NUI MAYNOOTH Ollscoil na hÉireann Má Nuad THE SOCIETY OF ST VINCENT DE PAUL IN DUBLIN, 1926–1975 by MÁIRE BRIGHID NÍ CHEARBHAILL THESIS FOR THE DEGREE OF PhD DEPARTMENT OF HISTORY NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND MAYNOOTH Supervisor of Research Professor Colm Lennon September 2008 TABLE OF CONTENTS ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ………………………………………. ii LIST OF TABLES ………………………………………………….. iii ABBREVIATIONS AND EXPLANATORY NOTES……………… iv INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………… v Chapter ONE HISTORICAL BACKGROUND, 1833–1925 ..…..… 1 TWO ORGANISATION AND STRUCTURE ……………. 20 THREE HOME VISITATION …...…………………………. 43 FOUR SPECIAL WORKS …..…………………………….. 68 FIVE A LAY CATHOLIC ORGANISATION ..…....……… 93 SIX CASE STUDY OF A CONFERENCE ...…………… 122 SEVEN FINANCE AND THE SOCIETY … . …. …………… 144 EIGHT THE SOCIETY AND OTHERS …………………… 169 NINE CONCLUSION …..…………………………………. 196 Appendix ONE GEOGRAPHICAL SPREAD OF DUBLIN CONFERENCES, 1950……………………………...…..…………………. 199 TWO SOCIETY OF ST VINCENT DE PAUL, ORGANISATION CHARTS ………….…………………..……..………………….. 200 THREE PENNY BANKS IN DUBLIN CITY AND SUBURBS, 1927………………………………………………… .. 201 BIBLIOGRAPHY…………………………………….. 202 i ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Professor Colm Lennon, my supervisor, provided the encouragement, wise guidance and wonderful support throughout this study that allowed it to come to completion. My sincere thanks to Professor Vincent Comerford for facilitating this work and for giving me the opportunity to meet other post-graduate students and to benefit from the richness and diversity of their work. I received great support at all times from the staff of the History Department at NUI Maynooth and from the courteous and helpful staff in the John Paul II Library. My thanks also to the staff of the National Library of Ireland, the Central Catholic Library, Dublin City Library, the Royal Irish Academy, Cabinteely Library, and to Noelle Dowling of the Dublin Diocesan Archives. Patricia Mooney’s generous assistance in locating records and in welcoming me on my many visits to the Society of St Vincent de Paul archives in Seán MacDermott Street made the task of research so much easier. I am grateful, too, to Kieran Murphy, for his interest and encouragement. The academic work of Gerry Martin on the foundation years of the Society in Ireland provided invaluable background material for this study, and his clarification of detail and perceptive comments on the Society’s operations and structures were much appreciated. Larry Tuomey and Pat Lanigan gave me great assistance with primary source material, and my thanks also to Frank Casey for his helpful information. It was a joy to communicate on several occasions with two long- serving Vincentians, Columba Faulkner and Cormac Ó Broin, and to hear their personal stories and share their enthusiasm for the Society of St Vincent de Paul. I am grateful to my family and friends for their support, especially to Margaret Burns, Tom Harris and Raphael Gallagher, whose many kindnesses sustained me throughout. iii LIST OF TABLES 1.1 Conferences in the cities and towns of Ireland, 1880–1925…… 15 2.1 Council of Ireland members: places of residence, 1948……….. 28 4.1 Boys’ clubs run by Society of St Vincent de Paul, 1942 ………. 72 4.2 Night Shelter admissions and meals, 1928–1973 ……………… 82 4.3 Provisions required for children’s excursion, 1933 …………… 89 5.1 Religious duties and Catholic Seamen’s Institute, 1938……….. 98 6.1 Income from annual collection, Inchicore church, 1930–1970…. 131 7.1 Council of Dublin: bequests and grants, 1948–1954……………. 157 8.1 Mansion House Coal Fund recipients, December 1931………… 171 8.2 Irish Society of St Vincent de Paul, aid to Europe, 1946–8 …… 183 8.3 Public’s image of the Society, 1975: survey findings…………… 192 iv ABBREVIATIONS AND EXPLANATORY NOTES DDA Dublin Diocesan Archives SVPA Society of St Vincent de Paul Archives In the monthly journal of the Society of St Vincent de Paul, the Bulletin, the referencing system, including the method of pagination and the presentation of supplements, changed several times in the period of this study. The prevailing usage at the time of publication has been followed here. The Society’s Rule remained unchanged from its inception in the 1830s until the late 1960s, and is contained in the twenty-first edition of the Manual, published in 1958. This edition of the Manual has been used throughout the study. Where it was appropriate to refer to an earlier edition of the Manual, or where clarity is required, the date of the edition has been given. v INTRODUCTION This study examines the ideology, organisation methods and activities of the Society of St Vincent de Paul in the diocese of Dublin from 1926 to 1975. It looks at how the Society expanded its range of services over this period, despite the change from conditions of great hardship in the 1920s to relative prosperity by the 1970s. As a lay Catholic organisation, whose stated aim was the sanctification of its members through works of charity, it attempted to express its identity in new