The Life and Times of Daniel Murray, Archbishop of Dublin, 1823-1852 by Thomas J Morrissey (review)

Abstract

baptised Christians within the church, and all citizens, believers and nonbelievers alike in the wider world, to be active participants in change, thus transforming the monarchical nature of the current understanding of papacy. Readers of Donal Dorr’s book will be helped greatly towards this active engagement. Dr Gerry O’Hanlon SJ is a theologian, who has lectured and written extensively on the post-Second Vatican Council Irish Catholic church. His The Quiet Revolution of Pope Francis: A Synodal Catholic Church in Ireland (Dublin: Messenger Publications) has just appeared. The Life and Times of Daniel Murray, Archbishop of Dublin, 1823–1852, Thomas J Morrissey SJ (Dublin: Messenger Publications, 2018), 288 pages. AnyreputablegeneralhistoryofIrelandcoveringthefirsthalfofthenineteenth century cannot but feature the substantial presence and the influential role of Daniel Murray, archbishop of Dublin from 1823 to 1852. Indeed, his impact was discernible for far longer than that, as he was coadjutor archbishop to Dublin’s John Thomas Troy from 1809. That position was in itself a notable preferment, given that Fr Daniel was still then a curate: it was testimony to the esteem in which he was already held by his clerical peers and superiors alike. Over the succeeding four decades, he proceeded to transform the diocese in terms of church and school building, promoting the welfare of the poor, and in guiding that church successfully through the stormy waters of sectarian animosity and government hostility. For all that, it is remarkable that there has not been a substantial biography of the prelate since the pious memoir of his admirer, William Meagher, in 1853: not, that is, until the splendid biography by Thomas Morrissey, just published. Morrissey is, of course, one of the most prolific scholars working in the fields of Irish social, political and religious history and biography. The present study in a sense book-ends his remarkable contribution to modern Irish church history, since his previous works in this field include his masterly study of William J Walsh, 1841–1921, archbishop of Dublin from 1885 to 1921. This new study fills a major gap in the historiography of the Irish Catholic church of the nineteenth century. It accomplishes this, not only with economy and clarity but critically, with a radical revision of Autumn 2018: Book Reviews Studies • volume 107 • number 427 384 long-established perceptions of Daniel Murray. Born near Arklow in 1768, Daniel, as an eight-year-old, was sent in 1776 to the Dublin city school of the illustrious Jesuit priest, Thomas Betagh, at a time when the penal laws were beginning to be relaxed. As for these laws and their gradual rescinding, the author cites a 1985 article by the local historian, P J Murray, in the Journal of the Arklow Historical Society (incorrectly given as 1986) for the observation that a ‘slow process of dismantling this penal code began in 1759 but was marked by no significant progress until the 1770s’; this reviewer can find no such quotation in that place, and more recent and fertile sources for the code and its relaxation might be found in the works of James Kelly, ‘The impact of the penal laws’, in Kelly and Keogh (eds), History of the Catholic Diocese of Dublin (Dublin: Four Courts Press, 2000); in Bergin et al., New Perspectives on the Penal Laws (Dublin: Eighteenth-Century Ireland Society, 2011), or in Bartlett’s ‘The penal laws against Irish Catholics: were they too good for them?’, in O P Rafferty (ed.), Irish Catholic Identities (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2013). All that aside, the young Murray greatly impressed Betagh and the archbishop, Carpenter, by his ‘ability, gentle manner and general amiability’. Believing he had a vocation for the priesthood, Carpenter accepted him and directed him to the Irish College in Salamanca, where eight studious years followed. The importance of Salamanca for the Irish Catholic church at this time can hardly be overstated. Morrissey well demonstrates its significance, pointing out that Daniel’s fellow-students there included Kyran Marum, future bishop of Ossory (1814–27), Patrick Everard, later Coadjutor archbishop of Cashel (1814–20) and succeeding there over 1820–21, as also his successor in Cashel, Robert Laffan (1823–33). The author adds that some four archbishops in Ireland...