John Charles McQuaid - Archbishop of Dublin 1940-72

Archbishop of Dublin 1940-72

He was appointed Archbishop of Dublin on 6 November 1940 at the age of 45. His motto was ‘Testimonium Perhibere Veritati’-"to bear witness to the truth". McQuaid oversaw a massive expansion of the Catholic Church in the Archdiocese of Dublin during his term. He also established a wide range of social services for the poor of the city. He is especially remembered for his work in the area of charity. In the first year of his episcopate he oversaw the establishment of the Catholic Social Welfare Conference which co-ordinated the work of the great number of charitable organisations existing in the city. The following year(1942) he set up the Catholic Social Welfare Bureau which helped emigrants and their families. He had a personal interest in providing for people who suffered physically, mentally and spiritually. During his episcopate the number of clergy increased from 370 to 600, the number of religious from 500 to 700 and the number of parishes from 71 to 131. In addition some 80 new churches were built, 250 primary schools and 100 secondary schools.

In a 1998 article in Studies, historian Dermot Keogh wrote about the effect of the Archbishop's work on his own life as a schoolboy: "Between 1940 and 1972, the year of his resignation as archbishop, Dr McQuaid had helped provide 47 new parishes in the archdiocese, together with the necessary primary and secondary educational infrastructure in each of those areas. My generation had been a beneficiary of that policy. In the early 1950s, I had moved from the small two-roomed school beside the old church in Raheny to new premises carved out of the nearby St Anne's woods. There the classes grew exponentially - to 56 in my case. Here was a measure for social change and for the new pastoral challenge facing the Catholic Church in the 1950s - a decade of high emigration, high unemployment and the expansion of the working class into the Dublin suburbs."

This record of phenomenal expansion had one curious side effect. Dublin has two Protestant Cathedrals built in the Middle Ages but no Catholic Cathedral. The centre of the Catholic Archdiocese is the 19th century St Mary's Pro-Cathedral in a side street near the city centre. The Pro-Cathedral was never intended to be other than a temporary acting cathedral, pending the availability of funds to build a full cathedral. (In the aftermath of the 1921 Treaty the Church of Ireland offered to return either St.Patrick's Cathedral or Christ Church to the Roman Catholic Church in Ireland: they refused the offer)Archbishop McQuaid bought the gardens in the centre of Merrion Square and announced plans to erect a cathedral there. However, he felt obliged to use the funds originally designated for the new cathedral to build the new churches and schools instead. His successor eventually handed over the gardens to Dublin Corporation and they are now a public park. As a result of the Archbishop's sense of priorities, Dublin still has no Catholic Cathedral.

Dr. McQuaid also took a keen interest in industrial relations and was involved in resolving several disputes during his time as Archbishop. During the Teachers Strike of 1946 he sympathised with the teachers and actively supported them.

McQuaid also controversially extended the ban on Catholics attending Trinity College, Dublin. Originally Catholics had objected to being excluded from the university from 1695 until the Irish 1793 Roman Catholic Relief Act was passed. In the ensuing century Trinity came to be seen as a dangerous bastion of Protestant influence in Ireland. Exemptions were granted to businessmen such as Al Byrne (in 1948), provided that they did not join any college societies. The policy gave rise to a doggerel verse: "Young men may loot, perjure and shoot / And even have carnal knowledge / But however depraved, their souls will be saved / If they don't go to Trinity College".