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Champion of the Gaeilgeoirí: John Charles McQuaid and the Irish-language mass

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 July 2016

James P. Bruce*
Affiliation:
Wadham College, Oxford
*
*Wadham College, University of Oxford, james.bruce@history.ox.ac.uk

Abstract

In 1963 the Second Vatican Council voted overwhelmingly to introduce the vernacular into Roman Catholic worship. The Irish hierarchy decided that both Irish and English speakers should be catered for in the reformed liturgy. Within a few years John Charles McQuaid, archbishop of Dublin, had gained a widespread reputation as having gone further than his fellow bishops in the provision of masses in Irish. At the same time he was criticised for his lack of enthusiasm towards other areas of liturgical reform. This dichotomy stemmed from McQuaid’s deep dismay at the church’s new ecumenical direction and the possibility that it would lead to shared worship between Catholics and Protestants. Yet, as a senior prelate in the Catholic Church, he was obliged to implement each of the Council’s decrees, including those concerning the liturgy. McQuaid’s response was to introduce Vatican-approved changes to the mass, while simultaneously protecting the traditional liturgy he cherished. So he tried to re-establish the Latin rite on the same terms as those he had arranged for the Irish mass. Had he succeeded, the result would have been a reduction in the use of an English vernacular which he found offensive to his Catholic sensibilities.

Type
Research Article
Copyright
© Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 

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References

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22 An Coimisiún um Athbheochan na Gaeilge (Commission on the Restoration of the Irish Language), Summary, in English, of Final Report, 13 July 1963, Section VII (30) ‘The Church’.

23 Irish Times, 28 Nov. 1964.

24 Census of population of Ireland 1961, vii: Religion and birthplaces (Dublin, 1965), [http://www.cso.ie/en/census/historicalreports/census1961reports/census1961volume7–religionandbirthplaces/] (8 July 2013).

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31 Savage, Roland Burke, ‘The church in Dublin: 1940–1965’ in Studies, liv, no. 216 (winter, 1965), 296346Google Scholar.

32 Although few in number, supporters of a Gaelic Mass generated a huge amount of archival material, more than the combined correspondence from clergy and laity on every other aspect of the liturgical reforms.

33 United Irishman, Mar. 1965.

34 Deasún Breathnach to Fr Leon Ó Cuinnleáin, 15 Mar. 1965 (Dublin Diocesan Archive [hereafter D.D.A.], AB8/B/XXVII/8).

35 Sighle bean Uí Donnchada to McQuaid, 7 Dec. 1964 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/7).

36 Donncha Ó Laoire to McQuaid, 25 Jan. 1965 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/8).

37 Seán Franclín to McQuaid, 10 Oct. 1963 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/7).

38 Munster Express, 4 Aug. 1961.

39 Lesa Ní Mhunghaile, ‘Ó hUid, Tarlach’, in D.I.B.

40 Fr Leon Ó Cuinnleáin to McQuaid, 20 Jan. 1965 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/8).

41 McQuaid, ‘Irish vernacular’, 21 Jan. 1965 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/8).

42 Ó Cuinnleáin to McQuaid, 22 Jan. 1965 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/8).

43 McQuaid to Ó Cuinnleáin, 29 Jan. 1965 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/8).

44 Irish Times, 2 Feb. 1965.

45 Ó Cuinnleáin to McQuaid, 13 Feb. 1965 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/8).

46 McQuaid to Ó hUid, 25 Feb. 1965 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/8).

47 Father MacMahon, J. A., ‘The Irish vernacular and Cumann na Teaghlaigh Ghaelacha’, 11 Feb. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/10)Google Scholar; McQuaid to Diocesan clergy, 11 Feb. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/21). This notice was to be read at all masses on Sunday, 13 Feb. 1966.

48 Leon Ó Cuinnleáin, ‘Inniu and the Mass in Irish’, 26 Feb. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/10).

49 Osmond Dowling to McQuaid, 2 Mar. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/10); Irish Independent, 2 Mar. 1966.

