Charity chief ‘pretended to be a priest’ by Tom Lyons and Colin Coyle

From The Sunday Times

May 16, 2010

Charity chief ‘pretended to be a priest’

Photograph shows Mike Meegan dressed in uniform while working with orphans and Aids victims in Kenya

Tom Lyons and Colin Coyle

Mike Meegan in clericals

Meegan apparently dressed as a priest in the 1980s in the Rift Valley Province while working with Aids victims and orphans for the Irish-African charity, Icross

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/ireland/article7127822.ece

He is already facing allegations of financial and sexual impropriety. Now it has emerged that Mike Meegan, the Kenya-based founder of Icross, an Irish-African charity, dressed as a priest while working with orphans and Aids victims in Africa during the early 1980s, despite having never taken religious vows.

A photograph taken of Meegan in Kenya in the early 1980s in Kajiado, in the Rift Valley Province, shows the charity worker wearing a priest’s uniform. Meegan has previously dismissed suggestions that he passed himself off as a member of the clergy while working in Kenya, claiming that he may have been “perceived” as a priest because of the Irish missionary tradition in Africa.

But a series of letters written to Meegan in 1981 indicate that the Jesuits and Irish Missionary Union were concerned about claims emanating from Kenya that the charity worker was portraying himself as a priest.

Joseph Dargan, the then Provincial of the Jesuits in Ireland, wrote to Meegan in September 1981, requesting that he did not “give the impression that [he is] a member of the Society of Jesus or a Jesuit brother”.

The letter was prompted by accusations from missionaries that Meegan was “presenting himself” as a Jesuit brother.

“I do not know how true this is,” Dargan wrote, “but it has been brought to my attention from so many different quarters that I feel I should let you know about it.”

The missionary union later circulated Dargan’s letter to its members. Some had requested clarification about Meegan’s status as a priest.

Brendan O’Reilly, who was the executive secretary/director of the union, later wrote to Meegan justifying his decision to distribute the clarification from the Jesuits to his members, after a complaint from the charity worker.

“I did this because it is my firm conviction that congregations and their members must be absolutely accurate in every detail when appealing for funds,” he wrote in a letter to Meegan on November 25, 1981.

It is known that Meegan, who was educated in the Carmelite-run Terenure College, entered religious studies after finishing school, but left before taking vows. It is not clear where he trained or with what order.

Despite not qualifying as a priest, he was referred to as “Brother Meegan” in a series of press interviews he gave in the early 1980s. He also received a donation from Garret FitzGerald addressed to “Fr Meegan” during the early 1980s.

The Sunday Times revealed earlier this year that Icross was forced to repay almost €100,000 of public money to Irish Aid, the body that oversees government expenditure, after an audit. Allegations of a sexual nature have also been made against Meegan in recent weeks, with a number of Kenyan men claiming that they were sexually assaulted by the charity worker.

Meegan, who denies he ever assaulted or had sex with Kenyan men, is still based in Africa, where he continues to front Icross Kenya. He has also established a new organisation, New World International, a British-registered charity with an office in Nairobi.

He claims that he is the victim of an orchestrated campaign by rivals in other aid organisations.

Questions have also arisen in the past over Meegan’s academic qualifications. In 2006, it was discovered that he had overstated them, claiming that he had a doctorate, even though his qualification came from Knightsbridge University, an unaccredited “mail-order” college.

The charity boss has since completed a masters in community health from Trinity College and was also awarded an honorary “degree of doctor of medicine” from NUI Galway in 2006.

He previously told The Sunday Times that his doctorate from Knightsbridge had been obtained “in good faith”, claiming that a correspondence qualification was one of the few options available to somebody “in the remote bush in rural Africa with no phones or electricity”.

Dr Vincent Kenny, a former Icross board member, claims to have warned a series of government ministers responsible for overseas aid, including Liz O’Donnell, Conor Lenihan and Tom Kitt, that Meegan was exaggerating his qualifications.

Icross Ireland, the Irish wing of the charity he co-founded 30 years ago, is seeking to wind up its operations and redistribute €266,000 in its accounts, and as much again in bequests.

Icross Kenya has sought to take control of these funds and has issued a series of legal letters to Icross Ireland, claiming that the money was donated on the understanding that it was to be used in Kenya.