Hi Sharon
I remember you mentioning that you were embarking on writing an article on Fr. Quaid and it’s good to hear that you now feel you have enough data for one. I think it is bound to be interesting, especially as he was so active in the 1850s, a decade we hear very little about. It is the cinderella decade in 19th century Ireland; the general histories skip right over it, going from Young Ireland, in the late 1840s, to the Irish Republican Brotherhood in the late 1850s. We need to get a bit more on the 1850s.
I’m guessing you have combed the Irish newspapers for any information they have to offer. I made a few notes from the Clare Journal when I was subscribing to the British Newspaper Archives last year, but I suspect that you have made the same notes yourself. The notes I made show him defending Frs. Conway and Ryan (The Queen v Conway and Ryan got huge coverage in the papers), and show his prominence in the Tenant League in Co. Clare, and show his support of the erection of a monument to Daniel O’Connell in Ennis.
Sharon, I don’t know why you feel you should compare Fr. Quaid to other priests, but Fr. Jeremiah Vaughan comes to mind as someone who would have been equally strong and active at that time, and very informed on current affairs, as this letter (only partially transcribed) shows:
Clare Journal, Mon 1 May 1854 (page 2)
SheilaIrish Tenant League. A general meeting of the council of the Irish Tenant League was held Tuesday at the Council Rooms, Beresford-place, Dublin, to hear the report of the tenant right members as to proceedings in parliament to take council with the friends of the cause throughout the country, and also to regulate the general business of the League. The usual members were in attendance including the Rev. P. Quaid, P.P. of O’Callaghan’s Mills in this county. A number of letters were read from persons in various parts of the country expressive of sympathy with the movement including one from the Rev. J. Vaughan, P.P. of Ruan, as follows:-
Ruan, Corofin, Co. Clare, April 24, 1854.
“My Dear Sir – I am in receipt of your communication of the last ten days, and would have attended the meeting tomorrow had I any assurance the leading members would adopt for the future a more vigorous course of tenant agitation. The present desultory system will not do. I stated to you already, at a meeting held last November, that the question should be weekly discussed, and in connection with it the wrongs of every day occurrence of the tenants on the plan of the Catholic and Repeal Associations.
I am greatly surprised that such able, deep-thinking men as Messrs. Lucas, Duffy, and Moore don’t see how evidently attributable to this is the failure of the tenant right agitation.
I have no hesitation in asserting that it would be vastly better for the interests of Ireland, religiously, socially, and politically, if these men had never entered the English senate, but had laboured at home to put a soul into Ireland. What are they with their few faithful adherents able to accomplish? They cannot protect the Catholic church from being daily and hourly assaulted. God will protect His church, no matter who is against her. [more]
J. Vaughan, P.P. Ruan and Dysart.