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ohn Feeney, a friend and a contemporary at UCD, published in 1974 John Charles McQuaid - The Man and the Mask. This critical essay on the archbishop was defective from a scholarly point of view. The author worked without archives and based most of his research on published accounts and interviews. But for all its faults, it is not a book without its insights and merits. He presents McQuaid as living outside his time but as a “first class bishop of the old school” who, had he lived fifty years earlier “would have no critics worth speaking of and would hardly be remembered today except by those who benefited from his quiet, personal charity”. Feeney also evaluates his role in a negative light under the headings “schoolteacher” and “medievalist”. Yet, he was also for Feeney a Christian and “a diligent, sincere and absolutely honest man who did his duty as he saw it.” Feeney hinted in his highly critical essay on McQuaid that there was much left to understand and discover about the archbishop. Feeney would have been the first to admit that his essay was more the work of a journalist than that of a trained historian which, of course, he was. He began his book at the time of the archbishop’s retirement. He had been a stern critic of McQuaid as a student and that was evident in his manuscript. But his criticism emanated from a deep respect for the historical role played by the archbishop. Feeney sought to realise rapid change in the post-McQuaid church in Dublin. His biography was written very much in the mould of the commentator/activist.
Tanning, creaing and scuffing to covers, slim 88 page paperback,
