Secret Life
Three weeks after his death in 1993 (from throat cancer), The Phoenix, a national news magazine, published an article revealing that Cleary had fathered a child, Ross Hamilton, with Phyllis Hamilton, who had worked as his longtime housekeeper. This claim was subsequently confirmed by DNA analysis, but the remaining Cleary family refused to acknowledge the boy.
Cleary had a 26-year relationship with Hamilton, his common-law wife, which started in the 1960s when she was 17 and he was about ten years older {CORRECTION: he was 17 years older}. They had two sons. The first was given up for adoption, but they raised the second together.
Cleary pretended simply to be Hamilton's employer. She said in a ghost-written memoir published in 1995 that Cleary had taken marriage vows with her in a private ceremony with no third party present. She died in 2001 from ovarian cancer.
Read more about this topic: Michael Cleary (priest)
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