50 Fr William Ferris to McQuaid, 2 Feb. 1965 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/8).

51 Seanad Éireann deb., lx, 410–11 (http://www.oireachtas-debates.gov.ie/) (20 Nov. 2013).

52 Donnchadh Ó hAodha, rúnaí to McQuaid, 30 June 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/10).

53 McQuaid to Liturgy Commission, 28 Feb. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/2).

54 Ó Cuinnleáin to McQuaid, 31 May 1965 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/9).

55 Irish Times, 31 Mar. 1966.

56 Irish Times, 2 Apr. 1966.

57 Dublin Liturgical Commission, minutes, 21 Dec. 1964 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/1).

58 Roibeard Ó Neachtáin to McQuaid, 11 May 1965 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/9).

59 Ó Cuinnleáin to McQuaid 11 Mar. 1965 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/8).

60 Proinsias Ó Mianáin to McQuaid, 7 Sept. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/10).

61 Irish Independent, 8 Mar. 1965.

62 Irish Press, 8 Mar. 1965.

63 Irish Times, 8 Mar. 1965.

64 Catholic Herald, 30 Apr. 1965; Arnold Lunn to Cardinal John Heenan, 11 Sept. 1965, (Westminster Diocesan Archive [hereafter W.D.A.], HE1/L6 a).

65 Liturgy files (W.D.A., HE1/L6 a).

66 Liturgy files (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII).

67 Spencer, Anthony E. C. W., Digest of statistics of the Catholic community of England and Wales, 1958–2005 (Taunton, 2007), p. 19Google Scholar.

68 John P. Keenan to Diocesan Office, 7 Apr. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/13).

69 Patrick J. McCann to McQuaid, 9 May 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/10).

70 S. Duffy to McQuaid, 4 May 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/10).

71 McQuaid’s friendship with Éamon de Valera began in the late-1920s when the latter’s son, Vivion, was a student at Blackrock College where McQuaid taught. The relationship deepened during the following decade as de Valera rose to political power and McQuaid became a close adviser, notably in the drafting of the 1937 Constitution. Following McQuaid’s elevation to archbishop differences arose from time to time between the two men on matters of public policy, such as health and education. Despite such disputes, their relationship remained generally cordial up to McQuaid’s death in April 1973: Cooney, John Charles McQuaid, p. 336.

72 John Jordon to McQuaid, 15 Apr. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/10).

73 Patrick Browne to McQuaid, 18 Feb. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/10).

74 Veronica Cahill to McQuaid, 8 May 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/10).

75 J. Brennan to McQuaid, 23 Oct. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/10).

76 Inniu, 9 Sept. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/10).

77 Irish Times, 17 Apr. 1969.

78 An article by Louis McRedmond in the Irish Independent (2 Apr. 1969) reported that some (unnamed) Dublin clergy were dissatisfied with McQuaid’s prohibition of certain liturgical innovations, such as the use of any musical instrument other than the organ. The article claimed that dissatisfaction was ‘most evident in the religious orders’. Father Walsh was a member of the Dominican order, based in Tallaght, Co. Dublin (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/3).

79 MacMahon to Walsh, 12 Apr. 1969. In a handwritten draft of this letter dismissing Walsh, which was subsequently sent by his secretary in typed form, McQuaid wrote: ‘[His Grace] expects that, in loyalty, you will respect the directions of the Diocesan authority in [Sacred] Liturgy, both in public and in private’. This sentence was omitted from the final letter, suggesting that McQuaid had second thoughts about Walsh having spoken to the press. McQuaid later recorded in a handwritten note (17 Feb. 1970) that Fr Hynes, a member of the Dominican community, told him that Fr Walsh ‘had not given anything to the newspapers’ (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/3). According to Cooney, Walsh went abroad to teach following the controversy: Cooney, John Charles McQuaid, p. 402.

80 See Cooney, John Charles McQuaid, pp 155–73.

81 Canon John Kelly to McQuaid, 31 Jan. 1965 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/21).

82 McQuaid to Kelly, 1 Feb. 1965 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/21).

83 Fr Maurice R. O’Neill to MacMahon, 27 Sept. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/10).

84 Although the D.D.A. does not hold a copy of the parish bulletin, several of McQuaid’s correspondents quoted from the offending article in their letters to him, e.g. Ó Mianáin to McQuaid, 22 May 1967 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/11).

