out meant that he started to die of cancer. A week after he died the article broke and there was a complete frenzy.”

Hamilton says that after his father died, a lot of promises of support were not kept and they lapsed into financial difficulty. Ultimately they were forced to sell their story to raise some cash.

After his mother’s death from cancer in 2001, Hamilton admits he went on a drinking spree himself. Only now has he achieved some equilibrium.

Hamilton says he has good memories of his parents despite their tragic love affair. “Before he died they went on a trip to Lourdes — it was the only time they got to go away together.”

Hamilton appears on Scannal! RTE, tomorrow, 7.30pm.

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