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Cardinal Cullen and Irish nationality

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 July 2016

E. D. Steele
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Extract

Paul Cullen (1803-78) became archbishop of Armagh in 1849, after long service as rector of the Irish College in Rome, returned to Ireland the following vear, was translated to Dublin in 1852 and created cardinal in 1866. The picture of Cardinal Cullen as a prelate whose brand of ultramontanism made him an inveterate opponent of Irish nationalism, both constitutional and revolutionary, ought not to have survived the work of Monsignor Corish, Fr Mac-Suibhne and Dr John Whyte. In fact, this caricature has been perpetuated by such established historians as Professor Dudley Edwards, Dr F. S. L. Lyons and others. They continue to reproduce the hostile view which several generations of nationalist writers have taken of Cullen’s actions and motives in Irish politics. Take the charge that in the 1850s he tried to put an end to the clerical participation in politics which had been so important in the national movement. ‘Archbishop Cullen of Dublin attempted to withdraw the clergy completely from politics’ —thus Professor Edwards in A new history of Ireland (1972), writing as if Dr MThyte had never examined this question with the compulsive impartiality typical of him.

Type
Research Article
Information
Irish Historical Studies , Volume 19 , Issue 75 , March 1975 , pp. 239 - 260
Copyright
Copyright © Irish Historical Studies Publications Ltd 1975

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References

1 Edwards, R.D., A new history of Ireland (Dublin, 1972), p. 177 Google Scholar Mgr Gorish is the author of ‘Cardinal Cullen and the National Association of Ireland’ in Reportorium Novum, iii, no. 1 (1962), of ‘Political problems, 1860–18785 in Corish, , Ir. Catholicism, 5, 3 (1967),Google Scholar and has summarised a number of Cullen’s letters in his recent contribution’ Irish College, Rome Kirby papers’ to Archiv. Hib., xxx (1972). For the work of MacSuibhne and Whyte, see notes 27 and 29 below. The present writer does not accept the thesis of the Rev Dr E. R. Norman that Cullen ‘had no political theories, only religious and ecclesiastica] ones’ (Cath. ch. & Ire., p. 10).

2 Lyons, F S. L., Ireland since the famine (London, 1971), p. 108.Google Scholar

3 Robert, Kee, The green flag (London, 1972), pp 294, 354.Google Scholar

4 Strauss, E., Irish nationalism and British democracy (London, 1951), p. 152.Google Scholar

5 Beckett, J.G., Mod. Ire., p. 358.Google Scholar

6 Moran, P F. (ed.), The pastoral letters and other writings of Cardinal Cullen (3 vols, Dublin, 1882; hereafter cited as Moran), ii, 297 Google Scholar

7 Cullen to Moran, 7 July 1865 (Dublin Diocesan Archives, hereafter cited as D.D.A.).

8 Cullen to Bishop J J. Lynch of Toronto, 13 May 1864 (ibid.).

9 Cullen to Spalding, 12 Nov. 1864 (ibid.).

10 Cullen to Mgr T Kirby, 28 July 1864 (ibid.).

11 Cullen to Moran, 16 Dec. 1864 (ibid.).

12 The Times, 25 Oct. 1878.

13 Cullen to Gray, 11 Mar. 1869 (D.D.A.).

14 John Lambert to Gladstone, 27 Sept. 1869 (B.M., Gladstone papers, Add. MS. 44235).

15 Moran, ii, p. 298.

16 Hansard 3, cxiv, 189 (7 Feb. 1851).

17 Moran, i, 694–5.

18 Cullen to Kenelm Digby, 19 Apr. 1864 (D.D.A.).

19 As above.

20 Letters of 2 and 12 June 1871 to Patrick Kenna (ibid.).

21 Kenrick to Cullen, 19 Jan. 1858; see also Connolly to Cullen, 10 Jan. 1860 (ibid.).

22 Cullen to Archdeacon Redmond, 3 Mar. 1876 (ibid.).

23 Cullen to Bishop Ryan of Limerick, Easter Monday and 17 Mar ; to Archdeacon Fitzgerald, 12 Apr 1856 (ibid.).

24 Connolly to Cullen, 10 Jan. 1860 (ibid.).

25 O’Farrell, Patrick, Ireland’s English question (London, 1971), p. 89.Google Scholar

26 Ibid., p. 95.

27 Cullen to Cardinal Fransoni, 12 July 1853, in MacSuibhne, Peadar, Paul Cullen and his contemporaries (3 vols, Naas, 1961–5, hereafter cited as MacSuibhne), 3, 177.Google Scholar

28 Circular to clergy of Dublin city, 28 Mar 1857 (D.D.Α.).

29 J H. Whyte, Indep. Ir. party; ‘Fresh light on Archbishop Cullen and the Tenant League’ in I.E.R. (series 5), xcix (Jan. 1963); and ‘Political problems, 1850–1860’ in Corish, , Ir. Catholicism, 5, 2 (1967)Google Scholar.