85 Liam Ó Lonargáin, rúnaí to Diocesan office, 23 May 1967 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/11).

86 Ó Cuinnleáin to McQuaid, 25 May 1967 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/11).

87 MacMahon to Fr. Maurice O’Neill, 26 Sept. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/10). MacMahon to Canon Frederick Hooke, 2 Feb. 1967 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/11).

88 Opposition to compulsory Irish in schools was evident from the 1920s onwards: Kelly, Compulsory Irish, pp 14–21.

89 Ibid., p. 38.

90 Irish Times, 21 Feb. 1964.

91 Ibid., 14 Sept. 1965.

92 Irish Press, 30 June 1966.

93 Irish Times, 7 July 1966.

94 Daly, Mary E., ‘Less a commemoration of the actual achievements and more a commemoration of the hopes of the men of 1916’, in Mary E. Daly and Margaret O’Callaghan (eds), 1916 in 1966: commemorating the Easter Rising (Dublin, 2007), pp 5455Google Scholar.

95 Moynihan, Maurice (ed.), Speeches and statements by Eamon de Valera, 1917–73 (Dublin, 1980), p. 606Google Scholar.

96 Daly, ‘Less a commemoration’.

97 Irish Times, 23 Oct. 1968. Comharchumann Cualann was a small Dublin-based body which promoted the use of Irish through educational and cultural activities.

98 ‘Liturgy renewal in Ireland: a report’, The Furrow, xvii, no. 5 (May, 1966), pp 297–312.

99 Census of population of Ireland 1961, ix: Irish language (Dublin, 1966).

100 McQuaid address to Secondary Education Congress held in The Hague, 1 Aug. 1933, ‘Some aspects of the present condition of Catholic Secondary Education in Ireland’ (D.D.A. AB8/A/VII.70).

101 Sir John Maffey to Sir Eric Machtig, 4 July 1945 (T.N.A, P.R.O., D.O. 35/2087).

102 Cooney, John Charles McQuaid, p. 354. While the archbishop of Dublin is designated primate of Ireland, the archbishop of Armagh is primate of All Ireland, thereby regarded as the more senior of the two.

103 Breslin to McQuaid, 8 Feb. 1970 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/14); Leigh Doyle to McQuaid, 11 Apr. 1970 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/6); O’Donnell to McQuaid, 24 Feb. 1968 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/14).

104 Irish Independent, 2 Apr. 1969.

105 McMahon, ‘John Charles McQuaid’.

106 In 1965, John Robinson, Anglican bishop of Woolwich, reported a conversation he had with Cardinal Augustin Bea, head of the Vatican’s Secretariat for Promoting Christian Unity. According to Robinson, Bea declared simply that ‘the Counter-Reformation is over’. Robinson took this to mean ‘that the whole period during which the life of the Roman Catholic Church had been conditioned by reaction to Protestantism is now at an end’: Robinson, John A. T., The new Reformation? (London, 1965), p. 9Google Scholar.

107 ‘Unitatis Redintegratio’ (Decree on Ecumenism), 21 Nov. 1964, The Holy See [http://www.vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_decree_19641121_unitatis-redintegratio_en.html], retrieved 8 July 2013.

108 McQuaid to Archbishop Dino Staffa, 6 Oct. 1964 (D.D.A., AB8/VC/XLV/9b).

109 Irish Press, ‘Lenten Pastoral: Spiritual renewal only by one true faith’, 12 Mar. 1968.

110 For example, in his letter of 9 Jan. 1969 to mark the Church Unity Octave, McQuaid wrote: ‘It is the tragedy of our human history that men have disrupted by their errors and sins the very unity that Jesus Christ had prayed for and established. They who have entered into such a heritage may not justly be blamed for adhering to tenets that, in error, they sincerely believe to be true. Only the light of God the Holy Ghost and the courage of His grace can bring our separated brethren to understand and to accept the claims of the one true Church founded by Jesus Christ, the Catholic Church’ (D.D.A., AB8/B/XLVI/219).

