Life
1803-1878; b. 29 April, Prospect [var. Ballitore], Co. Kildare, son of prosperous
farming family with priests on both sides; ed. Shackleton Quaker school
in Ballitore, Carlow College, and College of Propaganda, Rome; ord. Rome,
1829; rector of Irish College, Rome, 1832; opposed British influence in
Rome; experienced invasion of Vatican by Mazzini’s Republicans, and
saved the Office of Propaganda by persuading the American Consul to fly
the US flag over it, 1848; appt. Archbishop of Armagh and Apostolic Delegate
at the instance of his friend Pius IX, 1849-52; convened synod of Thurles,
1850, bringing Irish church into line with Roman practices; successed Archbishop Daniel Murray to Dublin see, 1852-78; abhorred Young Ireland and the Fenians as ‘a compound
of wickedness and folly’, opposing Tenant League, but saved Thomas
F. Burke from hanging; rejected Peel’s Queen’s Colleges, 1844, and supported the Catholic
University idea; opposed Duffy and the Tenant League; assisted Frederick Lucas
to win Meath seat, Gen. Election, 1852; fnd. Catholic University in 1854
with Newman as rector; issued pastoral letter addressing threat of Protestant
proselytism; fnd. Clonliffe Seminary, 1859; elected Cardinal, 1866; promoted
Irish Brigade to defend papacy against Garibaldi in 1859; said to have
drafted dogma on papal infallibility; president of Synod of Maynooth,
1875; transformed Irish Catholicism into a centralised, pastorally efficient
and denominationally combative organisation; unremittingly hostile to
the Fenians, but worked with moderate nationalists who supported Catholic
interests especially in education; viewed Irish emigration as ‘a
special dispensation of God to disperse Irish people over every country
of the globe’ through agency of the British Empire ‘in order
to life the standard of the Church’;
d. 24 Oct. 1878; bur. Clonliffe; once boasted
that he had never dined with a Protestant; seated monumental statue in
the Pro-Cathedral on Marlborough St., Dublin. DIB DIH DUB FDA
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Criticism
Peadar MacSuibne, Paul Cullen and His Contemporaries, 3 vols. (Kildare:
Leinster Leader 1965).
Malcolm Brown, ‘Beside the Sickbed: Carlyle, Duffy, Dr. Cullen’ [Chap. 8], Politics of Irish Literature: From Thomas Davis to W. B. Yeats (London: George Allen & Unwin 1972), esp. p.122ff.
Emmet Larkin, ‘Devotional Revolution in Ireland 1850-1875, in The American Historical Review, 77 (1972), pp.625-52
Desmond Bowen, Paul Cullen and the Shaping of Modern Irish Catholicism (Dublin, 1983).
Colin Barr, Paul Cullen, John Henry Newman and the Catholic University of Ireland, 1845-1865 (Leominster: Gracewing 2003), 306pp.
See also Irish Book Lover, 3.
Oliver Rafferty, S.J., ‘The Catholic Church and Fenianism, 1861-1870’, in Bullán: Irish Studies Journal, 1997-1998, p.54.
Roger McHugh, Tribute to Newman; cited in Sencourt’s Life of Newman, p.158.)
‘M’ [unknown pseud.], writes in ‘Irish Politics and Irish Priests’, in Cornhill Magazine, Vol. 1 (1870).
Sean O’Faolain, The Irish: A Character Study (Sussex: Penguin 1947), pp.119-20.
Malcolm Brown, The Literature of Irish Politics (1972): p.182.
Joseph Lee, Modernisation of Ireland, 1848-1918 (1973), pp.44-49.
Davis Coakley, Irish Masters of Medicine (Town House ?1993).
Roy Johnston, ‘Godless Colleges and Non-Persons’, in Causeway 1 (Autumn 1993), pp.36-38,
Conor Cruise O’Brien, Ancestral Voices, Religion and Nationalism in Ireland (Poolbeg 1994), p.22-28, p.127).
Thomas Hacney, Joseph Hernon & and Lawrence J. McCaffrey, The Irish Experience: A Concise History (NY: M.E. Sharpe 1996), p.95.
P. J. Corish, ‘Gallicanism at Maynooth, Archbishop Cullen and the Royal visitation of 1853’, in Cosgrove and MacCartney, eds. Studies in Irish History Presented to R. Dudley Edwards, (UCD 1979).
David Cairns & Shaun Richards, Writing Ireland, colonialism, nationalism and culture (Manchester 1988).
James Joyce, Stephen Hero (1944), on students at the Royal University, p. 155.
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Notes
Seamus Deane, gen. ed., Field Day Anthology of Irish Writing
(Derry: Field Day 1991), Vol. 2; In Lecky’s Leaders of Public
Opinion, ‘No one, we think, can deny this [the determination
of the clergy to prevent Catholics and Protestants from ‘mingling’]
who has followed their policy on the educational question’; a footnote
[FDA2, ed.] explaining the evolution of the so-called ‘godless colleges’
says that Cullen, an agent for the bishops at Rome, was also opposed,
[218n]; The Pope’s Brass Band, a group of MP’s jointly opposing
the Ecclesiastical titles Bill in 1851, supported by Cullen, they founded
the Catholic Defence Association under the leadership of George Henry
Moore, father of the novelist, [254n]; John O’Leary (Recollections,
1896, Chp. IX) deals disparagingly with the Cardinal, citing Kickham’s
editorial to The Irish People (1865) dealing ‘with what he
[the latter]"calls "a furlong or two of the Pastoral" from
Dr. Cullen, who was nearly as long-winded as some of his successors’.
