Irish Catholic

Irish Catholics are people who are Roman Catholic and Irish.

Divisions between Irish Catholics and Irish Protestants played a major role in the history of Ireland from the 16th to the 20th century, especially the Home Rule Crisis and the Troubles. While religion broadly marks the delineation of these divisions, the contentions were primarily political and related to access to power. For example, while the majority of Irish Catholics saw themselves as having an identity independent of Britain and were excluded from power, a number of the instigators in rebellions against British rule were in fact Protestant Irish nationalists, although most Irish Protestants opposed separatism. In the Irish Rebellion of 1798 Catholics and Presbyterians, who were not part of the established Church of Ireland, found common cause.

Irish Catholics are found in many countries around the world, especially in the English-speaking world. Emigration following the Famine in the late 1840s saw the population drop from over 8 million to just over 4 million. In the United States, hostility to Irish Catholics was expressed through the Know Nothings and Nativist movement.

The Irish Catholic

The Irish Catholic is an Irish weekly Roman Catholic newspaper, providing news and commentary about the Roman Catholic Church. The 32-page tabloid paper is delivered worldwide.

The newspaper is managed by a private limited company and is independent of the Roman Catholic hierarchy in Ireland.

History

The Irish Catholic was founded in 1888 by Timothy Daniel Sullivan, a former Lord Mayor of Dublin and an Irish Parliamentary Party (IPP) MP at Westminster. A number of the paper's early staff, including Patrick Fogarty, had worked at The Nation newspaper.

William Francis Dennehy ran the paper from 1888 until his death in 1917. Following a split in the IPP, Dennehy was an outspoken anti-Parnellite and supporter of TM Healy; an editorial which he published on the death of Charles Stewart Parnell, implying that the dead man had probably gone to Hell, was widely criticised. Dennehy was a close associate of William Martin Murphy.

Leo Fogarty, Patrick’s son, was managing director of The Irish Catholic from 1936 until 1977.