Kevin Mc Namara (bishop) - Appointed Archbishop of Dublin

Appointed Archbishop of Dublin

In 1984, the archdiocese of Dublin became vacant when its archbishop, Dermot Ryan, was given a senior appointment in the Roman Curia. (Ryan was expected to be made a cardinal as a result of the appointment but died suddenly in office before a consistory could be held.) The outspoken Bishop of Kerry was controversially picked to replace the more liberal Ryan in Dublin. Media reports linked his appointment to the ongoing tension between the papal nuncio in Ireland, Archbishop Alibrandi and the liberal Fine Gael–Labour Party coalition under Garret FitzGerald. Relations between Alibrandi and the coalition had broken down, with the government requesting that Alibrandi be removed because of his suspected closeness to Irish republicans in Sinn Féin and to the opposition Fianna Fáil party and in particular its leader, Charles Haughey. Critics accused Alibrandi of engineering McNamara's appointment in the belief that the outspoken McNamara could help derail the coalition's liberal policies on divorce and contraception. McNamara, as expected, took a far more outspoken stance of issues than had Ryan previously. While the coalition succeeded in liberalising the law on contraception, its efforts to amend the constitution on divorce were defeated.