O’Leary quotes to show that ‘ecclesiastical tactics have not
changed’ and that ‘if you differ from priests in politics you
must necessarily be subverting the faith’; ftn. adds that Cullan
was a bitter opponent of the Fenians, a vigorous supporter of the papacy
and the predominant influence in the reorganisation of the church in 19th
c. Ireland, [257]; the funeral of Terence Bellow MacManus; Cullen refused
to allow the lying in state in the pro-Cathedral; the graveside oration
given by a rebel priest, Fr. Patrick Lavelle (1826-86), events which fixed
the division in Irish religious politics, with MacHale taking Lavelle’s
side when he [the former] issued his lecture, ‘The Catholic Doctrine
of the Right of Revolution’ in Dublin the year after Thomas Francis
Meagher’s death ... unlike Cullen, his successor at the time of O’Donovan
Rossa’s funeral Archbishop Walsh, was a nationalist [Devoy’s
Recollections, 1929) [266, 275]; opposition of Cullen to Independent
Irish Party of Gavan Duffy and Frederick Lucas, [277]; ‘he remembered
that it was Cardinal Cullen who had denationalised religion in Ireland’
(‘A Letter to Rome’, The Untilled Field); Cullen the
great champion of Ultramontanism in Ireland [ed.; l.c. ultramontane],
[1035n]; Irish Ecclesiastical Record, founded by Cullen
to promote his Ultramontane policies ... promulgated and explained papal
doctrine in terms of universal Catholicism [eds. fnt. to My New Curate],
1043n; allusion to the Irish Brigade’ (i.e., ‘the Pope’s
Brass Band’), [ibid., 1044n].
Don Gifford, Joyce Annotated (1982), cardinal in 1866 and subsequently apostolic delegate, i.e., ruler of the Catholic Chruch of Ireland; did condemn the IRB (Fenians) and other agitators form Home Rule and Land Reform; advocated support of British government and popularly regarded as one who sought favours from the government for himself and his friends. (p.149)
British Library lists titles by Cullen published by James Duffy: Pastoral Letter [...] announcing the Prayers and Indulgences of the Jubilee, 18 Sept. 1851, With an Encyclical Letter of our most Holy Father Pope Pius IX. ordering Prayers, and announcing a New Jubilee, 21 Nov. 1851 (1852), 29pp.; Pastoral Letter [...] on the Feast of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin, with an appendix, containing a letter of the Most Rev. Archbishop of Baltimore (Francis P. Kenrick) on mixed education. [28 July 1852] (1852), 30pp.; Pastoral Letter [...] on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. [23 Nov. 1852] (1852), 15pp.; Pastoral Letter [...] on the Festival of St. Patrick [1 March 1853] (1853), 32pp. (Dublin: James Duffy 1853); Pastoral Letter [...] on the Fast of Lent, 1853. [2 Feb. 1853] (1853), 8pp.; Pastoral Letter [...] on the Threatened Legislation against Convents. [14 May 1853] (1853), 25pp; Pastoral Letter [...] on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception. [25 Nov. 1853] (1853), 15pp.; Pastoral Letter [...] on the Holy Season of Lent. [22 Feb. 1854], 20pp.; Pastoral Letter [...] on the Feast of the Assumption [28 July 1854] (1854), 15pp.; Pastoral Letter [...] on the Jubilee granted by His Holiness Pius IX. 18 Sept. 1854, with an Encyclical Letter of our Holy Father the Pope granting a General Jubilee, 1 Aug. 1854, and S.D.N. Pii Div. Prov. Papæ IX. epistola encyclica, 21 Nov. 1851 (1854), 27pp.; Pastoral Letter [...] on the Fast of Lent, 1855. [2 Feb. 1855] (1855), 15pp.; Pastoral Letter [...] on the Feast of the Assumption [n.d.] (1855), 11pp.; Pastoral letter [...] on the feast of the Immaculate Conception [n.d.] (1855), 32pp.; Pastoral Letter [...] on the Festival of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. [23 Jan. 1856] (1856), 24pp; Lenten Pastoral, etc. [15 Feb. 1863] (1863), 15pp.; Pastoral Letter [...] on the Festival of St. Patrick [1 March 1856], pp.311. ALSO Letter [...] to the Rt. Hon. Thomas O’Hagan, M.P., on national education, etc. (1863), 31pp.; Two Letters to Lord St. Leonards on the Management of the Patriotic Fund, and on the second report of the Royal Commissioners. [letter to Lord St. Leonards, 21 Nov. 1857; the other dated 3 May 1858] (1858), iv, 128pp.; A Letter to Lord St. Leonards on the Management of the Patriotic Fund, and the application of public moneys to proselytizing purposes [...] [Dated 21 Nov. 1857] 2nd edn. (1857), 54pp.; Do., 3rd edn. enl. 1857, 63pp.
Gilbert Collection of Pearse St. Library, Dublin contains a newscutting of Cardinal Cullen’s Pastoral on ‘The Wretched Condition of the Labouring Classes of the People of Ireland’, preached 26 Jan. 1868, as part of the R. R. Madden Papers (Gilbert MS 276).
De Burca Books (Cat. 44; 1997) lists The Pastoral Letters and other Writings of Cardinal Cullen, Archbishop of Dublin. Edited by the Rt. Rev. Patrick Francis Moran, D.D. Bishop of Ossory. Three volumes. Dublin, Browne, 1882. Pages, (1) viii, 873, (2) vi, 802, (3) x, 813. Ex. lib. Fine set in orig. cloth gilt. Rare. £325.00. Peadar MacSuibhne, Paul Cullen and His Contemporaries. With their letters from 1820-1902. Illustrated. Five volumes. Kildare, Leinster Leader 1961-1977. V.good in dj’s. £250.00
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Princess Grace Irish Library (Monaco)