Mick Kennedy

Michael Kennedy (born 1950 ) is an Irish Catholic priest and former hurler from Birr, County Offaly, who played as a full-back for the Offaly senior team.

Family and early life Kennedy was one of 11 children of a CIÉ bus inspector distantly related to the Kennedy family of American politics. After the Leaving Certificate, Michael entered Donamon Castle, the seminary of the Society of the Divine Word, intending to become a missionary priest, but left to get treatment for a stammer. In 1981 he won a second Leinster and first All-Ireland medal an unused substitute in both finals. Questioned by Mick Dunne after the latter, he said "I drank, I smoked, I prayed."

Kennedy retired as an intercounty player after his 1981 ordination. While stationed in Clonmel he played for St Mary's, reaching the South Tipperary Senior Championship final in 1988. Later he commuted to Birr to train the club team, taking them to the 1993 Offaly Senior Championship final. and the 1998 funeral of Michael LeMoyne Kennedy in Brookline, Massachusetts. In July 1999, he was at the Kennedy Compound for Rory's wedding when John F. Kennedy Jr. was killed en route. He described the events weeks later as a guest on Pat Kenny's first episode of The Late Late Show.

1995 AIDS story A sermon Kennedy preached at two masses in Dungarvan on 10 September 1995 caused a sensation. He claimed an unnamed local woman who had emigrated to London ten years previously had returned after testing HIV positive and was having casual sex in a bid to infect as many men as possible, with five having already tested positive and scores more awaiting results. No corroborating evidence emerged and Kennedy continually revised his account. Feminists criticised it as propagating a temptress stereotype. Rumours named two different women as the "Angel of Death" or "AIDS Avenger", one of whom later alleged harassment in subsequent months. In 2007 Kennedy was reported to be still insisting on the veracity of his claims. In October 2006 two drug addicts he had befriended were convicted of making unwarranted demands with menace for money, after a 2003 threat to falsely accuse him of sexual abuse. Kennedy had been suspended from ministry after reporting the 2003 threat. He spent time in Canada but returned to Dunhill in early 2006 and began saying Mass in defiance of his suspension. Parishioners were reportedly divided, some supporting Kennedy and others Bishop William Lee. In 2016 a church spokesman said Kennedy was "subject to a monitoring programme involving both the diocesan authorities and the Gardaí" but had not been laicised.