WALSH, WILLIAM JOSEPH. - Irish archbishop and primate, one of the principal advocates of the creation of a free Irish Republic, b. 30 Jan. 1841 in Dublin, d. there 9 Apr. 1921.
He was educated at the famous college of Maynooth under the rectorship of the great Newman (v.) and, having been ordained a priest, held at the same college the positions of professor of theology (1867), vice-president (1878) and president. In 1884 he was promoted to the archiepiscopal see of Dublin, with which the dignity of primate of Ireland is joined. A tenacious defender of the civil rights of Irish Catholics against the inequality and the political, social, cultural, economic and agricultural inferiority in which the Irish were held, he also worked to re-establish complete equality in the field of education and schools.
As the representative of the bishops on the parliamentary commission famous under the name of the Bessborough Commission (1869), against the great English landowner Leinster, he contributed enormously to the formation of the law concerning the problem of Irish land ownership (Land Act, 1881). Two years later W. gave a clear explanation of that same law in the work A plain exposition of the Land Act of 1881 (Dublin 1883). Connected with this problem is also another famous book, concerning directly monetary affairs but indirectly also Irish problems of the restitution of land ownership: Bimetallism and monometallism. What they are and how they bear upon the Irish land question (2nd ed. Chicago 1893; 3rd ed. Dublin 1894). In the field of theological studies he had founded in 1880 the journal The Irish ecclesiastical Record. On the problems of education, especially university education, W. wrote: Queens College and the Royal University of Ireland (Dublin 1883). In 1889 he became a commissioner for education and served public education as a member of various committees and commissions; and he gave famous speeches, later published: Irish University question: the Catholic case. Selections from speeches and writings of the archbishop of Dublin (ibid. 1897). W. desired a Catholic university, because the only University of Dublin was Protestant (Trinity College). His publication: The Irish educational question had great resonance among the members of the English Parliament, and led to the constitution of two commissions (1903, 1906), set up for the study of the problem, and to the foundation of the National University of Ireland with the colleges of Dublin, Cork and Galway for Catholics. In 1888 W. moved on to address the problem of Home Rule and prepared, in order to illustrate the question in Rome itself, a work in Italian: La questione agraria irlandese. Shortly before the publication of the work, while W. was in Rome, the condemnation of The Plan of Campaign and Boycotting was issued by the S. Congr. of the Inquisition, which raised some criticism in Ireland. W.'s thought, inspired by dutiful submission, is known in the letters to Card. Manning (5 May 1888) and to the editor of the Freemans Journal (7 May 1888). Later he let slip some criticism. He did not disapprove of the insurrection against England during the first European war (1916), but he was already in decline because of his health. Death overtook him on 9 Apr. 1921.
Bibliography
Enrico Hoffmann