the law on contraception, its efforts to amend the constitution on divorce were defeated. Death McNamara's service in Dublin was short-lived. Already suffering from what proved to be terminal cancer, Archbishop McNamara died in April 1987 after a three year battle with the disease, months after the Fine Gael minority government had been defeated in the 1987 general election. Archbishop McNamara was succeeded as archbishop by a university lecturer, Desmond Connell. Later linked to non-reporting of clerical sex abuse cases In the early 2000s amid growing scandals within the Catholic Church in Ireland about clerical sex abuse, it was revealed that as archbishop Kevin McNamara had sought legal advice as to the Church's liability arising from such abuse. References Roman Catholic archbishops of Dublin Roman Catholic bishops of Kerry 20th-century Roman Catholic archbishops in Ireland 1926 births 1987 deaths Ecclesiastical passivity to Catholic sexual abuse cases