Former priest’s prison sentence for sexually abusing his sisters increased to 14 years

An eight-year sentence imposed on a former priest for sexually abusing his three sisters in their south Dublin family home has been increased to 14 years.

The Court of Appeal on Friday imposed the higher term on Richard Brennan after granting an appeal by the DPP on grounds that the eight-year term was “unduly lenient”.

Judge Isobel Kennedy, giving the court’s decision, said this was offending of an “extremely grave” nature, involving prolonged abuse over seven years, repeated rape of two of Brennan’s sisters, Catherine Wrightstone and Paula Fay, the exploitation of vulnerable children and a serious breach of trust.

There were multiple aggravating factors, she said. The original headline sentences of 12 and 10 years did not adequately reflect the gravity of the offending and too much weight was given to mitigatory factors including a “very late” plea of guilty during the trial, followed by a letter of remorse, she said.

The DPP’s appeal focused on the rape sentences and the appeal court held that the appropriate headline sentences for the rapes of Wrightstone and Fay were 16 and 13 years.

Having taken into account the mitigatory factors, it reduced those to 14 and 11 respectively, making a global sentence of 14 years.

The sisters had publicly voiced “deep disappointment” over the original sentence imposed on Brennan.

Fay and Wrightstone were both in court on Friday and welcomed the appeal court’s decision.

Fay said historical sexual abuse leaves deep scars and the original sentence felt like a second injustice. “Today, the court has acknowledged that error,” she said.

The global eight-year sentence had been imposed by Judge David Keane at the Central Criminal Court in July 2025 on Brennan, who was 64 at the time, for 24 offences. Those offences included raping Fay and Wrightstone when they were minors, and one indecent assault offence against a third sister, Yvonne Crist.

Days into his trial, in March 2025, Brennan, with an address in Montana, USA, admitted 24 offences against his three sisters.

The abuse was committed in the family home in Rathfarnham when he was aged between 16 and 24.

It included four offences of rape against Fay and two of rape against Wrightstone when both were minors. Brennan also admitted four offences of indecent assault against Fay and 13 counts of indecently assaulting Wrightstone.

Fay was 13 when she woke to find her brother, then aged 16, in her bed lifting her nightdress, telling her he needed her to do him “a favour” because he would be unable to have sex when he became a priest, the trial heard.

Wrightstone said his sexual abuse of her began on her ninth birthday and continued until she was 14. He admitted 13 counts of indecent assault of her on dates between June 1980 and late 1985, as well as two counts of rape in 1984 and 1985. He was aged between 19 and 24 at the time.

He admitted one offence of indecent assault against Crist when she was 20 and he was 18. She woke in bed to find him naked on top of her looking for sex. He left after she grabbed a phone, saying she would call gardaí.

Brennan was ordained a Catholic priest in 1989 but left the priesthood in 1992 after meeting his future wife in the US.

All three sisters gave victim-impact statements setting out the physical, emotional and psychological impacts of the abuse and saying they found the trial retraumatising. They said they had found some solace in their singing voices and all described themselves as survivors.

Senior counsel John Byrne, for Brennan, said his client grew up in a “somewhat chaotic” and violent family home, his mother had mental health issues and his father was an alcoholic.

Byrne said Brennan was naturalised into deviant sexual behaviour from an early age by his older brother Bernard and his case could not be divorced from his brother’s earlier case.

Bernard Brennan (67) was previously jailed for 4½ years after pleading guilty to 11 counts of indecent assault against Fay and Crist on dates between 1972 and 1975. Fay was seven and Crist was 13 when he first abused them.