Archbishop Croke.

Auckland Star, Volume XXI, Issue 223, 20 September 1890, Page 4 (Supplement)

Archbishop Croke.

Forty years ago, when a young curate in the county of Cork, Dr. Croke, Archbishop of Cashel, was a recognised figure in Irish politics. He preached the doctrine of the Land" League when Mr Parnell and Mr Davitb were in their nurses' arms. Tha* was in 1849, when famine was stalking through the country, and the great clearances of that year were still impending. The outlook for the Irish tenant-farmers, as a class, was gloomy in the extreme ; they were unable to discharge their liabilities, and their only prospect of relief was a general reduction of rents. Dr. Croke straightway drew up a plan by which the landlords might be forced to adopt this issue, and submitted ib to the country. He would have the sol rent tenants on any given estate bind themselves, like honest men by solemn promise, not to propose for or receive the farm of an ejected or distressed tenant who himself sought, and was refused, a. reasonable abatement, unless the farm in question be given them on the conditions already proposed to, and refused by, the the landlord. The necessary resulb of bhis plan would be one of two things—either the rents would be reduced to the desired equitable level, or the landlords would be constrained to keep extensive tracts of country on their already enfeebled hands. Dr. Croke expressed his conviction thab if some such plan were adopted a serious inroad would be thereby made in landlord rule in Ireland, and some share of the Irish tenant farmers mighb yet hope to live and flourish. The farmers, however, did not hearken to his plan of campaign. What mighb have been had bhey adopted his counsels it is not for the writer to say. Thirty years after, Dr. Croke, as Archbishop of Cashel, was to witness bhe preaching of a similar crusade by the founders of the Land League. Nothing daunted, Dr. Croke worked on, and was one of the few sturdy Irish priests who took an active part in the land agitation of the 'Fifties,' when Sir Charles Gavan Duffy, with Frederick Lucas_ and Others, set about the making of an ' indeEendent,' as distinguished from the ' placeuriting,' Irish Party in the House of Commons. Thab movement did not long survive. It was deserted by most of those who had created it, and was opposed by the prelates of th« Catholic Church. Disgusted ab bhe turn affairs had taken, Dr. Croke said he would never again join any Irish agitation. In a remarkable letter to Sir Charles (then Mr) Gavan Duffy, when that genbleman was aboub to throw up his seat in Parliament and leave for Australia, Dr. Croke wrote :—' This much, however, I musb say, bhat our parby has been long since destroyed, and that there is no room in Ireland for an honest politician. For myself, I have determined never to join any Irish agibabion, never bo sign any petition to Government, and never bo trust bo any one man, or body of men, living in my time, for bhe recovery of Ireland's independence. All hope with me in Irish affairs is dead and buried. I have ever esteemed you at once the honestest and most gifted of my countrymen, and your departure from Ireland leaves me no hope.' That the Archbishop of Cashel is not of the same mind now, is well known. To-day he is the most active politician among the Catholic hierarchy of Ireland.

Archbishop Croke is a man of generous instincts, warm-hearted, full of humour, and a capital platform speaker. In these respects he is unlike his brother prelate, the Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Walsh, who is cold, and, in style of speaking, so academic and diffuse, as to easily tire an audience. Like the Cardinal-Arch-bishop of Westminster, Dr. Croke has been good material for the pen of the novelistpolitician. Mr Wm. O'Brien, in his novel ' When We Were Boys,' describes the Archbishop of Cashel as we know him to-day. Here is his portrait i—' " The doctor " Was the half-awesome, half-cares-sing Irish title of the Very Reverend Marcus O'Harte, D.D., bhe President of St. Fergal's —a strong-built, massive-headed, precipit-ous-looking figure, with masses of stormyclouded wrinkles piled over his eyebrows, in bhe region to which physiognomisbs assign quickness of perception and swiftness of acbion; an upper forehead where the ramparbs of bhe reflective powers were rounded off, as in all fine Celtic heads, into an imaginative arch; a square moubh, which would be a cruel mouth bub for a twitch of drollery that now and again trembled ab its corners ; and a wonderful grey eye, which always seemed to pierce you bhrough and bhrough, whether with a sun-ray or a darb of lightning.'

