The Late Archbishop of Dublin 1841 1921

New Zealand Tablet, 15 September 1921, Page 17

The Late Archbishop of Dublin 1841 1921

By Michael Curran, Irish College, Rome, in the 'Dublin Review •

Early on April 9, amid national grief, died William Joseph Walsh, Archbishop of Diiblin, in his eighty-first year. ; On the E 14th al} Ireland came to lay him to rest afer a -century's service to God and to two generations, of his people in the last home of her great dead — with the defender of Tone under the shadow of the monument of the Liberator; among the graves of the leaders who had spent themselves for the Motherland.

J He had known, them all, save one. As a child he had received the blessing of O'Connell. His boyish heart had been with the Young Irelanders and to. his old age he never forgot their ideals. The Fenian movement saw him a seminarist, and though he could by no means see eye to eye with its chiefs, he did not share Cardinal Cullen's hostility. The leaders of the subsequent movement had the support of his strenuous manhood. When the Home Rule movement failed, its successor found him to the end ready to give more than a sympathetic trial, to pay tribute to the sacrifice of its martyrs, and to give the benefit of his counsel and experience.

Doubtless, some of the ( returning mourners recalled the demonstration when the Archbishop arrived from Rome to take possession fif his See; a welcome unseen before, unequalled since, which expressed the release of a people from the net flung round them by the Whig remnants of • the Pale ascendency against which Archbishop Croke had been gallantly struggling and their awakening from a nightmare of thirty-six years. His predecessor, Cardinal MacCabe, a truly apostolic priest and efficient Vicar-General, was not fitted, as he sadly confessed himself, for the See of Dublin in troubled days; and Cardinal Cullen never intended him as his assistant, much less as 'his successor. He honestly aimed at doing what he thought Cullen would have done. On the other hand, his successor, an intimate of Cullen, always maintained that if MacCabe only thought and acted for himself he would have acted rightly, but the unfortunate outcome of his good intention was that he did what Cullen would never have done.

Without his predecessor's ability or personality and knowing nothing of politics,, he reverted to Troy and : Murray's servile attitude of dependence on the state, instead of "continuing Cullen's independence. Cullen's role has never been justly appreciated and his policy has been misrepresented. He was a; lonely'and austere figure with * the reformer's task laid on his shoulders. His personality ,-• was in strong contrast with Croke's and Mac Hale's. Absent thirty years from Ireland, he- worked with no time-spirit as ally, 1 and his isolation, grew"' marked as the democratic tides, from which he was* always averse, mounted and swung past him. Many Irish politicans, like the Greeks, are men of letters as well,, and they have perpetuated in the people's mind , his frigidity towards them. To-day's generation of Irishmen is better fitted ' to consider and judge his record in church "organisation, ,in education, and his steady repudiation of government interference. They ■ will regard" that isolation not without respect. Cullen was an ultramontane v Sinn Feiner. He concentrated on Catholic and native effort. Dr. Walsh' was convinced that had : Cullen- lived, he would have been' with the Home Rulers. IHis 'sympathies were with the poor. Writing to Lord . Shrewsbury, Clarendon;''.'.the Lord-Lieutenant,' found "rank communism" in his. synodical address, "in which he did not stop at condemning the (Queen's) Colleges, but sought to set class against class and 'to represent ' every poor man Vas; a martyr and every rich man as a "tyrant." ' But he Wasj,nd democrat. He put his faith neither in English W princes^;nbr ~ in the people. His early Roman experience v determined his political vision: -a nationalist was a Gari- ■ biildian, a democrat, 3 a carbonaro. ; ' But he had also watched

the English GFovef ntiient subsidise revolt abroad and seen

Lord John Russell give recognition to rebels in the Southern States and to Catholics in Poland while attacking both the Church and liberty in Ireland. * Educated in Rome in a triumphant atmosphere, he brooked no taunt,of Catholic inferiority. As Apostolic Delegate, he restored the Catholic Church in Ireland in all its integrity to its rightful position as the Church of a Nation. At Thurles he heralded a new ecclesiastical era and restored Catholic worship and discipline to its normal state. Cutting himself off from all state and social entanglements, he repudiated the Queen's Colleges countenanced by his predecessors, and opened a Catholic University. He measured the ascendency with steady eyes and noted face of brass and feet of clay. He fiercely and successfully assailed the Protestant Establishment and endeavoured to overthrow or radically alter the national educational system. On the land question he was thoroughly sound, and Dr. Walsh was fond of pointing out how the resolutions of the Irish bishops under Cullen's chairmanship, first decried >as extravagant, were one by one adopted by English statesmen.

