DUBLIN — Cardinal Desmond Connell, whose tenure as Dublin’s Roman Catholic archbishop was dominated by revelations of pedophilia in the priesthood, died Tuesday at age 90.

Cardinal Connell oversaw the archdiocese from 1988 to 2004 and was elevated to cardinal in 2001.

Cardinal Connell, who spent 35 years as a University College Dublin theologian before his appointment, said in 2002 that the child abuse scandals then sweeping through the Catholic Church in Ireland had devastated his time in office.

State-funded investigations of the church’s efforts to conceal child abuse within its ranks found that he typically shielded priests from possible criminal investigations, and faulted him for trying to keep the archdiocese’s own records on abuse cases secret.