111 Canon Charles Gray-Stack comments as reported in the Irish Times, 14 Jan. 1965.

112 Rev. Massey H. Shepherd, Episcopalian observer at the Vatican Council, commented on Sacrosanctum Concilium: ‘What is so exciting now is that this community of worship can be more easily grasped by any worshipper in the two respective Communions – not only because of the increasing use of the vernacular in the Roman liturgy, but also by reason of current changes in structure of the rites that are taking place in both traditions’: Shepherd, Massey H. Jr., ‘The Liturgy’, in Bernard C. Pawley (ed.), The Second Vatican Council: studies by eight Anglican observers (London, 1967), pp 149174Google Scholar.

113 McQuaid to Bishop Donald J. Herlihy, 26 Apr. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XV/26/69).

114 I.C.E.L. Constitution, 20 Oct. 1965 (W.D.A., HE1/L5 – 1).

115 Members of I.C.E.L. were Australia, Canada, England and Wales, India, Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland, Southern Africa, and the United States of America.

116 I.C.E.L. report to the Episcopal Conferences, 28 Oct. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/17).

117 Ibid. ‘Ecumenical consultation and collaboration’ was effected through a separate committee known as the International Consultation on English Texts (I.C.E.T.) comprising representatives of the Roman Catholic, Anglican, Presbyterian, Lutheran, Baptist, Methodist and Congregationalist churches. This group was set up and managed by I.C.E.L.: Jasper, Ronald, The development of the Anglican liturgy 1662–1980 (London, 1989), pp 288295Google Scholar.

118 McQuaid to Conway, 28 Dec. 1963, (D.D.A., AB8/VC/XLV/16).

119 McQuaid to Conway, 20 Sept. 1967 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XV/C/92).

120 McQuaid, Liturgy texts, 2 Aug. 1969 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/24).

121 Paul VI, ‘Missale Romanum’, 3 Apr. 1969, The Holy See [http://www.vatican.va/holy_father/paul_vi/apost_constitutions/documents/hf_p-vi_apc_19690403_missale-romanum_en.html] (25 May 2013).

122 McQuaid, The Sacred Liturgy, 20 Feb. 1964 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/21).

123 McQuaid, letter to diocesan clergy, 9 Nov. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/22).

124 McQuaid to Conway, 20 Sept. 1967 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XV/C/92).

125 O’Carroll, Michael, ‘Inspired educator and ecumenist of sorts’, in Studies, lxxxvii, no. 348 (winter, 1998), pp 365371Google Scholar.

126 Rynne, First Session, p. 108.

127 Carty, Francis X., ‘How John Charles McQuaid, Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin (1940–72) managed the issue of the Second Vatican Council from 1959 to 1972’ (Ph.D. thesis, Dublin Institute of Technology, 2006), p. 179Google Scholar; Lehane, Aidan, ‘The visitor’, in Studies, lxxxvii, no. 348 (winter, 1998), pp 392395Google Scholar.

128 McQuaid to Boylan, 27 Apr. 1967 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/2).

129 Kevin J. Cathcart, ‘Boylan, Patrick Joseph’, in D.I.B.; Boylan to McQuaid, 3 Dec. 1968 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/3).

130 Boylan to McQuaid, 28 Apr. 1967 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/2).

131 Sacrosanctum Concilium. (The Ordinary of the mass refers to those parts of the liturgy that are invariable, e.g. the creed.).

132 McQuaid annotation, 1 May 1967 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/2). Emphasis in original.

133 McQuaid, undated note, (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/22). Although undated, McQuaid’s reference to the ‘new Ordo Missae’ and its position in the file suggests that he wrote the note no earlier than February 1970.

134 McQuaid, 11 Feb. 1966 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/21).

135 McQuaid, 29 Jun. 1971 (D.D.A., AB8/B/XXVII/3).

136 Irish Press, 17 Jan. 1972.

137 The author is grateful to Dr Tadhg Ó hAnnracháin, School of History & Archives, U.C.D., for his invaluable comments on earlier drafts of this article.