Former priest jailed for eight years for raping three sisters

Updated / Monday, 14 Jul 2025 16:04

Legal Affairs Correspondent

A former priest who raped and sexually assaulted his sisters while he was a seminarian has been jailed for eight years.

Richard Brennan, aged 64, who is originally from Rathfarnham but has been working in the United States, pleaded guilty during his trial to raping and indecently assaulting his sister Paula Fay when she was between 15 and 17 years old.

He also pleaded guilty to raping and indecently assaulting Catherine Wrightstone when she was between nine and 13 years old and he admitted indecently assaulting a third sister, Yvonne Crist, when she was 20 and he was 18.

He changed his plea to guilty after all three of the sisters had given evidence at the Central Criminal Court and two of them had been cross-examined.

The sisters have waived their right to anonymity to allow Brennan to be named.

An older brother, 67-year-old Bernard Brennan, was jailed last month for four and a half years for the sexual abuse of Ms Crist and Ms Fay.

The court heard that Brennan told Ms Fay when she was 14 or 15 years old that she would be doing him a favour by having sex with him as he would not be able to have sex with any girl because he was going to be a priest.

He was around three years older than Ms Fay when the abuse started and around ten years older than Ms Wrightstone.

He subsequently left the priesthood in the early 1990s after meeting his future wife in the US.

Mr Justice David Keane said the aggravating factors were that Ms Fay and Ms Wrightstone were particularly young and vulnerable when the offences took place.

He said the offences against them were part of a pattern of frequent assaults by Richard Brennan over a lengthy period of time.

The judge said the offences took place in their family home which should have been a place of safety and security but instead was a place of fear, anxiety and confusion caused by the actions of Brennan.

He said it was an abuse of trust and each of the three sisters had been psychologically damaged by the offences.

Judge Keane said that even though some of the offences occurred when Brennan was himself under 18, the majority took place when he was an adult and was also asserting “the moral probity and maturity of a seminarian”.

He said in mitigation he took into account Brennan’s change of plea, a letter he had written indicating remorse, his cooperation with gardaí and the fact that he had no other convictions.

He said he also took into account the fact that he was 64 years old and answering for his criminal conduct “at substantial remove” from when it occurred.

The judge imposed a global sentence of nine years and suspended the final year.