Courtney McGrailThe Catholic Church and the Campaign for Emancipation in Ireland and England
by Ambrose Macaulay
(Four Courts Press, €40.00)
Thomas Morrissey
Dr Macaulay has long enriched the historiography of 19th Century Ireland. A new book from him is most welcome: especially as it provides a further dimension to a much written period of history.
The struggle for Catholic emancipation is very often presented as part of the career and achievement of Daniel O’Connell. He played a central role but in the context of the activities of other agencies – the British government, the Vatican, the Irish bishops, the vicars apostolic in England and the English Catholic Association.
The British government, before agreeing to legal equality to the Catholic populations of Britain and Ireland, insisted on Catholics taking the oath of allegiance in such a way that their allegiance could not be taken away by the intervention of the papacy or other authority, and insisted on the government having a veto on the appointment of Catholic bishops in order to ensure their allegiance to the government.
The Irish bishops and the vicars apostolic together with the English Catholic Association took a different stance at times on the requirements sought by the government, and the Holy See supported now one and now the other.
Writings in Ireland on the period have focussed on the role of O’Connell and his Catholic Association and to a lesser extent on the Irish bishops and their negotiations with the Holy See and with the British government.
The role of the British Catholics was seen as largely peripheral. One of the great benefits of Macauley’s book is that he has studied the English Catholic documents and integrated their story into the overall endeavour to win emancipation.
His work is noteworthy, indeed, for its detailed research in the Vatican archives, and British archives as well as a variety of Irish sources.
The period from 1800-1829 is replete with striking personalities. O’Connell, Peel, Castlereagh, Wellington have found biographers. Of the Irish bishops, Troy, Murray, Curtis and Doyle, the last named alone has received a significant critical biography. Archbishops Troy and Murray of Dublin, have been honoured by noteworthy articles, but are without critical biographies; though the present reviewer is currently engaged on a life of Murray.
One of the enjoyable and distinctive features of Macaulay’s book is the prominence given to Dr Patrick Curtis of Armagh and to the vicars apostolic Dr William Poynter, of the London district, and Dr John Milner, of the Wolverhampton area. Milner, understandably, receives much attention as one of the key early champions of emancipation.
A man of great talent, energy, and facility with words, Milner was more at home with Irish people and prelates than with many of his own countrymen.
Tendency
His fatal tendency to see all who disagreed with him as villains, deserving of vituperation, led to alienation from many fellow vicars apostolic, and also to Troy and Murray withdrawing from closeness to him, which was particularly painful to him.
There is a variety of personalities in this book as well as a coherent presentation of developments and setbacks in the struggle for Catholic emancipation. The coming together of the English and Irish Catholics towards the end of the 1820s added to the factors leading to the capitulation of the government.
From the foregoing, it is clear that this book by Dr Ambrose Macaulay is necessary reading for anyone interested in one of the most dramatic periods in Irish history.