But there was little of Cullen's intransigence in MacCabe, and less of his pertinacious attack. MacCabe was, unfortunately, under the influence of that Whig • society which - colored and crippled the Catholic movement from emancipation days. His advisers were laymen like the O'Hagans, ecclesiastics like Dean Neville and his own reactionary Vicars General. Playing on his devotion to Cullen, they advised him to "do what Cardinal Cullen would have done."" But Croke and Walsh, not MacCabe, were the true exponents of Cullen's later policy, and MacCabe's perversion of it wrought dissension among the bishops, confusion in Rome, and at the time of his death a crisis among the people which verged on schism.

The storm over the succession is now well known. The popular President of Maynooth, the tenant's champion, was elected Vicar Capitular by the Chapter by 12 out of 20 votes, and dignissimus on the terna by 46 parish priests out of 63. The Irish bishops in Rome made every effort to secure Walsh's appointment, as did Manning and Vaughan in England. As time ran by without appointment, popular anxiety became tense and indignant when it was learned that the English Government, Irish Whigs and English Catholics were seeking the appointment of Dr. Moran or Dr. Donnelly. Mr. Leslie's biography of Manning publishes all that seems available to expose the Government intrigue, and it remains %o elucidate the Archbishop's own attitude and a little known intrigue of an earlier date, throwing new light on Cullen's relations with MacCabe. ' - ■ .', \. •,•■■'. ■■ .... ;

" The English Government, or at least Spencer and Granville, set to work before MacCabe's death. In June, 1883, his health had compelled him to ask confidentially for a helper. '.;'•-' . ■.'■'"

Propaganda proposed a coadjutor with the' right.of succession. The Cardinal demurred; such an appointment would involve - an election and already, said the* Cardinal, names were freely mentioned, "holy and learned, out simply out of harmony with my views and opinions , . s .

and in a contingency which may arise, I would ask the Holy See to retire and prepare myself for death, which cannot be far from me." Why, asked the Cardinal, could not his Holiness do for- him what he had done for Cardinal Cullen? Then for the first time he learned from Dr. -Kirby the circumstances of his own appointment —tjiai Cullen, who was in delicate health on the Alban Hills, had never asked for him (or for any : assistant) and had neither been consulted ; or '< informed of the matter which was s arranged by Propaganda. ; Cullen, who entertained - quite other intentions, s -found himself faced with a fait accompli which he accepted in silent displeasure. vr MacCabe, 3 frankly

confessed (August, 1883) that this was^a v revelation and that he would never have accepted the office, owing to his great unfitness, except that he thought it was Cullen's express wish. However, he continued to press for an assistant, with the approval of the Chapter. Propaganda "finally gave way and gave him his own choice, Dr. Donnelly, who was consecrated in November, 1883, with the title of Bishop of Canea.< ■ sse •

This .appointment coincided with the, wishes of the Government's advisers, till they became uneasy and Mr. George Errington, the Government's agent in Curia, wht> enjoyed. as well the confidence of MacCabe, set about procuring the permanent appointment of Dr. Donnelly! Errington induced Abbot Smith, an Irish Benedictine in Rome, to write (January, 1885) to the Cardinal that he ought to have Dr. Donnelly appointed coadjutor with the right of succession, that this would be very pleasing to Mr. Errington and would strengthen his hands generally in Rome, and that he (Smith) had reason to know that the arrangements would be sanctioned by the Holy See. On this the Cardinal called three of his Vicars (Lee^ Kennedy, and the late Dean Walsh) and consulted them. They advised him not to make such an application,' whereupon the Cardinal wrote so to Smith, but that he would write for Cardinal Simeoni's opinion. That ended the little ruse. Smith at once wired or wrote to MacCabe praying him not to do so as the proposal was a quite unofficial suggestion of his own aided by Errington. The war of succession took a new phase when United Ireland published (May 15, 1885) Errington's note to Granville, recovered from Errington's blotting-pad with sufficient accuracy to defy denial. Errington's pressure was already overdone and the painful tension was ended on June 23, 1885. Leo XIII., doubtless alarmed at the ferment which had spread to the Irish in Great Britain and the United States, had taken the matter out of the hands of Propaganda whose officials were very exposed to British influences. "I stood out strong against them," he proudly told Dr. Walsh on his arrival in Rome.

