Curate was informed of sex abuse but refused to investigate complaint, writes Liam Reid.
When Mary (not her real name) first met Father Peter Kennedy in January 1982, she thought he was "an angel from heaven".
Her husband had been diagnosed with terminal cancer.
She had taken him home to care for him, and taken time off from her teaching job. She also had five children to care for and was feeling under extreme pressure.
Father Kennedy had arrived in the family's small rural parish as a locum priest, a temporary replacement for a parish priest who was ill.
"He befriended the family, and I thought he was sent especially from heaven."
Father Kennedy would go to the local pharmacy to fetch the morphine her husband needed, and groceries for the family.
However, all the time he was abusing her 13-year-old son, sometimes while praying over her dying husband.
Mary knew nothing about it, until one day she heard her young son screaming upstairs. She ran upstairs to find Father Kennedy bent over her son, adjusting his trousers.
She threw him out of the house. "I knew it was something sexual, and I was very very upset, I ran him. I said I'd call the guards if I ever saw him around here again."
He left the parish soon after. Her brother-in-law approached the local curate, the late Father Charlie Doherty. "He said he wouldn't entertain a complaint against a man of the cloth from a brat like my son," she said.
Her husband died soon afterwards, but her 13-year-old son's behaviour also began to deteriorate.
The combination of the abuse and the illness had led him to blame himself for his father's death, unknown to the rest of his family.
A pattern of self-mutilation and self-harm took hold, and by 18 he was an alcoholic. His abusive behaviour, including suicide attempts, also took its toll on his family. "It was a nightmare for us all."
Her son began seeking help for his problems in 1997 and attended counselling, but "went back on the drink" soon after.
However the counsellor in question, a nun, subsequently contacted Mary. "She said she had 'unfinished business' with my son."
The "unfinished business" related to the child abuse her son had revealed during counselling sessions, and the new church child protection guidelines requiring her to report the allegation of abuse to Diocesan authorities in Achonry.
"I told her to go ahead but keep my son's name out of it.
"Some time later she came back and said that the diocese said it had no responsibility for the priest's actions as he was an order priest. It was left at that."
In April 2002, Mary saw the documentary Suing the Pope, about Colm O'Gorman and the abuse he and others suffered at the hands of Father Sean Fortune.
"I got in touch with my son, who was living abroad, and he came back and made a statement to the gardaí."
It was only then that Mary learned her son had been abused on more than one occasion.
At this stage, her son "was getting his life in order, had stopped drinking, and he was in a good relationship".
They also got in touch with the church authorities in Achonry, who in turn contacted the Kiltegan fathers. Two priests from the order visited the family and "couldn't have been nicer or more sympathetic".
Her son then met with Boyle solicitor Mr Michael O'Dowd, who began a legal action.
It ended on July 28th, when the order settled, in record time for any abuse claim.
The order's priests also sought to make a personal apology to the victim following the case.
"We're speaking out because my son wants to encourage other victims of abuse to come forward."