Bishop Eamon Casey: He regularly raced at Mondello

The late Bishop Eamon Casey used to race saloon cars at Mondello Park circuit in his younger days, it emerged.

The flamboyant cleric died yesterday afternoon, aged 89, in a nursing home in Newmarket-on-Fergus in Co Clare.

The colourful churchman had a preference for Italian cars and he wrote off several Lancias, but also crashed a Mercedes.

He was an occasional entrant in saloon car races at the Mondello Park circuit in Co Kildare in the 1960s and 1970s. 

Bishop Casey also had other Co Kildare links - he studied for the priesthood at St Patrick’s College, Maynooth between 1944 and 1951.

He resigned for personal reasons in 1992 after it had been revealed he had been making payments to US woman Annie Murphy to support their son, Peter Murphy who was born in 1974 while his father was Bishop of Kerry.