Daniel Mannix - Archbishop of Melbourne

Archbishop of Melbourne

Mannix opposed the Easter Rising in 1916 and always condemned the use of force by Irish nationalists, and he counselled Australians of Irish Catholic extraction to stay out of Irish politics. However he became increasingly radicalised, and in October 1920 he led an Irish republican funeral cortège through the streets of London following the death of hunger striker Terence MacSwiney, the Lord Mayor of Cork City in Mannix's native county.

In 1920, Mannix travelled from Melbourne to San Francisco and then by train he journeyed to New York in order to take passage on the White Star Line ship the Baltic to Ireland. A rally reported to be made up of 15,000 New York Irish was organized on July 31 at the White Star Line docks at Pier 60, Chelsea Piers on the West side of New York. This show of support was to send off Mannix, who had been so outspoken on the English rule in Ireland, and successfully led anti conscription campaigns during WW1. The rally ensured that Lloyd George would allow Mannix passage to Ireland. However shortly before the RMS Baltic was due to arrive in Cork Harbour with Mannix onboard it was stopped and boarded by British military who arrested Mannix and transferred him directly to England.

By the end of the war Mannix was the recognised leader of the Irish community in Australia, idolised by Catholics but detested by others, including those in power federally and in Victoria. For many years he was ostracised and not invited to the official functions his position would have entitled him to attend. Mannix formed the Irish Relief Fund, which provided financial support for the families of those shot or imprisoned by the British. When he left Australia in 1920, to visit Rome and the USA, the British government refused him permission to visit Ireland or British cities with large Irish populations, which resulted in an extended stay in Penzance. There was also a serious, though unsuccessful, move to prevent him returning to Australia.

Mannix supported trade unionism but opposed militancy and strikes. In the 1920s he became outspoken in opposition to the Industrial Workers of the World and the Communist Party of Australia. On all matters of personal and sexual morality, he was a traditionalist and an upholder of the authority of the Church.

In Melbourne, Mannix was the leader of the city's largest ethnic minority as well as a religious leader. From his palatial house, Raheen, in Kew, Melbourne, he would daily walk to and from St. Patrick's Cathedral, personally greeting any of his flock that he encountered. On official engagements he was chauffeured about in a large limousine. In 1920 he led an enormous St Patrick's Day parade with a guard of honour made up of Irish Australian winners of the Victoria Cross.

After the Irish Free State was created in 1922, Mannix became less politically controversial and animosity to him gradually faded for the most part. From the 1930s he came to see Communism as the main threat to the Church and he became increasingly identified with political conservatism. He was a strong supporter of Lyons, who left the Labor Party in 1931 and led the conservative United Australia Party in government from 1932 until 1939, although he continued to support Catholics in the Labor Party such as Calwell.

Mannix's best-known protégé in his later years was B.A. Santamaria, a young Italian-Australian lawyer, whom Mannix appointed head of the National Secretariat of Catholic Action in 1937. After 1941, Mannix authorised Santamaria to form the Catholic Social Studies Movement, known simply as The Movement, to organise in the unions and defeat the Communists. The Movement was so successful in its efforts that by 1949 it had taken control of the Victorian branch of the Labor Party. Another associate was William Hackett, a Jesuit priest from Ireland, who had been involved in the Irish Republic's struggle for independence from Britain before being posted to Australia.

In 1951 the Liberal Party of Australia government of Robert Menzies held a referendum to give the government the constitutional power to ban the Communist Party. Mannix surprised many of his supporters by opposing this, on the grounds that it would give the Communists a propaganda victory and drive them underground: his may have been a decisive influence in the referendum's narrow defeat. This alliance with the Labor leader, Dr. H.V. Evatt was short-lived, however.

The Labor Party split again in 1954 over attitudes to Communism and the Cold War. Santamaria's supporters were expelled and formed the Democratic Labor Party (DLP). Mannix covertly supported the DLP and allowed many priests and religious to work openly for it. This involvement in politics was opposed by the head of the Australian Church, Norman Thomas Gilroy, Cardinal Archbishop of Sydney, and also by the Vatican. Rome appointed Archbishop Justin Simonds as coadjutor to Mannix - Simonds was widely seen as Rome's man in Melbourne.

In the late 1940s and 1950s, Mannix spoke against the White Australia policy that was in action at the time. He described the policy as “crude” and said that Australia had much to learn from other races. In his opposition to the policy, Mannix stated in 1949 that “there is no colour bar in Australia”.

In 1960 Calwell became Labor leader and sought Mannix's support to bring about a reconciliation between Labor and the DLP, essential if the Menzies government was to be defeated. Some figures in the DLP supported this idea, but Mannix supported Santamaria in his resistance to such suggestions. The negotiations fell through and Menzies was re-elected in 1961. Mannix and Calwell became permanently estranged.

By the 1960s the distinct identity of the Irish community in Melbourne was fading, and Irish Catholics were increasingly outnumbered by Italians, Maltese and other postwar immigrant Catholic communities. Mannix, who turned 90 in 1954, remained active and in full authority, but he was no longer a central figure in the city's politics. He died suddenly on 6 November 1963, aged 99, while the Church was preparing to celebrate his 100th birthday. He was buried in the crypt of St Patrick's Cathedral, Melbourne.