Curran, Michael

by Patrick Maume

Curran, Michael (1880–1960), priest and separatist, was born in Dublin on 8 May 1880, elder of two sons of Patrick Curran, head of the GPO telegraphic division and originally from Carlow, and his wife Mary Elizabeth (née McGahan), daughter of a Monaghan farmer. His brother was the architect and man of letters Constantine Curran (qv). Curran was educated at the CBS, St Mary's Place and North Richmond Street, where his contemporary and lifelong friend Seán T. O'Kelly (qv) recalled him as quiet and studious. Éamonn Ceannt (qv) was also a near-contemporary at school. In later life, rebutting claims that the separatist movement had been inspired by socialism or trade unionism, Curran claimed that the real determining factor had been the Christian Brothers' system of education. On 11 September 1897 Curran entered Holy Cross College, Clonliffe, the Dublin archdiocesan seminary, to study for the priesthood. From 1900 he completed his studies at the Irish College in Rome, where he was ordained priest on 5 March 1904. On returning to Dublin, Curran spent two years as diocesan examiner of religious knowledge in schools.

In 1906 Curran became a secretary (one of three) and confidant to William Walsh (qv), archbishop of Dublin. One of Curran's major activities in this role was the promotion of the causes for the canonisation of Reformation-era Irish martyrs. This was to be a significant preoccupation throughout Curran's career, and in 1920 he played a significant role in making the beatification of Oliver Plunkett (qv) an assertion of the inseparability of Irish catholicism and nationalism. Curran was also fascinated by liturgical ritual and insistent throughout his life on its proper performance.

On Walsh's death in 1921 Curran published a tribute in the Dublin Review, which suggests that he was deeply influenced by the archbishop on such matters as the political and religious dangers posed for Irish catholicism by English influence at the Vatican. He expressed the view that Paul Cullen (qv), although no democrat, had been a sincere friend of the poor, a pioneering advocate of land reform, and 'an ultramontane Sinn Féiner' – a misunderstood patriot whose assertion of episcopal independence from the influence of the catholic gentry and insistence on social and religious separation between catholic and protestant had played a vital role in forestalling anti-clericalism and laying the foundations for the 'faith and fatherland' alliance between the catholic clergy and the nationalist movement in the 1880s. (Walsh, according to Curran, saw Edward McCabe (qv) as a throwback to Cullen's 'whig' predecessors and believed Cullen would have acted as Walsh himself did, had he survived to the 1880s). Curran's belief in the powerful and malign influence of English catholics at the Vatican and its potential dangers for Irish catholicism also reflects Walsh's memories of British diplomatic manoeuvres at Rome in the 1880s.

Curran's memoir of Irish politics (1912–22), presented to the BMH on 5 June 1952 and based on a contemporary diary which does not appear to have survived, is the most significant source for the political manoeuvres of the catholic hierarchy during the 1916–19 period, but its statements must be critically assessed in view of its second-hand nature (as relayed to Curran via Walsh) and Curran's tendency to project his own political attitudes onto the material.

Curran's 1952 memoir is an intelligent and detailed account of Irish politics in the period from a separatist viewpoint, supported by extensive reference to contemporary sources, including personal memories and conversations with others. (Curran retained numerous bound volumes of press cuttings, pamphlets and leaflets from the period which he presented to the BMH). Readers, however, should note that many of Curran's views are taken for granted rather than argued. For example, Curran employs the term 'political' in a sense often used by contemporary separatists. Thus, when a priest was disciplined for speaking in support of recruitment to the British Army or a bishop refused to allow a requiem mass for John Redmond (qv), this for Curran represents a perfectly legitimate refusal to involve the church in political disputes. When priests address public meetings in support of Sinn Féin or Curran himself makes use of religious events to promote the separatist cause, he does not see this as political because he regards the cause as that of the nation as a whole and hence above politics. Curran also assumes (correctly in some cases) that moral criticisms ('platitudes from theological manuals' by 'minor theologians' (WS 0687, 275)) of such separatist activities as the shooting of policemen and the resort to hunger-strikes by activists such as Terence MacSwiney (qv) were politically, rather than, theologically motivated; he takes it for granted that such actions undertaken in the separatist cause are morally unproblematic.

