Newman’s ‘Campaign in Ireland’: Frustration and ‘Failure’

Newman's 'Campaign in Ireland': Frustration and 'Failure'1 Paul Shrimpton (bio) It is an honour to be asked to speak about St John Henry Newman in the Catholic University Church that he built and where he preached on eight occasions. I am grateful to the Newman Centres at UCD and Notre Dame for inviting me to speak. What I have to say draws largely on the two documents that make up My Campaign in Ireland, Part II: a long memorandum by Newman entitled 'My Connection with the Catholic University' (which I will refer to as the Memorandum) and a much longer, related item entitled 'Extracts from Letters' (or simply Extracts). Newman went to great lengths to compose these two substantial documents–829 pages in length, when combined–in the period 1870–73, because he wanted to ensure that his legacy as founder and first rector of the Catholic University would not be distorted. But–somewhat counter-intuitively for us, perhaps–he did not envisage that they would be published. The university papers and other documents that comprise Part I of My Campaign in Ireland were collected by William Neville, Newman's secretary from 1875 until his death in 1890, and then his literary executor; he arranged for them to be printed for private circulation in 1896. Neville realised that Part II could not be circulated–not, at least in his lifetime, and probably not for a long time afterwards–because of its sensitive contents. The Memorandum was eventually published in 1956 as part of Newman's Autobiographical Writings, but the Extracts have never appeared in print. There are in fact two manuscripts of Newman's Memorandum. The earlier one, a rough copy begun in November 1870, runs to 155 pages and contains a good deal of material that Newman later omitted. The other manuscript is the fair copy and runs to 172 pages. It is supplemented by the Extracts, 657 pages in length, comprising letters or excerpts of letters, as well as memoranda and journal entries. When Newman copied out the documents that make up the Extracts in 1872–73, he added a running commentary of his own; some of the marginalia have merely explanatory value, but often Newman gives his verdict on events and does so in forthright fashion. [End Page 52] The final version of the Memorandum was completed by May 1873 and represents Newman's considered view of his 'Irish campaign', some fifteen years after standing down as the founding rector. The Memorandum and Extracts describe and illustrate, respectively, Newman's work in laying the foundations for the Catholic University (1851–54) and acting as its first rector (1854–58); they contain highly sensitive information and reflections about his dealings with priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and even Pope Pius IX. In analysing the causes of his 'campaign's' failure and the frustrations he encountered, Newman is not afraid to criticise those who shared responsibility with him, above all his co-founder Archbishop (later Cardinal) Paul Cullen. These candid writings show Newman's toughness and fairness in his dealings with others and reveal how his powers of diplomacy were stretched to the limit as he sought to turn his idea of a university into a reality. While My Campaign in Ireland, Part I presents the public face of Newman's educational endeavour, Part II provides the behind-the-scenes picture by telling the private reality of Newman's experiences in Ireland. Criticisms about Newman in his Irish campaign–and there are plenty–will be referred to later. Re-ordering, revising, and republishing The fact that Newman went to such trouble composing the Memorandum and copying out the accompanying Extracts raises the question of why he undertook this lengthy task and what purpose he thought it would serve, particularly as they were too sensitive for publication. We know that Newman regularly went through his papers, reordering them and writing summaries or commentaries about them, but this is a task of a completely different order. When he retired from the Catholic University, he hoped to put his papers in order, but he immediately found himself busy answering another educational call, that of establishing a Catholic public school for the...