A Dec 21 2025 newspaper report showed the deceased paedophile’s flat tombstone which ends with three words [PRIEST SHEPHERD FRIEND] in block capitals . Why can our Irish national Primate, Archbishop John McDowell, not come clean and finally name Neely as a paedophile, so that a sinister 50 year cover up of child abuse ends?

At the time of the Rt Revd McDowell’s 2020 enthronement, the new Irish Primate featured as the subject of a ‘New Primate’ report (see online version ‘Church of Ireland Notes’ from ‘Irish Times 27 April 2020’). One line says: ‘The new Primate is a native of East Belfast where his faith was nurtured in Mount Merrion parish where the rector was the late Canon Billy Neely’.

Is this the same deceased Canon Neely, who was exposed as a child abuser by media and courts in 2023? A distinguished senior Irish Anglican cleric contacted me, to-‘in confidence’-express their belief and anger, how a paedophile priest (Neely) is being posthumously protected by senior Church leaders.

Should Archbishop John McDowell be making a formal statement clarifying his own connection to the late Canon W G Neely, at longest formally naming Neely, and amending or adjusting the ‘New Primate’ report statement sentence, which possibly appears to paint Canon Neely in a positive light?