At Home with the Clearys

[guy crouchback]

anyone see this documentary  last night.i thought it was one of the best made Irish docs in a while. it gave a great insight into the man and what made him tick. i always had a very low opinion of the man so i watched this looking for further evidence of his hypocrisy's.  I got it, but i also got a picture of a man who in his life was truly trying to do as much good as he could working with, and helping those no one else wanted to know.

[Tubberman]

Excellent documentary. Hard to believe they were able to cover it up for so long.
And he confided in Casey of all people, who had the nerve to lambast him for having a child!! 

Felt sorry for the son Ross, he has nobody now. A father (maybe should be capital F!) that never publicly acknowleged him, and a mother who lost it big time and had a lot of personal problems of her own.

[Mentalman]

Excellent documentary. Hard to believe they were able to cover it up for so long.
And he confided in Casey of all people, who had the nerve to lambast him for having a child!! 

Felt sorry for the son Ross, he has nobody now. A father (maybe should be capital F!) that never publicly acknowleged him, and a mother who lost it big time and had a lot of personal problems of her own.

I thought it was very sad that Cleary's niece couldn't seem to find it in her heart to show her cousin, Ross, any "christian" charity. She seemed so level headed and nice, but when asked about him she responded something like "We'd love to have Ross in our lives, but we can't trust him becuase of the book his mother wrote"? Talk about visiting the sins of the parents on the children...unless other things went on we don't know about, it seems ridiculous to hold what his dead mother did, in desperation to get money, against him. Still on the whole the documentary went some way to rounding out Cleary's character and rehabilitating it somewhat.

[T Fearon]

What about his joke, about the IRA man in confession explaining he had blown up two RUC barracks and was told by the Priest to "go out and do the stations for your penance!"

[Mack the finger]

Yeah, excellant documentary. Watching him whip up the crowd into a frenzy when the pope gigged here reminded me of Freddy Mercury at the height of his powers.

Certainly rounded out his character a bit. In terms of what was to come later from the church in terms of abuse allegations, his 'sin' seems a small one now. His story, and the brief mention of Casey, hark back to an altogether more innocent and naive time compared to the later crimes of the church.

[T Fearon]

Was that true, that only for him studying for the Priesthood in 1955 (and hence he wasn't allowed to play by the Church) that he would have been on the Dublin team that year for the AI Final with Kerry? I remember a few months ago, TG4 broadcast the AI Final in 1977, and the bold Mick was standing,fag in mouth, in what would then have been Croke Park's VIP section, right behind Tony Hanahoe as he made his speech.

Also saw him in action in Galway Cathedral, way back one night in the late 80s, and he sure could keep the attention of the congregation. A hugely entertaining and gregarious individual, he claimed that night in Galway that he was painfully shy as a young priest and had to ask God to help him overcome thsi shyness. Hard to imagine him being shy at any time