John Charles McQuaid - Definition and Overview

John Charles McQuaid (d. 1974) was a controversial right wing Roman Catholic Archbishop of Dublin between the 1940s and the early 1970s.

McQuaid was a member of the religious congregation, the Holy Ghost Fathers. He taught at the highly regarded private Roman Catholic secondary school Blackrock College in Dublin, which educated many senior Irish political and business leaders. As Fr. McQuaid he was close to former Blackrock College teacher and President of the Executive Council (prime minister) Eamon de Valera, and helped de Valera draft the modern Irish constitution, Bunreacht na hEireann.

As Archbishop of Dublin he proved a controversial figure.

McQuaid, who was famously out of step with Roman Catholicism after Vatican II (he informed Irish people as he returned from the Council that nothing would change), was shocked when his automatic offer of retirement on his seventy-fifth birthday was accepted by Pope Paul VI. He was also stunned when one of his internal church critics, Dermot Ryan, was appointed to his post instead.

McQuaid died a short time afterwards. He is buried in St. Mary's Pro-Cathedral in Dublin, the seat of the Roman Catholic Archbishop.