Curran was a 'faith and fatherland' nationalist who believed in an immemorial Irish national identity centred on catholicism, which could only be preserved by complete separation from Britain. He shared Walsh's belief that the Irish Parliamentary Party (IIP) had become a self-perpetuating oligarchy sustained by a political machine capable of distorting and suppressing Irish public opinion and dangerously subservient to the treacherous and anti-catholic British Liberals. He was an early sympathiser with the Sinn Féin movement (through Seán T O'Kelly), sometimes acting as an intermediary between them and Walsh.

Curran's hostility to the IPP was further increased by Liberal and Redmondite trivialisation of the Ulster unionist campaign led by Edward Carson (qv) and the eventual concession of partition, which he saw as a national humiliation. He strongly supported the creation of the Irish Volunteers and opposed John Redmond's support for the Allied cause. Before the Easter rising he supported the Volunteer faction led by Eoin MacNeill (qv) against the supporters of an immediate rising such as Patrick Pearse (qv) because he believed a rising could only succeed if supported by a German landing and an unsuccessful rising would leave Ireland defenceless before British repression – 'once we fired our shot we could do no more' (BMH, WS 0687, 34). He later admitted that he had underestimated the potential for a nationalist revival triggered by the rising and the subsequent executions, as well as its showing foreign countries that Ireland was not a mere province of Britain. Curran spent the period of the rising at Archbishop's House in Drumcondra (although he lived on the North Circular Road), making incursions into the city and reporting to Walsh (who was confined to bed with eczema). He also established contact with the British radical journalist H. W. Massingham (1860–1924), whom he occasionally briefed thereafter on the Irish situation.

Curran acted as a defence witness at MacNeill's trial, and during the subsequent years he wrote letters to the press (notably the Irish Independent) in which, under such pseudonyms as 'C' and 'Tulcan', he denounced the Irish Party. (A tulcan is a dummy used to deceive a cow whose calf has died into continuing to give milk; this represents Curran's view of Lloyd George's promises of some form of Irish self-government). After the escape of Éamon de Valera (qv) from Lincoln jail on 3 February 1919 and his return to Dublin, Curran hid him in the gate lodge of Archbishop's House (without Walsh's knowledge) from 24 February to 3 March. Curran also co-authored a statement of Ireland's historical claim to independence meant as part of a submission to the Paris Peace Conference. In the event it was decided 'the historical case did not help and definitely did not matter' (BMH, WS 0687, 337).

On 9 December 1919 Curran gave an interview to the Daily Mail in which he represented Walsh's subscription to the dáil loan and its accompanying statement (published 4 December) as unequivocal support for separatism and equivocated when asked to condemn the killing of policemen; he distinguished between political murders and those carried out by criminals. The ensuing controversy led to Curran's removal from his position as Walsh's secretary on 16 December and his departure on 22 March 1920 to the Irish College in Rome, where he had been appointed vice-rector under Monsignor John Hagan (qv) on 31 December 1919. (En route he collected relics of Oliver Plunkett from Downside Abbey; he was appointed vice-postulator of the cause on 29 April, and in later years was postulator of the cause for Plunkett's canonisation, which did not take place until 1975). He was appointed a privy chamberlain to the pope (carrying the title 'monsignor') in 1922 and in 1931 became a domestic prelate. Curran promoted the study of the Irish language at the Irish College.

