51

Archbishop Daniel Mannix

1864–1963

 

During a long and remarkable life, Daniel Mannix saw the transformation not only of Ireland, but also of Australia, his adopted land, from a frontier country into a leading nation of the world.  His was a crucial presence in the development of the Irish community in Australia.

      He was born in Charleville (now Ráth Luirc) in County Cork in March 1864, the third son of a family of four boys and a girl.  He was educated by the Sisters of Mercy and the Christian Brothers in Fermoy, and then went on to study for the priesthood, like so many clever young men in those days.  He was ordained at Maynooth in 1890, becoming professor of theology in 1894, and president of the college in 1903.

      This would have been an important enough career, but in 1912 he was sent out to Australia as co-adjutor (or deputy) to the archbishop of Melbourne, eventually taking the position himself in May 1917.

      He arrived in Australia in 1913.  During those crucial years of the First World War he came to the fore as a leader of the Irish community's opposition to conscription for overseas military service (not always seen as a patriotic position, however, by other elements in Australian society, where the returned servicemen's organizations are very powerful).  After the Easter Rising he also supported Ireland's claims for independence.

      He also fought for the independence of Catholic schools within the Australian system, an echo of a struggle that had gone on in Ireland and the United States.  He supported the creation of Newman College at the University of Melbourne, and to Corpus Christi College at Werribee.

      In 1920 Mannix had to visit Rome to make a periodic report to the pope in person.  He travelled to Europe by way of the United States, where he was met with great enthusiasm from Irish-American communities from San Francisco to New York.  On the way he made inflammatory speeches.  'All that Ireland asks of England is this - take one of your hands off my throat and the other out of my pocket.'

      The ship he was travelling on was met by a British warship off the coast of Cornwall, and he was arrested by order of Prime Minister Lloyd George 'in view of his disloyal statements'.  Mannix was told that he was free to stay in England, but he was not to visit Liverpool, Glasgow, or Manchester, the Irish population centres.  Instead he stayed in Leeds.  He could not go to Ireland, and was also forbidden to speak in England.  Inevitably, this left him with a tremendous reputation as an Irish patriot.

      He served for forty-seven years as archbishop, establishing new parishes, building schools, and opening colleges.  There had been sixty parishes and 180 churches in 1917; by 1963 there were 176 parishes and 300 churches.  He also promoted Catholic Action, the movement for Catholics to directly involve themselves in politics, and encouraged the Catholic press and Catholic social action.  In 1937 he established the National Secretariat of Catholic Action and assisted in the creation of the Catholic Social Movement in 1941.  Since his elevation he had opposed the influence of communism in Australia, and when the great labour split occurred in 1955 he supported the industrial groups.

      However, theologically and liturgically he was very conservative, like many other Irish bishops, but so also was the community he led.  He died in Melbourne in November 1963, on the eve of the vast changes in the church which were to be wrought by the Second Vatican Council.  By this time the Irish community in Australia had moved to a central position - emigration from non-white countries was beginning.  Though the rhetoric of the Australian Irish might often sound revolutionary and radical, as in the Labour party, it was also imbued with the same deeply held conservative views that marked Daniel Mannix.

      Mannix had many characteristics.  In Irish-Australian folklore he was a great patriotic hero.  He was also the subject of many humorous anecdotes.  Every day he would walk four miles from his home to the cathedral, and so came to know many of the city's poor.  Giving money to a drunk, Mannix warned him not to spend it in the next bar.  'No, Your Grace.  Well, then, which one would you recommend?'

      His most important contribution was his public leadership.  He derived his public style from the Irish examples of John McHale, archbishop of Tuam, and Thomas Croke, archbishop of Croke, men who identified the Catholic Church with the national aspirations of the Irish people.  It was a tradition (found elsewhere, of course) of combining ecclesiastical position with public leadership, championing the national cause against spiritual and political oppression.

      This was not only style.  There were other bishops who supported British rule, and those like CARDINAL CULLEN [44], who concentrated on the interests of the church alone.  To Australia he brought the experience of Irish history, the role of the Catholic clergy in Irish communities, and shaped a course which still influences the public life of the southern continent.

      In 1917 Mannix had seen that there was an emerging Australian interest which was not to be identified simply with the interests of the British.  Though this was controversial then, it has become the state of things today, when Australia finds itself having more in common with its own part of the world, and with the United States.  Mannix was one of the important influences on the emergence of an Australian national identity in the twentieth century.

      He had helped to mould the Irish-Australian community, but that community would have to face great changes, such as the rise in Asian immigration, which their English-speaking emigrant background made them unfamiliar with.  By the time he died, a new Australia was emerging, racially mixed, increasingly republican, which would provide many new challenges to the old faith of the Irish.