John Charles McQuaid - Appointed Archbishop 1940

Appointed Archbishop 1940

McQuaid's appointment in 1940 to the archdiocese of Dublin, the most important and populous in the country, came at a more stable point in Irish politics – following the violence involving the IRA and the Blueshirts and the tensions caused by the economic war with the UK in the 1930s. The beginning of "the Emergency" (Ireland's term for the Second World War), had produced a new mode of national consensus. Also McQuaid's relations with the Taoiseach, Éamon de Valera, were excellent in contrast to most of the hierarchy who were distinctly cool towards him. From the evidence of Irish Government archives made available in the 1990s it is clear that de Valera had pressed McQuaid's candidacy on the Vatican. However, it is doubtful if the Vatican needed much urging. McQuaid had an outstanding reputation as a Catholic educationalist and had been close to Archbishop Edward Byrne of Dublin, his immediate predecessor. His name had already been mentioned in connection with his native diocese of Kilmore.

However de Valera was later to state that he had also been impressed by McQuaid's social concerns at a time when the hardships of the war were particularly affecting the poor. The hierarchy and clergy of the Irish Church reflected the views of the strong and middling farmer class from which they were mostly drawn and were uncomprehending of urban life and poverty. McQuaid, as de Valera knew was different and this was reflected in his first Lenten pastoral in 1941. "The very widespread yearning for social peace is itself proof of the grave need of social reform", McQuaid wrote. But he emphasised that "whatever shape the detailed reform of the social structure ultimately may take, the only lasting basis of reconstruction can be the true faith that we profess."

David C. Sheehy, Dublin diocesan archivist wrote in 2003 that "McQuaid saw the achievement of high office as the natural and appropriate outcome for someone of his background, education and talents. Like Bernard Law Montgomery taking over command of the British Eight Army before El Alamein, in the late summer of 1942, McQuaid's accession to the See of Dublin, less than two years before, unleashed a man of ability combined with prodigious energy and in his prime. For Monty and McQuaid, prima donnas both, everything that had gone before in their very different lives had been but a preparation for the assumption of senior command and for the challenge of a lifetime. Like warriors of old, they gratefully responded to the bugle call and strode forward to claim their place in history."