In Rome, Curran worked with dáil representatives (notably Seán T. O'Kelly) to publicise the separatist case, to counteract English catholic influence at the Vatican and to prevent any papal pronouncement hostile to the IRA campaign. (Some scholars, such as Dermot Keogh, argue that Curran and Hagan exaggerated British influence at the Vatican). Curran cultivated journalists, whom he supplied with information from the dáil's information sheet the Irish Bulletin, contributed himself to Italian journals (notably the Corriere dell'Italia, closely linked to the Christian Democratic Partito Popolare) and sent anonymous articles on Roman and Italian affairs as a 'special correspondent' to the Irish Independent. Curran also became a regular (anonymous) contributor throughout the 1920s to the Catholic Bulletin (whose proprietor, P. T. Keohane was a personal friend) on Roman and Italian matters. (In contrast, Curran's brother Constantine was a regular contributor to the Irish Statesman, the Bulletin's bête noire). O'Kelly spoke highly of Curran's propaganda work, whereas Mairead Gavan Duffy discounted Curran's abilities and saw Hagan as the mainstay of the Sinn Féin cause in Rome.

Curran, like Hagan, opposed the Anglo-Irish Treaty but initially believed that its opponents should serve as a constitutional opposition; he believed, especially in view of the size of the anti-treaty vote in the dáil, that the settlement would inevitably lead to a republic. In April 1923 he prepared a memorandum, now in the Desmond Fitzgerald Papers in UCD, setting out his views on the dangers of English influence in Rome. His views hardened, however, after the outbreak of the civil war and the execution of republican prisoners, and he and Hagan used the Irish College to assist anti-treaty representatives. They attempted to undermine the peace mission of Salvatore Luzio (qv) in the belief that it would strengthen British influence in Irish matters. Curran maintained a frosty attitude during subsequent visits by representatives of the Cumann na nGaedheal government.

In 1926 he undertook an unsuccessful fundraising mission to the USA for the Irish College (O'Kelly attributed its failure to Curran's lifelong shyness and diffidence) and in 1928 accompanied the cardinal legate to the Eucharistic Congress in Sydney. On Hagan's death in March 1930 Curran succeeded him as rector of the Irish College, having being warned that he should not be so politically active. After 1932 he was on friendly terms with the Fianna Fáil government but proved ineffective in Vatican politics without Hagan's direction. Curran's major achievement as rector was the acquisition of a villa on the Bay of Naples as summer residence for the students, but he acquired a reputation for excessive concern with petty details which exacerbated the austerity of the students' lives. In 1938 an enquiry led to Curran's dismissal as rector after students complained (though others thought he had been harshly treated). He was sent back to Dublin in February 1939 with the consolation title of protonotary apostolic. (He also received the Order of the Crown of Italy with the title 'commendatore' from the Italian government). Curran became parish priest of Greystones, Co. Wicklow (December 1938). In 1947 he was transferred to the Church of the Holy Family in Aughrim Street in the north inner city, where he remained until his death. This enabled him to renew his acquaintance with O'Kelly, as the church had responsibility for Áras an Uachtarain.

As a parish priest in Dublin, Curran loved to reminisce about the sights and buildings of Rome. He became increasingly preoccupied with historical research, particularly concerning Ireland in the fifteenth to seventeenth centuries; he possessed one of the finest private libraries in the country. He had an exhaustive knowledge of the archdiocesan archives. The major projects of his later years were the Dublin Archdiocesan Historical Committee, established under his chairmanship in 1954, and its journal Reportorium Novum, first published in 1955, in which he published seven articles (mostly concerning Archbishops John Carpenter (qv) and Cullen) and a number of shorter notes, while playing an editorial role in many articles published by others. Otherwise he published little, due to perfectionism. He died on 9 February 1960 at the parochial house, Aughrim Street.

William Walsh's papers in the Dublin Diocesan Archives contain secretarial and other correspondence from Curran; there are letters from Curran to Cardinal Patrick O'Donnell (qv) in the Armagh Diocesan Archives, and further material relating to Curran is in the Archives of the Irish College, Rome.