A letter to Manning expresses Dr. Walsh's view of the situation sede vacante (June 9, 1885). "One thing only is clear; my Presidentship is necessarily at an end; the office is not one that could be held even for a clay by anyone on whose career an adverse judgment had been pronounced by the Holy See. Personally, I exult at the prospect of getting back to my theological work." He wrote in the same strain to others, but when vindication came with his appointment he was free to explain his feelings more fully. Many of the Irish bishops were of the opinion that they should have some recognised person in Rome to. give trustworthy information and to correct mis-statements, if necessary in public. He believed, if he were in such a position, he could do more good than in any diocesan bishopric. He asked the Holy See to consider his suggestion. This is the simple explanation of his letter to Sir Charles Dilke (Life, Vol. 11. , p. 156). Only a non-Catholic like Dilke could think he was aspiring to become "Papal Nuncio." He realised he had shortcomings for the pastoral officehe had no missionary experience and his natural bent was elsewhere.. For this reason he had declined the See of Melbourne and now (July 6, 1885) wrote to Cardinal Simeoni explaining his unfitness for "the new position. The Holy See thought otherwise, though when he went to Rome he had not yet accepted the nomination. There he was consecrated Archbishop of Dublin on August 2, 1885, -by Cardinal Moran in the church attached to the Irish College, wherein is enshrined the heart of O'Connell, who had blessed him 40 years before. ' ' • ( 'V... ,

William Walsh was born in Dublin on January 30, 1841, at 11 Essex Quay, and was the only child of his parents Ralph and Mary Walsh, both of Kerry. There is some reason to believe that not so long ago; the family name was known in Irish as Bharain and was incorrectly anglicised as Walsh instead of Warren. . His father, a successful watchmaker, was an active figure in parish arid ward. He was a devoted admirer of O'Connell. and early interested his young son in parochial and political affairs. Indeed, there is still preserved the repeal card enrolling him in his organisation when he was but nine months old! A few years later saw him Sunday .after.- Sunday marshalling the parishioners 'of SS. Michael and .John's to sign their names to O'Connell's innumerable petitions and' re-

solutions, and, at.a later stage, he became one of the ring leaders of a boys' Young Ireland 'club" parading ;in •military array about the neighboring Castle, 'A not unfriendly policeman ended for ever his military ardor" when he was haled .before his. mother for defying the Castle . sentries. Meanwhile, as his Mass server he 'had won the friendship of Father C. P. Meehan, who lent him books and excited his interest in the Irish Academy antiquities as well as in the literature of Young Ireland! He attended the school or a Mr. Fittfpatrick in Ship Street and in 1856 went to St. Laurence O'Toole's (now the Municipal Art Gallery), then directed by the Quinns of Australian fame.! s There he first attracted the attention of Cardinal Culleii'on prize clays by his successes and musical talents. In his quality of sacristan and ceremonialist at the Catholic University Mass he made the acquaintance of Newman, and he used to recall how on his first St., Patrick's Day ho innocently laid out green vestments for the great Rector. He had no taste for sports, but under Levi, of the old Theatre' Royal, his piano teacher,ohe directed the choir, and as prefect he would lead-the boys, among .them Sir.""William Butler, to the Three Rock Mountain or wind up a long walk at Bray with the stirring chorus of rebel songs. Like Newman, he. was a violinist. /

