Father Mathew's Crusade: Temperance in Nineteenth-Century Ireland and Irish America (review)

Father Theobald Mathew, according to John F. Quinn, "should be seen as a manbehind his times" (p. 7). During the 1820's, Irish Catholic nationalism emerged atthe popular level. Daniel O'Connell's Catholic Association collected the "CatholicRent" from millions of ordinary Irishmen and women. Meanwhile, the ProtestantSecond Reformation impelled a strident response from the Irish Catholic Church.But Mathew, the son of a landed Catholic family, would have been more comfortable with the elitist Catholic Committee of the 1800's than the populist Catholic Association of the 1820's. Mathew did use populist techniques to secure over five million temperance pledges in Ireland, most of them from Irish Catholics. He viewed the temperance campaign, however, as a means to promote sober, tolerant behavior, not to train a disciplined brigade of Irish nationalists. In fact, the friar considered his Protestant cousins to be some of his closest friends. Mathew thus was "out of step" with his politically contentious generation (p. 34).

Quinn depicts Mathew as a tragic figure. Despite his unprecedented success as a temperance activist, Mathew believed that he never received the respect and financial support that he deserved. Some clergy, jealous that he could draw tens of thousands of people to take the temperance pledge from him, considered Mathew a charlatan. Other critics questioned Mathew's refusal to use the temperance movement to promote Irish Catholic nationalism. Mathew never reciprocated O'Connell's praise, because he did not want teetotalism to be linked with Repeal. These evasive tactics proved futile, however, as Repealers often co-opted temperance reading rooms and bands for their own purposes.

The damning stroke that ruined Mathew's reputation with Irish Catholic nationalists was his acceptance of a British pension. Mathew, far from a shrewd businessman and generous to a fault, was in many ways a victim of his immense popularity: the temperance medals that he distributed to millions led to his financial ruin. Mathew received his pension, moreover, while the Famine ravaged the Irish people, and after enduring a decade of criticism about his ecumenical views. Mathew did lobby intensively for the British government to improve its Famine relief, but he never could shake off the stigma of being a British pawn.

Even Mathew's infrequent forays into the political arena cost the friar dearly. In 1841 Mathew joined O'Connell in signing an antislavery petition that was then sent to the United States. When Mathew toured America from 1849 to 1851, however, slavery supporters condemned him as an abolitionist, and ironically, as an "ally of O'Connell" (p. 164). Meanwhile, Mathew's determination to avoid any association with abolitionists during his American tour earned him the wrath of William Lloyd Garrison, who accused him of wasting an important opportunity to convert Irish Americans to the abolitionist crusade.

Quinn's excellent study is ostensibly a history of Mathew's contributions to the temperance movement. The author finishes, however, with a chapter on temperance in Ireland and Irish America after 1880 that informs us far too much about temperance, and far too little about Mathew's legacy. The book shines brightest when Quinn examines Mathew's discomfort with the Irish Catholic nationalism of his day. In particular, Quinn's opening chapter, where he describes Irish politics and religion in the 1830's, provides an outstanding overview of the nationalist milieu within which Mathew struggled to promote temperance as an alternative. If Mathew had joined forces with O'Connell, however, one wonders whether the temperance and Repeal movements might have survived the Famine in better condition.