The Life of Dr Thomas Hussey, 1746-1803. Bishop of Waterford and Lismore by Liam Murphy (review)

Abstract

Book Reviews The Life of Dr Thomas Hussey, 1746-1803. Bishop of Waterford and Lismore, Liam Murphy (Dublin: Kingdom Books, 2016), 175 pages. In current times, ecclesiastical matters might not enjoy widespread interest among the general public under forty years of age. Therefore, why publish an episcopal biography if the market is so small and is diminishing even further? To those who are intelligent and ambitious to progress in life, biographies of high achievers, regardless of their vocation or profession, hold important lessons. In the case of this biography, the subject, Thomas Hussey, was an exceptionally gifted player in politics and diplomacy in Irish, British, continental European and North American history, and in his case the word ‘bishop’ should not be associated with piosity, platitudes and mediocrity. The great French statesman and bishop Jean Armand du Plessis, Cardinal de Richelieu, once quipped: ‘Never ordain a pious fool, otherwise he might lose his piety and much else’! The character that emerges from the pages of this biography was neither a pious simpleton nor an arrogant fool but a brilliant strategist in both secular and spiritual spheres. Anyone who enjoyed reading William M Thackeray’s Barry Lyndon, or watching Stanley Kubrick’s film version of it, will appreciate reading about this real-life figure, a worldly-wise priest who was effective in both his diplomatic skills and in his pastoral ministrations. He bequeathed a worthy legacy to the Irish Catholic community. Hussey circulated effortlessly and elegantly among the courts and chancelleries; salons and spas; great churches and clandestine chapels; and gracious squares and grimy backstreets of late eighteenth-century Europe. He was, above all, a gentleman. Well-educated in Seville his high culture, theological and spiritual moderation and affable disposition provided him with self-confidence and practical insight into the human condition that enabled him to be a good and effective pastor and diplomat. As principal chaplain at the Spanish embassy in London, Hussey helped successive ambassadors smooth the way for improving and maintaining better relations between Britain and Spain.Apart from spiritual duties, he was involved in negotiations concerning trade, Gibraltar and the fledgling USA. Studies • volume 106 • number 423 379 Autumn 2017: Book Reviews Through his charm, suavity and high intellect he established good personal relations with leading establishment figures such as Camden, Castlereagh, Cornwallis, Cloncurry, FitzWilliam, Portland and Westmoreland, and with great political personalities of the age such as Henry Grattan, theWhig Charles James Fox and the political philosopher Edmund Burke. Such friendships, as well as Hussey’s distinction in being the first Catholic priest to be elected to membership of the prestigious Royal Society, helped immensely in bringing about the Catholic ReliefActs, and the foundation of the Catholic seminary at Maynooth (of which he was the first president), with annual financial support from the officially Protestant state. Yet, Hussey’s social ecumenism did not compromise his sense of pastoral theology. His eloquent but robust challenge to the Protestant Church over its insistence on Catholics in the military participating in Protestant religious services, and the opprobrium of Dublin Castle that it earned him, did not equal or surpass the jealousy and back-stabbing of some of his ‘brother bishops’. The author deftly exposes a wider range of circumstances surrounding Hussey’s departure from the presidency of Maynooth than is traditionally admitted. Indeed, such was the esteem in which Hussey was held in society that, notwithstanding his aforementioned clash with the Protestant Church and the state, the authorities provided a military guard of honour at his episcopal consecration in the church of St Nicholas of Myra on Francis Street in Dublin. It was the first occasion that a ‘papist prelate’ was so honoured by the officially Protestant state. The quality of this study overwhelms the very few minor typographical errors. Occasionally in the text, the author refers to the ‘Department’ instead of the correct nomenclature of Congregation of Propaganda Fide (for example on p.95). Also footnote 101 on p.92 does not provide the complete source reference. However, this volume provides a very good companion study to that of another remarkable and noteworthy bishop of Waterford and Lismore by the late Patrick Fagan, An Irish bishop in penal times...