Abstract
This article sets out the ironic contours of the relationship between the Catholic Church and the British empire in the period 1800–1921. Despite mutual sectarian antipathy, and the unconstitutional nature of the practice, the church and empire evolved a modus vivendi that enabled financial support to be given to Catholic missionary activity from government funds. Imperial and ecclesiastical expansion was facilitated by Irish Catholics, notwithstanding what they regarded as the hostile Protestant governance of Ireland. Utilizing material from state and ecclesiastical archives and drawing on a wide range of printed and secondary material, the article for the first time in the literature reveals not only how the Vatican appreciated British government largesse but also that successive popes were quite prepared to downplay Irish Catholic interests for the sake of church expansion in the empire as a whole.
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