Although he had not finished his course at the University, Cardinal Cullen .wished him to go to Rome, but the boy's parents pleaded that he should be allowed' to remain near them and so he entered the logic class in Mayriooth in September, 1858. The Archbishop himself, on a visit to the Irish College in 1905, said that it was a great regret and loss to him that he had not gone to Rome. He was ordained after nisi Dunboyne course in 1866, and was appointed professor of'theology in the following year. In June, 1878, he became Vice-President and Act-ing-President on the disablement of Dr. Russell, whom he succeeded in June, 1880. His evidence on the Canon Law at the O'Keeffe v. McDonald case (Wicklow Summer Assizes, 1875) spread his reputation "and drew praise from bench and bar. The same year he acted as a secretary to the first synod of Maynooth, which accepted without change his draft of more than one chapter of its decrees. In 1880 he published Tractatus de Actibus Human is, and in 1884 Louvain included him an honorary graduate on the occasion of its jubilee. His collegiate administration earned for him the confidence and admiration of the bishops, regardless of party. In December, 1884, Dr. Croke proposed through Kirby that Dr.' Walsh V should accompany' .y the bishops summoned to Rome.to assist at their meetings and help to present their views to Propaganda. Dr. Leahy of Dromore, himself a theologian of repute, wrote that he was the only person whose opinion he would take' since the death of Cardinal Cullen. .. We remember, that Dr. Murray used to say that the only theologians among the Irish bishops were Cardinal Cullen and Dr. Leahy of Dromore. It is no wonder, then, that the; bishops were unanimous in desiring his succession to Dublin, and that they assured both Manning and Kirby, and. doubtless Propaganda, that the one man to unite their divided, episcopate was Dr. Walsh. ' '■ ■■ .f- •€ .;"'V;"' : ":. ..'■/,;■; ....:;.;-,:■,,' " ?

It is not easy nowadays ; to appreciate the 'influence of Dr. Walsh in the critical epoch of Irish 'affairs coinciding with the early years of "his episcopate. Among, the bishops his influence was predominant, and in their Standing Committee it was supreme.. The Primate's (illness left him Acting-Chairman of 'their meetings,' and within a few months his tact and statesmanship had united .an episcopate hitherto divided behind Croke and MacCabe on the Irish party's policy. Matters were /entrusted largely to his guidance and he became' the spokesman of the Irish bishops. He rectified and supplemented Cullen's policy by a democratic sympathy as strong: as' Croke' s,» but ; eontrolled by his own unfailing : tacj} and moderation. : £ Croke could answer Kirby's paternal and restraining counsels: "Dr. Walsh is the man in- the gap> lam as quiet, as ; a lamb,"... •'• '.'.-••' >' : •"•;■.: '; • -j l .y,:'■,;:)+ '": '.'^M

While counselling moderation and condemning iwith the leaders the excesses in certain districts, he threw all his influence and that of the Church into the political movement and • warmly defended'its leaders;.« One may look, in vain for his or Croke's name ,in some of the .histories of the Parnell movement, hut few willdeny that without their. support • the movement would ever have secured the

invaluable support of the parochial clergy, and that its success : might have been long postponed.. v- '

.; - For years his reputation as an educationist had been established. He kept himself well in, tench with the latest, methods of instruction in special subjects arid with such systems as those devised for the blind and deaf and dumb. He j joined ;the Senate of the Royal University in April, 1883, bu»t resigned with Cardinal MacCabe when the .Senate rejected an important motion proposed by the Cardinal on behalf of the Irish bishops. As Commissioner of Primary (1895-1901) and Intermediate, (1892-1909) education he was prominent in promoting many educational reforms, though towards the end he confessed inability to follow what was to be gained by all the theories of the later experts. , His organisation of the - Catholic headmasters in 1878 to participate in the Intermediate system had far-reaching effects. Many ] doubted the ' capacity of the unendowed Catholic schools to compete with the established Protestant endowed schools. Dr. Walsh had no such doubts, and with Father Delany, S.J.'s report of Tullabeg's success at London University, he was able to encourage the timid. The Conference not only drew up recommendations that were virtually adopted by the Board, - but had the satisfaction of witnessing the competitive success of the Catholic schools. A real revolution was thus effected in the public estimate of the relative standard of ; Catholic, and non-Catholic schools,--and it paved the way for. the settlement of the University question. Although ; never an admirer of the intermediate system with its written examinations, its former absence of inspection, and its failure to ensure the real work of education, he recognised that the Intermediate Act was the first impartial legislation between denominational schools. '

. The position of Catholics in Primary and University education was very different. Both'' systems were based and worked on principles repudiated by the Church; their governing bodies were nominated to secure a non-Catholic majority, or at any rate / an even balance, while in the distribution of state aid, large sections of Catholics were wholly or partially unable to benefit. To do away with

these inequalities the new Archbishop set out to do battle. His exposition of Catholic - educational grievances in his Statement of the Chief Grievances of Irish Catholics in the Matter, of Education (1890), and The Irish University

Question (189,7) form a valuable history of the educational struggle of the previous sixty,years. His chief attacks on the National Board were directed against the Model Schools,