The subject of our sketch was born near Mallow, county Cork, and is now in hia sixty-seventh year. He was educated at bhe Irish College in Paris, that nursery of many an Irish ecclesiastical politician. Having passed with distinction through the usual course of studies, he was appointed to a professorship in the College of Messin, in Belgium. He soon after proceeded to Rome, entered the Irish College there, and also attended the lectures ab the Roman University. His three years' career in the ciby of the Popes was of much brilliancy ; he captured two gold medals, and took the degree of Doctor of Divinity. A year after winning these distinctions he was ordained priest and returned to Ireland. He then entered Carlow College as Professor of Rhetoric, and again went back to his Alma Mater, the Irish College in Paris, where he was engaged in teaching theology. In 1849 he reburned bo his native diocese, and was attached to the parish of Charleville, county Cork, until 1858, when he was appointed President of St. Colman's College, Fermoy. This important position Dr. Croke filled wibh honour to himself and benefit to his Church for seven years. He was bhen appoinbed to the pastoral charge of Doneraile and Chancellor of the Diocese of Cloyne. Five years later, in 1870, be was selected by the Roman Pontiff to fill the vacant bishopric of Auckland, New Zealand. He returned to Ireland fifteen years ago on his promotion to the Archiepiscopal Sco of Cashel, and during that time has played an important parb in the affairs of the country.

No other member of the Roman Catholic Episcopacy in Ireland is so popular with the people; none other displays less the ecclesiasticism of his high office. He is as sincere a politician as he is an earnest Churchman. He enters where many of his brother bishops fear to tread. The fund to Mr Parnell was started by him, and when bhe movement was unfavourably regarded by the Vatican, and the leading Irish bishops were summoned to Rome, he was the first to return to Ireland, proclaiming that 'he came back unchanged and unchangeable.' Unlike his junior bishop, Dr. O'Dwyer, of Limerick, he sees much virtue in the Plan of Campaign ; indeed, so great is his faith in the authors of it— Messrs O'Brien and Dillon—that any new tactics which they may think well of adopting in the land war are certain to receive his blessing. A man of the people, and conceiving it to be his duty to work for them, he is ever ready with his counsel and his potent help. Archbishop Croke'a is a stately figure, tall and well-proportioned,' with a face fresh and handsome. In manner he is frank and genial; and having been fond of athletics in his prime, he is to-day as vigorous as the youngest !r ecclesiastic in his diocese. He resides in Thurles, a little market-town with a mediaeval air situated in the heart of Tipperary. There is no mistaking bhe ecclesiastical cenbre of the Archdiocese of Cashel, grouped, as it is, with scholastic, religious, and historic buildings. Next to bhe Archbishop's house is a beautiful Byzantine-Romanesque Cathedral, which has been justly styled the mosb exquisite gem of ecclesiastical architecture in Ireland. Immediately opposite is the Diocesan Training College, an imposing building, worthy of a metropolitan city.

The Archbishop himself has never given any publication to bhe world, and never troubled the printers beyond writing an occasional preface for some religious work. Ah, yes ! we remember, he has once published a poem. He has no patience with those who find everything that is bad in amateur theatricals and in the amusements of the people generally. He rails ab those young men who affect the fashionable promenades of town and city, instead of straightening their backs on the athletic field, and on one occasion he gave vent to his feelings by turning out a song in which he satirised the 'masher' to the tune of Father Prout's ' Groves of Blarney.' Re. garding the study of Irish history, he says he could never bear to read such a cheerless chronicle. He is of opinion that it is infinibely bebter to make history, even in a small way, than to read or write folios aboui it.—From the London 'Echo.'