30 Lucas to Gullen, 6 Apr. 1852 (D.D.A.).

31 Cullen to Smith, 8 Mar. 1852, in MacSuibhne, iii, 113.

32 Lucas to Gullen, 23 May [1852] (D.D.A.).

33 Cullen to Smith, 8 Mar. 1852, in MacSuibhne, iii, 113.

34 Wilberforce to Cullen, 15 Mar. 1852 (D.D.A.).

35 Lucas to Cullen, 23 May [1852] (ibid.).

36 Wilberforce to Cullen, The Annunciation, 1852 (ibid.).

37 Report from the select committee on complaint (7th February), ., H.C. 1854 (314), viii, 1–468.

38 Ball to Cullen, 21 July [1854] (D.D.A.).

39 As above.

40 Howard to Gullen, 2 Sept. 1854 (ibid.).

41 Cullen to O’Reilly, 14 Apr. 1864 (ibid.).

42 Moran, i, 503–4.

43 Cullen to Kirby, 21 Apr. 1865 (D.D.A.).

44 Cullen to The O’Donoghue M.P., 17 Sept. 1859 (ibid.).

45 Hist. Jn., xiii, no. 1 (Mar. 1970).

46 Cullen to Ambrose Lisle Phillipps, 4 June 1859 (D.D.A.). Phillipps is better known as Ambrose March-Phillipps de Lisle, the name he adopted in 1863.

47 Cullen to E. Reilly, 20 June 1859 (ibid.).

48 Maguire to Cullen, n.d. but probably 1859 (ibid.).

49 The O’Donoghue to Cullen, 26 Sept. [1859] (ibid.).

50 Cullen to Sir C. Domvile, Bt., 13 May 1865 (ibid.).

51 G. H. Moore to J. B. Dillon, n.d., enclosure in Dillon to Cullen, 16 Feb. 1865 (ibid.).

52 Moran, ii, 484, 486, 493.

53 Edwards, op. cit., p. 178.

54 Moran, ii, 291.

55 Ibid., p. 397.

56 Ibid., p. 399.

57 Ibid., p. 149.

58 Ibid., p. 397

59 Ibid., iii, 278.

60 Ibid., ii, 394.

61 Mitchel, John, Jail journal (repr, Dublin, 1913)Google Scholar, preface by Arthur Griffith, p. xiv

62 Moran, ii, 401 ; iii, 61.

63 Cullen to O’Brien, 9 Jan. 1868 (D.D.A.).

64 Butt to Lord Palmerston, 3 Nov and 17 Dec. 1860, Palmerston papers (GC/BU/622 and 623), by permission of the trustees of the Broadlands Archives.

65 Dease to Cullen, n.d. but probably between Dec. 1871 and Feb. 1872 (D.D.Α.). See Corish, , Ir. Catholicism, 5, 3, p. 53 note 25.Google Scholar

66 Thornley, , Isaac Butt, pp 180–81.Google Scholar

67 Moran, iii, 253; Royal commission of inquiry into primary education (Ireland), vol. iii, [C6-11] H.C. 1870, xxviii, pt III, pp 370–85, evidence of Brother J. A. Grace, 10 June 1868, representing the Christian Brothers, esp. answers 9469–70.

68 Cullen to Moran, 3 Feb. 1865 (D.D.A.).

69 Moran, iii, p. 149.

70 Royal commission of inquiry into primary education (Ireland), vol. iv [C6-111] H.C. 1870, xxviii, pt IV, pp 1261–2, Cullen’s evidence, 27 Apr. 1869, answer 27412. I am deeply grateful to the present archbishop of Dublin and his predecessor for giving me access to Cardinal Cullen’s papers, and to Fr Kevin Kennedy for his kindness and patience when I was working in the Diocesan Archives.