. the xlisabilities of the Training Colleges, and the restrictions on religious • education. To secure the recognition of the denominational system he joined the National Board in February,* 1895. Within two months he had, with the help of Lord Justice Fitzgibbon, obtained a majority of twelve against four in its favor and a breakdown of the .Board's non-possumus attitude towards schools like those .of the Christian Brothers. It was -a- wonderful victory indeed, but when a two-thirds majority of the Board, representing about 90 per cent, of the Irish people, demanded -the reform, Mr. Morley, the Chief Seretary of a Homt-

Rule Government, refused it. Mr. Balfour, his successor in the denominational Conservative Government, persisted in

the same disregard. Dr. Walsh never forgave .Morley for his weakness and this desertion of political principles. His efforts, however, for the Denominational Training Colleges met ' with . complete success. Especially notable was; the-, repayment by the Government of the building grants, in which Dr. Walsh had the collaboration of Mr. Sexton in Parliament.'; ;J; .'.•/ , ..

; '.\. The crowning /achievement of /his life was the National University, mating, as it did, the concession of something like equality to Qatholics in university education. While still President of Maynooth, he exposed, chiefly by questions addressed by, Mr. Sexton in Parliament,' the inefficiency of the Queen's Colleges and their waste of public mcmey. Every misrepresentation he ruthlessly followed up and exposed, until the |^ Government's only escape, from humiliating exposure was the granij of a Commission of Inquiry which fully, established the President's accusations. As y Archbishop lie, brought forward/sand:* galvanised the Catholic claim in regard to education. Of, the solutions put forward by the bish6ps, since 1871 —an exclusivelyr/Catholic jor a Catholic college .or {colleges in a common strongly ; ; supported

the establishment of a Catholic college in the University of Dublin on-'the same footing as Trinity College. This was the solution proposed by Mr. Bryce in 1907, and withdrawn in favor of the present National University scheme of. 1903, through the N opposition of Trinity College and other, vested interests. While, throughout he had the wholehearted support of the Irish episcopate, especially of Dr. Healy and ? Dr. O'Dwyer, and among the Irish Party of Mr. Dillon, the- final victory of this long, and at times apparently hopeless, struggle was due to Dr. Walsh. When the first meeting of the Senate took place on December 17, 1908; he was as a matter of course elected first Chancellor. v{-

Education was essentially his sphere, but it was the land question that first made him known at every hearthside, in Ireland. It was the stand he induced the trustees of Maynooth College to -make against the Leinster Lease in 1879 and his evidence, at the Bessborough Commission (November,. 1880) that exposed how Acts of Parliament passed for'the benefit of the tenant could be legally nullified by the landlord. His evidence on this occasion is a masterly marshalling of facts, and the'.ensuing controversy with the landlord's agent remains one of his most able and crushing tours cle force. The effect of the Maynooth protest became evident in the new Land Act on which he wrote his popular Plain Exposition, His grasp of the intricacies of the complex- question, his irrefutable exposition of documental facts, the authority of his name, were of invaluable assistance to the Irish Parliamentary Party. But most of all his sympathy as Archbishop with the poor and oppressed and evicted, his defence of their honesty against landlord and alien calumnies, made him a national idol.

Consulted by Lord Carnarvon at tho time of the Ashbourne Act he suggested the system of decennial reductions of the annuity which formed a popular feature of that Act. He lost no opportunity of reconciling the respective interests of landlord and tenant. In August 1887, he suggested a Round Table Conference of»accredited representatives of the landlords and tenants to devise an equitable and final settlement of the Land Question. But he was sixteen years before his time and the landlord body rejected the proposal. In 1902, when the landlords were in a more reasonable frame of mind, he once again brought forward his proposal, though the Conference which led to the Act of 1903 was n,ot realised until a virtual invitation had come from Mr. George • Wyndham. Writing of this Conference Davitt says (Fall of Feudalism in Ireland, p. 205): "The origin of this conference is, to some extent, a matter of doubt. The Catholic Archbishop of Dublin, Dr. Walsh, a lifelong friend of land reform, proposed a gathering of this kind earlier in the year 1902. Mr. T. M. Healy also advocated a similar meeting." So did Mr. Talbot-Crosbie, and others before the late Captain Shawe Taylor entered on the scene. The success of the Conference was. a' tribute to Dr. Walsh's foresight.