ways following the Second Vatican Council. How the Society, a charity among many and often described as composed of middle- aged and middle income members, continued to survive and to maintain the goodwill and financial support of the public will also be examined. To understand the historical background to the Society of St Vincent de Paul, some detail of its foundation story in nineteenth-century Paris, and of its subsequent establishment and growth in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Dublin, is given in Chapter One. Works by Forest,1 Charlton,2 Price,3 and Lynch4 provided a background for the understanding of social and religious ideas in the volatile political foundation period in France in the 1830s. Fagan’s thesis was especially useful in situating the writings and ideas of Frédéric Ozanam amid other political, social and religious thinkers and writers of his time.5 Baunard,6 O’Meara7 and Coates8 supplied additional detail on Ozanam’s life, ideology and social concerns. Seeley’s study gave useful insights into the works of another French organisation dedicated to youth welfare in the nineteenth century.9 1 Alan Forrest, The French Revolution and the poor (Oxford, 1981). 2 D.G. Charlton, Secular religions in France, 1815–1870 (Oxford, 1963). 3 Roger Price, A social history of nineteenth-century France (New York, 1987). 4 Katherine A. Lynch, Family, class and ideology in early industrial France: social policy and the working-class family, 1825–1848 (Madison, 1988). 5 Austin Fagan, ‘The political and social ideas of Antoine-Frédéric Ozanam (1813–1853) and their relation to the movement of ideas in his time’ (unpublished M.Litt. thesis, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, 1971). 6 Louis Baunard, Ozanam in his correspondence, translated from the French by a member of the Council of Ireland of the Society of St Vincent de Paul (Dublin, 1925). 7 Kathleen O’Meara, Frédéric Ozanam, his life and works (Edinburgh, 1876). 8 Ainslie Coates, Letters of Frédéric Ozanam, translated from the French (London, 1886). 9 Paul Seeley, ‘Catholics and apprentices: an example of men’s philanthropy in late nineteenth- century France’, in Journal of Social History, 25, no. 3 (Spring, 1992), pp 531–45. vi Martin’s thesis provided the personal details of the Irish founders and set the new organisation in the social and religious context of Dublin in the 1840s.10 The research of Willis11, a founding member of the Society, gave a graphic picture of the contemporary conditions that the first members of the Society were about to face in St Michan’s parish. Burke’s12 study of the Poor Law showed up the prevailing harsh government attitude to the destitute poor, and Prunty’s works give an account of how religious groups of the time tried to respond.13 In the twentieth century, Hartigan’s detailed thesis supplied much useful background information on the range of lay organisations that were active in Dublin from the foundation of the state, and on their relationship with the hierarchy and institutional church.14 Another perspective for the understanding of devotional practices among Catholics in continental Europe was provided by Waddy’s15 study of German religious culture in the early twentieth century. Donnelly,16 Gallagher17, Dunne18 and Kelly19 added to the understanding of the debates on Catholic Action and on the controversies over state intervention in welfare matters that figured prominently from the 1930s to the 1950s. A picture of the other secular and denominational charities with broadly similar aims to the Society of St Vincent de Paul was derived from directories 10 James Gerard Martin, ‘The Society of St Vincent de Paul as an emerging social phenomenon in mid-nineteenth century Ireland’ (unpublished MA thesis, National College of Industrial Relations, 1993). 11 Thomas Willis, Facts connected with the social and sanitary conditions of the working classes in the city of Dublin (Dublin, 1845). 12 Helen Burke, The people and the Poor Law in nineteenth-century Ireland (Littlehampton, 1987). 13 Jacinta Prunty, Dublin slums, 1800–1925: a study in urban geography (Dublin, 1998); Margaret Aylward, 1810–1889, Lady of Charity, Sister of Faith (Dublin, 1999). 14 Maurice Hartigan, ‘The Catholic laity of Dublin, 1920–1940’ (unpublished MA thesis, St Patrick’s College, Maynooth, 1992). 15 Helena Waddy, ‘St Anthony’s Bread: the modernised religious culture of German Catholics in the early twentieth century, in Journal of Social History, 31, no. 2 (Winter, 1997), pp 347–70. 16 James S. Donnelly Jr, ‘The peak of Marianism in Ireland, 1930–60’, in Stewart J. Brown and David W. Miller (eds), Piety and power in Ireland, 1760–1960: essays in honour of Emmet Larkin (Belfast and Indiana, 2000), pp 252–83. 17 Colette Gallagher, ‘Catholic social values in action: the Society of St Vincent de Paul in Dublin, 1920s to 1950s’, in Prospect: Journal of the Irish History Students’ Association (1989), pp 21–4. 18 Éamonn Dunne, ‘Action and reaction: Catholic lay organisations in Dublin in the 1920s and 1930s’, in Archivium Hibernicum, xlviii (1994), pp 107–18.