The Most Reverend John Charles McQuaid C.S.Sp. |
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Archbishop of Dublin Primate of Ireland |
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Church | Roman Catholic |
See | Dublin |
In office | 1940–1972 |
Predecessor | Edward Joseph Byrne |
Successor | Dermot J. Ryan |
Orders | |
Ordination | 29 June 1924 |
Consecration | 27 December 1940 |
Personal details | |
Born |
Cootehill, County Cavan, Ireland |
28 July 1895
Died | 7 April 1973 Loughlinstown, County Dublin, Ireland |
(aged 77)
Previous post | Teacher |
John Charles McQuaid, C.S.Sp. (28 July 1895 – 7 April 1973), was the Catholic Primate of Ireland and Archbishop of Dublin between December 1940 and January 1972. He was known for the unusual amount of influence he had over successive governments.
John Charles McQuaid was born in Cootehill, County Cavan, on 28 July 1895, to Dr. Eugene McQuaid and Jennie Corry. His mother died a week after his birth. His father remarried and Dr. McQuaid's new wife raised John and his sister Helen as her own. It was not until his teenage years that John learned that his biological mother had died.
He was a stellar student at the Cootehill National School After primary school, McQuaid attended St. Patrick's College in Cavan Town and then Blackrock College in Dublin, run by the Holy Ghost Fathers, where he received average grades. In 1911 he entered Clongowes Wood Jesuit College in County Kildare with his brother Eugene.
In 1913, on completion of his secondary studies, he entered the novitiate of the Holy Ghost Fathers in Kimmage, Dublin. The celebrations of the centenary of the birth of Thomas Davis, a famous Protestant nationalist, occurred in 1913 while McQuaid was a novice in Kimmage. Significantly McQuaid referred in his notebook to Davis' famous question: "What matter that at different shrines, we pray unto one God?" He noted: "Yes for a logical Protestant but No for Catholics. We must heed what is in the creed. ... If a neutral nationality be set up, if Protestants are drawn in and not converted, is not the supernatural end missed?"