MacQuaid, John Charles (1895–1973)

Irish churchman, Roman Catholic archbishop of Dublin 1940–72. An influential commentator on social and moral questions, he had close links with the Irish prime minister Éamon de Valera. He took a firm stance against mixed religious education, and in 1944 banned Catholics from attending Trinity College, Dublin.

Born in Cootehill, County Cavan, MacQuaid was educated there, and in Dublin and Rome. He was ordained priest in the Holy Ghost Fathers in 1924, becoming dean of studies in 1925, and then president at his order's Blackrock College in 1931 (where de Valera's sons were his pupils). He fell out with de Valera when he supported striking schoolteachers in 1947, and thereafter became a vehement opponent of state policy. He played a leading part in the Irish bishops' successful objection to a national health proposal (the ‘Mother and Child Scheme’) in 1951.