Dear Editor, The Archbishop of Dublin states that after Irish Independence Catholics began for the first time to have access to public office (IC 13/07/2017). The archbishop is misinformed. Catholics were appointed to senior judicial and administrative posts soon after Emancipation. One of the few positions barred to them by the 1829 Act was the Lord Chancellorship of Ireland and even that office was opened up in 1875 – soon afterwards Lord O’Hagan was appointed as the first of a number of Catholics to hold that office before 1922. Others became Under-Secretary of Ireland – that is, head of the civil service – (e.g. Thomas Burke ) or Lord Chief Justice (e.g. Sir Peter O’Brien ) or Chief Baron of the Exchequer (e.g. Christopher Palles). The process of the integration of Catholics into the Irish Establishment is described in the late Lawrence McBride’s The Greening of Dublin Castle (1991).
Yours etc.,
C.D.C. Armstrong,
Belfast, Co. Antrim
