Theobald Mathew (temperance reformer)

Theobald Mathew (1790–1856), was an Irish Catholic priest and teetotalist reformer, popularly known as Father Mathew. He was born at Thomastown, near Golden, County Tipperary, on October 10, 1790.

He received his schooling in Kilkenny, then moved for a short time to Maynooth. From 1808 to 1814 he studied in Dublin, where in the latter year he was ordained to the priesthood. Having entered the Capuchin order, after a brief period of service at Kilkenny, he joined the mission in Cork.

Statues of Mathew stand on St. Patrick's Street, Cork by J.H. Foley (1864), and on O'Connell Street, Dublin by Mary Redmond (1893). There is a Fr. Mathew Bridge in Limerick City, named after the temperance reformer when it was rebuilt between 1844–46.

The movement with which his name is associated began on 10 April 1838 with the establishment of the "Cork Total Abstinence Society", which in less than nine months enrolled no fewer than 150,000 names. It rapidly spread to Limerick and elsewhere, and some idea of its popularity may be formed from the fact that at Nenagh 20,000 persons are said to have taken the pledge in one day, 100,000 at Galway in two days, and 70,000 in Dublin in five days. At its height, just before the Great Famine of 1845–49, his movement enrolled some 3 million people, or more than half of the adult population of Ireland. In 1844, he visited Liverpool, Manchester and London with almost equal success.

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