v " His defect was aloofness. His accurate mind made him prefer to treat business on paper rather than by mouth. The dread of < entanglement and of loss of time contributed to make him shun society and discourage visitors. One of the reasons that led to his leaving Cardinal MacCabe's residence was its position in a crowded thoroughfare. But no man who so grudged inroads on his time hesitated less to sacrifice himself for the common good. His'civic sense was only second to his ecclesiastical. The 1 Dublin Trades Council has rightly acknowledged his services to labor in trade disputes. Public bodies found him a diligent worker and perfect chairman. Democratic in the best sense of the word, he believed in the .capacity of popularly elected bodies and had faith in the ultimate judgement of the people. He knew they might go astray for a time, but that it was imposible to deceive them for ever. What he did dread machine in politics operating through the bogus convention. He - favored proportional representation and the Swiss, referendum. Despite ,his retired life he knew the people better than most .'politicians and kept closely in touch with public opinion. , : Td' the* end he kept the promise he made on his home-coming, to keep himself Clear of every sinister influence counter to the interests of his country^and people..]^H truckled to no prejudice and sought no distinction from alliances with personages hostile to Ireland.* He used to'call at the v Lodge to write his name

in the new Lord-Lieutenant's visitors' book, but otherwise he never went there save when his advice was sought or to beg the reprieve of Ireland's young martyrs. He never broke bread there. Other reasons made him avoid Dublin society, for .which at any time he had little inclination. His mind was as modern as it was progressive. He approached, every problem in the light of general principles. A problem or, its solution never antagonised him because it was new. Novelty or antiquity were equally beside the point when he came to its consideration. He was conservative only when he dealt with Church policy and more particularly with Church devotions. He was a tradeunionist when trade-unionists were regarded as socialists; he received and did honor to Sinn Feiners. The same modern mind which made him light his house in 1890 by electricity and settle the question of clerical cycling by cycling himself, made him the first to advocate the association of Maynooth with the University. He favored womansuffrage and the admission of women to the University and professions; he gave great liberty of action to his clergy and encouraged Sunday amusements provided they did not clash with the hours of public devotion. Religious rancour was abhorrent to him and he wanted no Catholic ascendancy.

The positive cast of his mind was more marked than its modernity. His favorite studies were legal and the Courts provided him with material of unfaliling interest. He always dealt with particular and concrete issues. He avoided pinning himself to precedents. He was scrupulously accurate. He was the terror of his printers and the Post Office, knowing their processes and regulations. His memory was amazing and he characteristically systematised it by studying' the Loisette and Leibnitz systems. He completely overwhelmed Dr. Salmon the old Provost of Trinity College, Dublin, by correctly writing out the value of the Greek "pi" to 128 places. r He was not free from the defects of such minds. . He was utterly devoid of sentiment, though he respected it and knew its value. While he had good taste he was not richly aesthetic. He had interest in archaeology but little in art. He preferred history to imaginative literature, and philology to language. Though well read in English literature he wrote like a legal draftsman. Time ,after time he took views opposed to the general opinion. He was much criticised for his attitude towards the Irish Parliamentary Party, for his ,condemnation of the Catholic Association, for his attitude towards the great Dublin Strike, especially when he sent £IOO for the children of the strikers (October, 1913), yet public opinion in the long run came round to his opinion and acknowledged he was right. Because he scrutinised details very closely, and early detected the small beginnings of great evils, people thought he took strong action on too light provocation.

Born in another age he would have ruled as one of the Church's statesman-prelates, but in the Ireland of the Nineteenth Century his abilities, when deliberately set aside by Leo XIII, were doomed largely to inaction. His very moderation was perhaps a bar to his greatness. He had the courage without the recklessness of Croke. One cannot imagine him defying tyranny like Dr. O'Dwyer or imperialism like Dr. Mannix. He was the soul of constitutionalism. Only those who knew him could appreciate the extreme reluctance with which, when faced with the supremacy of the Ulster Volunteers and later of military dictatorship, he abandoned faith in the omnipotence of constitutional action.

Like those of the political leaders, his earlier political hopes were not realised. He was deeply saddened by the Parnell split. The deteroriation of the national spirit, which he frequently lamented between 1905 and 1914, caused his withdrawal from public affairs, but he always gave substantial help to the new movement in which he recognised the resurrection of the nation's soul. , He has left behind him a diocese which probably exceeds any other in the world in the number of its daily communicants and in the i requentation of daily Mass. What greater tribute can a bishop desire than the love of his poor and the gratitude of the Irish Martyrs?